The following interview transcript is presented in spoken style and may occasionally lack clear logical connections between sentences. This is a faithful representation of the conversational flow and should be interpreted with this context in mind. Any discrepancies in structure or coherence are inherent to the nature of spoken language and do not reflect inaccuracies in the transcription process.
Monologue
[00:00:18.810] – Gianmarco Moneti
Then restart from wherever you want.
[00:00:20.850] – Clara Scarafia
So I wanted to talk to you about this issue that came up these days from the things I was reading. It often happens to me to read things and then find precisely some points of contact of synchronicities between (me and) the things I am reading in a totally random way. I was reading precisely a textbook of narratology by a semiologist from Turin who quotes another author and talks about an issue that I think is very important and that I felt was very true. Basically he talks about narrativizing one's life to narrativizing life in general and so basically it talks about how actually life in addition to being lived is also narrated and it is not only narrated precisely in a deliberate narrative way and so it is not just a matter of telling what you do but it is also a matter of everything that goes into constructing your life that is then reported transcribed discussed aloud. These are all ways that basically lead to narrativizing your life in a certain way and that basically is something that precisely as I was telling you also that is you know that when I narrate the things that happen and that happen to me I try to give it precisely a mold that is narrative a mold that recalls the story that is not just an account of events but that really goes to create a narrative actually.
[00:01:56.190] – Clara Scarafia
And being precisely that human beings are the only animals that tell, that are able to tell stories, basically what is being said in this small example is that suicide occurs at the moment when the person can no longer narrativize his or her life and that in my opinion is also a bit of a way of looking at it whereby events become unconnected. There is no longer that underlying cohesion that places every event in one's life and one's life itself in a larger storyline. And basically, precisely, it is said that suicide happens at that moment there, at the moment when one can no longer and does not feel like narrating one's life. And this is something that in itself I found very interesting because in my opinion it is also very true. Just because of a practical matter also of how I lived my life and how I felt that I was narrating it and that is something that I also saw so much in my father, who was always a person who told a lot of anecdotes.
[00:03:17.810] – Clara Scarafia
But in his case, unlike mine, I was always very much tied to the present dimension of storytelling, that is, something that happened but has repercussions in the present that I see as strongly tied to everything that came after and everything that theoretically will come. Whereas on my father's side it was always a telling of an element, something that happened but it always remained very much tied to the past: in his stories there was always this dimension where you felt that he was able to, in a certain way, articulate/narrativize something that had happened but he couldn't narrate the present. I always found in him a big block on the narrative of the present and this book I saw it in a way very related to some comic books that I was reading, that I read in the same days as Zerocalcare, Macerie prime and Macerie Prime six months later which basically exactly, they are books that I started reading casually actually because I saw them in the library, I borrowed them and the same day I read that quote I started to read then actually these comics and in these comics it tells precisely the story of a group of friends who get together after years where they have seen each other very little, they have been a little bit separated because of issues related to each other's lives who decide to participate in a call all together and this call has the possibility to turn everyone's life around.
[00:04:58.932] – Clara Scarafia
Everyone's except the person telling the story. The suicide issue actually comes up at the end of the second volume because basically we see a whole series of events, a whole series of things that happen from when they decide to participate in this call to the six months later precisely when the results of the call will come out. And we have an account that certainly on the issue is partial, because it is from a person who only lent his name to participate in this call, because he is the only person who does not need basically to win this call simply wants to try to help out or wants to try to contribute. Somehow also because he feels guilty, because he knows that he is the only one who somehow made it and doesn't have that kind of issue in his life anymore. But precisely by not actively participating because of the whole it does not affect him he remains only an external narrator. At the same time there is a character within this book who is called by her first name last name attached namely GiuliaCometti because this is a girl who knew these other people when they were kids, however she was a popular child unlike them so they never had a close relationship and indeed everyone wonders why she is there actually the first time they meet to talk about this about this thing and this character is interesting because basically she is a character who almost throughout the story has no voice, she is presented as an outsider to the group she is presented as a character who basically just at the very beginning talks, but she talks in an interesting
[00:06:51.562] – Clara Scarafia
way and that is that the narrator asks her "how are you doing" and she basically starts talking: we have these little vignettes that are basically wall of words and the little clouds precisely of the answer about how are you doing are that is a wall of words that also then go outside the little clouds so we can't read we can't read them because of the way they are placed. And what the narrator says is "it almost seems like I asked her something and she basically started off with a 20-minute rant that she seemed to have been holding there in reserve for a long time as if no one had ever asked her and so now she needs to throw this out there." Then the character disappears. At one point they try to contact her but she doesn't respond and rightly everyone says, "boh, yeah, but in the sense, we got her involved because she could use it too. If she doesn't respond to us it's not like we can force her, it's not like we can go after her and force her, if she's not interested, she's not interested.
[00:08:03.916] – Clara Scarafia
" But then at one point actually there is a character who wonders what happened to her in a serious way because everyone is saying "boh what the fuck do I know maybe she found someone and so she's fucking or she made money" i.e. the two possibilities are if she disappeared or she's fucking or she made money.
[00:08:26.800] – Clara Scarafia
And yet the wife of one of the characters who met her in the beginning at her wedding said "no you made me put her in my marriage even though I didn't know her, you had very little relationship with her, let's figure out what happened to her because it's strange that she disappeared like that into thin air" so she gets in touch with the madr. She finds out that this character attempted suicide and so basically there is a character i.e. she is the only one of the characters who precisely does not narrativize her life but because she is not given the chance basically. She is put in a condition where despite the fact that she tries to talk, no attention is given to what she had to say and all the times that one wonders where she ended up the reader in my opinion a little bit imagines that something happened, however, she doesn't even know if then actually this thing will be eviscerated in some way and one will then go and actually figure out what happened to her. When you find out about this thing, basically right after the results of the proclamation come out, proclamation that the characters didn't win and that then puts them in a condition where all the hopes that had been built up around this chance to change lives that for each of them would have different repercussions.
[00:09:53.080] – Clara Scarafia
For example, one just had a baby, another one is doing a shitty job and can't change it, yet another one is supposed to move because she lives out of town but hasn't been able to for ten years because she can't afford it. They are in a situation where they are stopped again and it is said at one point there is another one in June however what is said by one of the characters is "yes, but in June almost in a year. What the fuck do I do in the meantime?" It's interesting because in my opinion a very important issue comes up here which is that of the apex moment, the moment of the classic crossroads where if things go this way I have a chance if things go that way I have to make do and figure out what to do. In this case one of the characters precisely basically experiences this thing as something not "I have a chance another but there is only one chance" the chance is to win, if we win this thing good otherwise there is no other way and no other way.
[00:11:10.009] – Clara Scarafia
And this is an interesting thing because it is something that I personally have experienced more than once and that if I have to be frankly honest I am experiencing right now as well that is the feeling that there is a possibility and that is the only possibility.
[00:11:33.030] – Clara Scarafia
And that it is something that I have also often, as it were, been guilty of i.e. telling myself "maybe I live things the wrong way because I give too much importance to things" and that actually looking at it objectively there is always another possibility, almost always. But I actually understand the scope of that feeling there, of saying that thing there is the only thing I care about the only thing I want to do the only thing that can give me a chance to live the kind of life I want, if I can't have that I don't care, I don't care about anything else. And in these comics also comes out another basic question about this issue that I think is perhaps the basic question of those who live it from the outside: the why. Because beyond whether there is a completed suicide or an attempted suicide, the question is always why did he do it. And in my opinion it is a question that that is basically what happens on the outside usually is the question of whether something could have been done if one had noticed earlier if one had moved in another way and from a certain point of view in the comic it is said that basically we are not the center of other people's lives, we are not the protagonists of other people's lives and that therefore it is also quite a thing, how should I say, I get the word superb, but it is not the right word, however the fact of thinking that an action of mine could have changed the course of events for another
[00:13:32.618] – Clara Scarafia
person's life, which is something that actually then objectively is not so and cannot be so. It never happens that it actually is so. But there is always this this thing that we ask ourselves to try a little bit to assuage that guilt and that makes us feel a little bit less helpless makes us think that maybe by acting in another way you would have had a more active role in the matter that then it is no longer just a matter of suffering what happened because these are things that we then willingly or unwillingly end up just suffering. And so this is a very interesting thing. It's also something in my opinion that is hard to find a why to as an outsider but in my experience as an insider as well.
[00:14:31.110] – Clara Scarafia
That is, the moment you make such a gesture, you know what the feeling was, you know what it was, which were the concrete, external motivations, the external causes that led you to make such a gesture. Do you know the despair? Have you experienced it, you know? Do you know what it is? Could you recognize it? But sometimes you wonder why at that moment there and not at another? Because of equally sad, equally bad moments maybe there have been. Of potential triggers there have been others. But to me always in this comic, though, one thing that comes up a lot is that it's basically presented as something that could make a difference. It's obviously not being said that it will necessarily do it but it's sort of a safety net of caring for other people that can put them in a position where they don't get to feel alone and cornered. And in fact at the end of the comic at the moment when everybody finds out that this character has attempted suicide they go and steal flowers from all the gardens around and they go to see this girl bringing her baskets, baskets of flowers and they all go together.
[00:16:11.950] – Clara Scarafia
They decide that they were going to go right away all together and they were not going to wait, they were not going to put it off, they were not going to do as they essentially did at another time. So there is also really a history of learning outside that I think is very important. It is very important however, that doesn't necessarily make the difference. Definitely better that it's there than that it's not there, but it also depends there from situation to situation, because the ultimate why is always different and it's always very layered so I'm of the idea that anyway that possibility that is presented is a nice possibility, is something that ideally would be the case to do and to try to do precisely despite the dicks that one has in one's life, despite all the issues the fact of trying to be there. It is an important thing, but in my opinion it is not the only thing.
[00:00:05.770] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay Clara. We can go to the second part where precisely I have prepared questions, and we can confront each other as usual. At any time you can then decide not to answer like a real star. The first question: were you able to talk about the incident with your friends acquaintances?
[00:00:46.000] - Clara Scarafia
Yes, I was able to do that. A short time later, actually, because I had an initial moment of confusion. I couldn't precisely as we were saying before, on the question of narrating things, at first not being able to frame this event as real, I couldn't talk about it because I didn't understand how to do it, I didn't understand what I was feeling, I didn't know what I could actually say because it was something that seemed so much bigger than me, of the real things in life that I couldn't however actually then the moment I felt this thing falling back on me as real, as actual, no longer as something that, I don't know, it wasn't something that I had heard about, it wasn't something that had happened to somebody else, but that somehow it had happened to me even though it hadn't happened to me specifically. I was able to talk about in my opinion more than the fact itself, how I was feeling it that is, what I was feeling and I actually.
[00:02:42.280] - Gianmarco Moneti
Can you express what you were telling at the time of the incident?
[00:03:06.040] - Clara Scarafia
What I was feeling, at first, right after I heard it, it was a very visceral thing. I felt it as very physical, it was like my brain disconnected, the moment this information reached me it was like my brain shut down.
[00:03:37.060] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay
[00:03:37.780] - Clara Scarafia
That is, I wasn't thinking about it concretely, I wasn't articulating it as an actual thought but I was really feeling a physical sensation of almost a very strong tingle. The sensation was just feeling it on a physical level. I don't know it was it was a very strange feeling because what I did at the time it was told was I told the person I was with at the time, because I was at Jessica and Luca's house and Luca was with me, so I told him. I verbalized it, and the moment I verbalized it, it took on a little bit of a dimension of reality, that is, of trying to assimilate it somehow. And then I left the house to go, to go to work and I started listening to music because I needed to hear something on a sound level that is.
[00:04:55.300] - Gianmarco Moneti
Did you pick something very specific that you wanted to hear or was it random?
[00:05:03.340] - Clara Scarafia
Noo, I just put on Spotify I just put on random playback because I couldn't decide, I mean I couldn't think about it, I just had to try to fill (the silence) as soon as possible and so I didn't care what and I don't even remember what. I mean I don't even remember what I listened to at that time because I was thinking about.
[00:05:29.670] - Gianmarco Moneti
Evade?
[00:05:32.700] - Clara Scarafia
Yes. It was also the same reason why I still decided to go to work, I still decided to say "I'm going to go now I'm going to do what I have to do I'm going to try to distract myself and then at a later time I'll try to put the pieces together and think about it concretely" which is what I then slowly started to do the same evening when we later saw each other, when I got out of work and talked a lot actually. Already there I mean I realize that I said a lot of things that however were a lot of scattered things, a lot of things that came to me.
[00:06:14.220] - Gianmarco Moneti
I remember very well obviously that day, and I remember in that situation where you started to tell, somehow, as much as you now say they were scattered things, it seemed that your goal was to come to a conclusion of stability with respect to what you were saying, that is, how to come to say, "I'm fine."
[00:06:43.410] - Clara Scarafia
That's what it was even in the following days, that is, even the day after I took the car trip with Frederick's dad to go back to Arezzo I remember that I didn't stop talking for a second, that is, I continued for those five to six hours of the trip: I kept talking constantly. And yet precisely in those two days, in those 24 hours, I said so many things that I don't even remember it well now. That is, I don't remember what I said and for that I remember it a little bit as scattered things because I remember very vague flashes, however, I don't really remember what I said even though looking at me from the outside in that situation it seemed to me that it was really a very long 24-hour talk that went on and on, constantly.
[00:07:42.600] - Gianmarco Moneti
And at that moment when you were doing this kind of open sitting to the world: did you feel better in the moment when you were exploring this out loud?
[00:07:59.490] - Clara Scarafia
Yes because I remember being very, very afraid of silence at that time, that is, just in those days immediately following because actually I like silence in principle, especially when I am well and I am serene I can be silent, whereas at that moment there I could not accept it, I could not be silent. Also because the only time I was silent was when I then went to sleep the same night before I left the next day. And I remember that was perhaps the most exhausting and painful time because I couldn't be still, lying down. I didn't sleep practically the whole night because the moment I lay down and tried to think about even trying to sleep, I felt a very strong oppression, that is, I felt like I was being crushed and the feeling was, I think for the first time in my life. It's a feeling that I had never felt even at times when it would make more sense to feel it, which is a very great fear of dying, at that moment there I really felt that if I lay still I would die too.
[00:09:38.545] - Clara Scarafia
And so yes, talking about it helped just beyond what I said even just as an action to keep moving somehow.
[00:09:52.940] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay, this is a question that may not make sense and so you can safely say no. What do you think the people who were listening to you were feeling? Did you think at the time you were talking about these things: what does the person who is listening to me feel?
[00:10:23.870] - Clara Scarafia
Yes, because that's also the reason why very often, when talking about it, especially when I was talking about it with one person, I repeatedly apologized and said, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable." I understand that on the other side it's difficult to handle a situation like that because you're standing in front of a person who has just been through something tremendous and all you can do is be there and listen. And yet you don't necessarily want to listen, even though then all the people I talked to confirmed that they were there to listen and so I was told "I didn't want to create any discomfort" on the other side i.e. I was afraid of the fact that I would, somehow, I don't know, unload a set of emotions and concepts of thoughts on other people that was something that
[00:11:21.710] - Gianmarco Moneti
And this thing, thinking about their reflections, precisely you say of the discomfort that you could cause with respect to your discomfort, did that have an effect on you?
[00:11:34.730] - Clara Scarafia
In the end, no, I mean because usually if I come to realize that I am making another person uncomfortable and I come to really make explicit the fact that I don't want to make the other person uncomfortable, I try to recalibrate what I'm saying and how I'm saying it, because precisely I verbalize the fact that I think it might make you uncomfortable and so I try not to do that.
[00:12:04.190] - Gianmarco Moneti
Sure, but how? How were you able to think about this at a time like this, to worry at a time when it had to be other people anyway somehow worrying about what you were feeling. How could you simultaneously try to do something that didn't hurt another person when the hurt person was you anyway?
[00:12:26.540] - Clara Scarafia
And that boh, I don't know. This I think is a basic thing of mine, so I don't want other people to worry about me. And it happens to me in various situations, I mean it's just something I think fundamentally it's mine and it's simply projected even in that moment there, but I don't know, I mean it came to me spontaneously, I don't know, I felt it necessary in some way also because of the fact that anyway I was in front of people who were available and willing to listen to me, to take care of me. I at the same time wanted to return that care even though it was a painful moment where I could have let everything go and said anything because I knew that I would actually be excused anything at such a moment by the closest people I had around me. But I don't know it's a thought that anyway I had more or less all the time, there wasn't a moment where I said boh now I'm going to talk freewheeling without fear of hurting anybody and forcing people into a situation that maybe it can somehow trigger them on some aspects, it can make them feel bad, and this I think because precisely I actually talked about it only with people who know me well who I know well, who I love very much actually so, even in that moment there, I didn't have a freewheeling thing I talk about I don't give a damn I mean in the moment I was saying I'm sorry to put you in this situation, I felt it and I didn't want to,
[00:14:20.743] - Clara Scarafia
I don't know, I mean I experience relationships with a lot of sense of responsibility, I mean my feeling is always that when you're talking to another person you're basically doing something to them that could have an impact of some kind and I can't help but think about it.
[00:14:44.420] - Gianmarco Moneti
But instead, have you been able, therapy-wise, to deal with this venting thing?
[00:14:54.740] - Clara Scarafia
Yes, it took a while, it took a while. Even at the time when it happened that my father died, which was in the middle of the week, I would have had an appointment with the psychologist the week after the last meeting when I was in Turin, which was I think one or two days before it happened, anyway I had just seen her and I knew that in such a situation given the relationship I have with the therapist, I think the sensible thing would have been to warn her right away, write to her, call her, contact her somehow. Instead, I waited until the next week's session to tell her. I spent a week handling the various things that needed to be handled then technically the first thing I said to her when we talked was, "Look I have to tell you this thing, this thing happened, but I didn't tell you before." And the same with the psychiatrist. I was to see the psychiatrist like two, three months later. However several months later the psychiatrist heard it from me at the time I went to session months later.
[00:16:17.424] - Clara Scarafia
They both told me, "You could have called me ,there would have been no problem, that's what we're here for, that's what we're doing together, that's what we're trying to provide you with support in various forms."
[00:16:37.280] - Gianmarco Moneti
And why this, have you ever given yourself an answer as to why you still wanted to wait for something that you said "it's their job" so in this case you also come out of the previous dynamic where friends can have impacts. They are professionals in their field who are there for you. Why didn't you have the need to confront them immediately?
[00:17:03.020] - Clara Scarafia
Because in my opinion there being precisely another kind of relationship would have put it in a more schematic dimension, that is, I would still have had to talk about it and but I didn't feel the need to call her to vent, I would have experienced it as an outlet when for me instead therapy is a very schematic thing, it's finding things, talking about those things, eviscerating those things and I also wanted to give myself time from a certain point of view because I didn't feel the need to have an outlet.
[00:18:11.990] - Gianmarco Moneti
So have you ever had a real outlet with respect to all this? Not that it's necessary.
[00:18:20.210] - Clara Scarafia
Some moments of outburst I actually had but, I don't know, it's like they were kind of unexpected moments. I for example didn't cry except for like a week after the fact, before the funeral, that I heard Federico on the phone and I cried and I hadn't cried yet, and I cried very little. I mean it was a very short crying, very heartfelt, however very short and in hindsight I have to say that actually of moments of outburst but outburst as you can imagine in such a situation, with desperate crying screaming real explosions I don't I don't think I ever had a moment of real outburst. Except then months later, during the summer, that one evening I was home alone watching a movie. A movie, a silly, teenage movie about the relationship between these kids, I mean it was no big deal. Effectively though there was this moment at the end of the movie, where the kids, these two kids find out that their mother was sick with cancer and then there would then be a whole series of consequences to that.
[00:20:01.490] - Clara Scarafia
The fact that precisely this thing was going to create all the consequences moved me and there I cried, and it was a sincere cry, which however came out partly an outburst, but an outburst due to a feeling of injustice because the feeling I had at that moment looking at something in my opinion very badly written, very rhetorical like "we'll make it if we stay close, there is hope, we'll stay together we'll stay close and we'll get through this," my feeling was that I didn't have a chance to be in a situation of accepting the reality of the facts gradually and then processing it: I was put in front of a fait accompli. In this thing I mean I'm not saying of course that if there is a preparation or a period of grief preceding still the loss is easier because I don't know, I haven't experienced it so I can't imagine.
[00:21:22.850] - Gianmarco Moneti
However, you never even had hope for anything.
[00:21:26.840] - Clara Scarafia
At that moment I simply had a great feeling of injustice.
[00:21:30.560] - Gianmarco Moneti
Injustice.
[00:21:31.400] - Clara Scarafia
Yes, to have experienced an injustice, to have found myself in a situation already accomplished, already done, where a person made a decision that had heavy repercussions both emotionally and then practically on my life without my having any role in it.
[00:21:51.200] - Gianmarco Moneti
This all ties in with the question I wanted to ask you. How much force did the outside world exert in this particular story of yours? Thinking back to the questions earlier somehow I was myself looking for the moment of despair that somehow you said "there was no outburst, there wasn't." You gave another example from cinematography. Now we are giving perhaps too much importance to this film which we will not quote.
[00:22:55.820] - Clara Scarafia
Whose name I can't even remember.
[00:22:57.320] - Gianmarco Moneti
But that's perfectly fine. Everybody expects something very specific in these certain situations, right? Did it impact you that maybe you were not following a pattern that is given in general?
[00:23:26.930] - Clara Scarafia
A little bit yes, I mean I have to say that I have often actually wondered why I was not venting, exploding, collapsing. In a way, even from the outside, I've always been complimented a lot on how strong I was in that moment there and how I got through it and how I went on despite everything and how I held myself together. I've often wondered about that myself why actually this thing and I've had a number of answers to that, from a certain point of view how it impacted this expectation that I felt, because I felt it to some extent, but I felt it precisely because we are in mourning and particularly mourning due to a violent death that in our culture is always presented as something lacerating, terrible, sudden. I did not feel that sense of despair that one should in theory feel that is usually portrayed more often. I felt a lot of anger because of the issue of injustice that I was telling you earlier, that is, I felt put in a situation in spite of myself.
[00:24:51.668] - Gianmarco Moneti
Of course.
[00:24:52.100] - Clara Scarafia
I also have the impression that this only impacted me as an underlying thing, i.e. it's not that I felt it very much in the moment, it's not that I stood there and said, "okay everyone expects me to do this, why don't I do this?" I mean it was kind of a vague, kind of background thought that stayed from the beginning to the end of the period where I think I experienced grief per se. Period that I am now out of, however that lasted a certain period of time and I also tried to give myself an answer of why I reacted in one way rather than another. The answers have been various I don't know which are the most reliable, which are the most sensible, however for example the fact that this is something that I to a certain extent expected, because as much as then when the fact happened and the thing was accomplished and there was no way back anyway the feeling was that on some level I saw this thing coming, but from a long way back, from a long time that is I always felt it as a possibility that could have occurred knowing how my father was, knowing how he reacted or rather did not react to things.
[00:26:28.460] - Clara Scarafia
I also noticed another thing that at the time when I went through the most delicate phase of this thing here: I kept telling myself and repeating to others that I was fine" that is, I kept saying "no I'm fine it's okay, as painful as it is unfortunately I have to come to terms with the concrete things in life. My life goes on, I have to move on in my life and I don't want to be put in a condition again where I can't do things because another person has made a decision for me." And so I have been trying precisely to move things forward. I realized a few months ago, when I then actually started to get better that I was not well and that I for a few months was living in a mode that even in psychology is called a kind of survival mode. And that is, when something so big, so heavy happens you are put in such a situation you no longer live but simply try to get by.
[00:27:48.750] - Clara Scarafia
And in hindsight I realized how much I actually was in survival mode because the months after what happened I remember them as sudden spikes of intemperance like drinking, going out during the week even though I knew I had to work the next day, it was a big thing, which I wouldn't have done before because anyway I was always quite careful about how to handle things I always allowed myself moments of venting and intemperance precisely however more calculated as I found myself in situations where I kept drinking even though I didn't feel like it anymore because I didn't want to think I didn't want to be present I didn't want to be perceived at that moment and so the best way to not be perceived I felt was as not perceiving myself first.
[00:28:44.400] - Gianmarco Moneti
Not perceiving yourself first? And in what sense?
[00:28:53.250] - Clara Scarafia
In the very sense of silencing consciousness i.e. getting to a point where you're so drunk that you don't think anymore, you don't think concretely anymore, you focus on what you see outside, on walking straight and not falling on the ground, on i.e. I don't know, things in that moment just reach a dimension where consciousness is no longer part of it. So there is no longer that feeling of having to come to terms with who you are, where you are, in that moment you are present. And for me this perception thing is also stuff that then takes on a very physical aspect as well.
[00:00:03.590] - Gianmarco Moneti
Dearest Clara, welcome back to this second section which probably might not be the last one because I may have missed part of the interview and so we may have to do it again, but that is another matter. As I was telling you, today's part is the fourth part (third ed.) and it's about the description of the feelings, moods and everything about it from a more artistic point of view. So we try to make a kind of translation of what are the feelings that you have experienced during your journey, trying to find different ways to say it, right? So as I told you, through photography, through colors. As you see I have prepared beautiful pastels for you, and so first of all, however, we have to try to enucleate these feelings/states of mind/emotion. I, having gone through all the videos again today, let's say I would start with what seems to me perhaps the most recurring mood with respect to the interview, which is that of anger.
[00:01:25.730] - Clara Scarafia
So anger I have a special relationship with anger, because it is one of the things that I generally feel most often or at least I used to feel it very often. It's the only kind of feeling/state of mind that I can't control. I can now because of a whole range of things in my path, however, it is something that for a period of time I was not very able to control. Let's say my teenage self was very prone to angry outbursts, and in the relationship I had with my father, anger was a key component. I went as far as sometimes getting angry with him and having palpitations, dizziness because anger, unlike other feelings, affects me very much on a physical level, I mean actually they all affect me on a physical level, however in my opinion anger especially. I have to say that anger is something that now, in regard to that situation there specifically, is not something that I still feel, that is, I felt it very very intensely, I experienced it as unfair stuff, because in addition to the point of view of emotional loss, it had put me and my mom in a very complicated situation and so that is to say there was just a first moment of blind rage just like saying, "again you found a way to disappoint me, to put me in an uncomfortable situation," and that is something that in that case I felt, in that moment I felt so much and I realized that however now in regard to that situation there I don't feel
[00:03:35.987] - Clara Scarafia
it anymore.
[00:03:38.030] - Clara Scarafia
It's something that I was reflecting on actually these days about the fact that for me the anger, for that situation there, doesn't work the same way towards me, I mean for example, if I start to feel bad, and it happened to me even a couple of weeks ago that I had a week where I was particularly bad, I wasn't angry. Because I the moment I get angry usually there is an external factor and when there is an external factor and I can get angry it means that somehow I can solve it. That is, somehow I can approach a solution, whereas when I don't feel anger I actually get quite frightened, because that's usually the time when I don't care anymore, that is, I get to a situation that I don't care about. So anger and the absence of anger in my case can have two opposite values, that is, both when I just don't feel it and I don't feel it because I am not able emotionally to feel it, that is a negative thing and when I do feel it, but it is constructive in some way because it pushes me to change, to fix something, whereas when it is then external, it usually makes me feel bad and therefore puts me in this situation.
[00:05:03.490] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay now we have to try to give Because anyway the narrative is based on this part.... Anger I think is something that an audience, an outsider, can understand, because of course who is there in life who hasn't been angry for different reasons? So let's say it's a feeling that can find a connection, that's what our goal is. Now I would like, if you agree, to investigate a little bit more about this anger, although I know it's a past feeling now, however it's a feeling that you felt for a long time after the death of your father, so try to give it some contours and shapes, a sound, an image, a shadow, a light according to your sensibility. First of all, let's start perhaps just from the fact that you also spoke last time, talking about a very carnal matter, almost a physical feeling, even just now you said that. For example: what is the physical feeling of anger? What do you feel? What did you feel? Can you remember?
[00:06:23.240] - Clara Scarafia
Yes, I usually feel anger at this level of the body, that is, in this part here, while other feelings, other emotions I feel more at the mouth of the stomach, both positive and negative. I usually have this tendency to focus everything on my shoulders. Yes, here, in this part, here, there is just something almost as if it charges me somehow, that is, I feel a kind of energy that needs to be discharged somehow.
[00:06:53.780] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay, So you feel somehow a closing of the shoulder. So this movement has a cause and so you try to release or what do you do?
[00:07:11.780] - Clara Scarafia
Then it usually depends a lot on the situation. Generally I used to have very violent reactions, tending toward self-harm, because that was the only way I could vent, like hitting my head, banging my head on walls, punching objects or things like that, which was something that happened to me quite often, actually.
[00:07:44.030] - Gianmarco Moneti
Subsequently to (your father)?
[00:07:46.760] - Clara Scarafia
From there on it didn't happen to me anymore. At the time when my father passed away let's say the kind of anger I had, it vented a lot in practice, then in fixing things.
[00:07:58.700] - Gianmarco Moneti
Here we talk about that. In what sense?
[00:08:01.400] - Clara Scarafia
That it became all about I have to get things in order, I have to figure out how to make things work after he is gone and he left us with certain tasks, issues-that anger there I focused a lot on these practical things, the issue of the funeral, the issue of the lawyers, of the waiver of inheritance,I had to very much project myself on that thing there. And I vented it in that way at the end, I mean I don't know, I was so angry that the various bureaucratic stuff that usually would have weighed so heavily on me to do, I almost didn't feel it because I knew that the moment I would finish doing those things there I would then have to go back to thinking about how I actually was and I didn't feel like doing that. And then, however, by the time I had time to think about it, it had kind of run out of this anger thing.
[00:09:06.590] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay strange,because anyway the way you describe it now, I would have related it more to another thing that then I would have asked you anyway, which was that with respect to evasion, right? To the concept of evasion. I mean in the sense that when you were saying "anything was done to try not to think, try to somehow turn off the brain, not to get attached" so that also But how did the anger affect it? Because it's hard to imagine a feeling that is closer to the destructive world anyway, basically. To see it that way is a very strong contrast, a very strong oxymoron. To think of anger as fixing bureaucratic things, that is, it has a power...
[00:09:54.740] - Clara Scarafia
But actually I realize that for me it's quite like that, as I told you before, I worry when I don't get angry with external situations that don't sit well with me, because I find that I actually don't care anymore. It's strange because precisely anger in my opinion is stuff that you feel in the present, that is, stuff that you turn on, you live it in the present, you feel it so much in the present, stuff that sometimes it may not even carry too much of a toll. And this thing here that I happen to do I almost feel like I'm systematizing it, that is, putting it in a pattern and saying, "okay it's the gasoline to ignite these things that I have to do," that is, fueling myself through stuff that usually precisely is not, as you said, a constructive thing, it's a destructive thing. I don't know honestly, about the emotions that I've been feeling in the last year I'm working on it a lot in therapy, also because I do cognitive-behavioral therapy, so I have to understand also well where the emotions are generated, where I feel them, what they're carried by.
[00:11:12.090] - Clara Scarafia
In the case of anger it's still something that's not completely clear to me. Because the feeling is really that the thing I've done most to vent it, in some way, is to engage in these uncomfortable things.
[00:11:32.090] - Gianmarco Moneti
So, however, in this way let's say it's a trying to avoid anger as well.
[00:11:37.100] - Clara Scarafia
Yes probably yes, probably yes.
[00:11:40.790] - Gianmarco Moneti
But before you did these things what is it that was happening? Can you, like, can you see yourself again just before all these subsequent, causal actions?
[00:11:56.570] - Clara Scarafia
That is, in the sense between the time I perceived anger and started doing certain things?
[00:12:02.690] - Gianmarco Moneti
I mean just going back to the moment when you felt the anger, just the "what is that flame" that starts everything.
[00:12:14.510] - Clara Scarafia
There I felt a little bit of a--. I felt like saying explode, but actually I felt a little bit sinking.
[00:12:25.400] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay.
[00:12:26.360] - Clara Scarafia
Because the feeling was that that feeling of anger would destroy me. The first impression was that, because anyway precisely having had this kind of relationship with my father in which I used to have very powerful and very overbearing outbursts of anger that made me sick, just physically as well as mentally, I thought, "Okay I'm feeling this anger. Now it's the time I'm going to crash into a wall because I'm not able to handle it, it's too much." And so I thought, "I'm going to take the actions I usually do to such an extreme that I won't be able to handle it anymore," which then actually didn't happen.
[00:13:14.360] - Gianmarco Moneti
Of course because anyway you said it yourself, you managed to put this feeling, this emotion, this state of mind back into things that you actually also needed to do. It's not that you have random things, even with respect to the legacy issues, you did very specific things that needed to be done.
[00:13:36.080] - Clara Scarafia
It was also the same time when I had started two new jobs at the same time so even there. There I realized that this anger thing gave me, even from a certain point of view, an urge: this sense of needing redemption. The fact that I had a situation that I was experiencing as an injustice made me feel a little bit that I had to do these things, because I wanted to prove, I think mainly to myself because then in the end it was in my opinion mainly that, that in spite of that thing there I would be able to do certain things. But the problem is that this feeding was by dint of anger, I found myself practically not listening to the other feelings, that is, when I started to perceive that I was not well in the work situation I was in, I kind of muted this thing, because the impression was just, "Now you have so many emotional things going on that if you also shut down, do other things that might mess you up, it's not appropriate.
[00:14:48.513] - Clara Scarafia
"
[00:14:49.010] - Gianmarco Moneti
But what is anger?
[00:14:51.650] - Clara Scarafia
What is it? I don't know. In my perspective it's a little something that explodes in you. I think it's probably the strongest feeling I've ever had. Stronger even than all the positive feelings I've ever had.
[00:15:15.250] - Gianmarco Moneti
But what is it that explodes?
[00:15:20.530] - Clara Scarafia
It's like some hot air, a lot of hot air condensed in one spot that then rips you apart. I mean the feeling is kind of that. I don't know if it physically makes sense, because
[00:15:37.270] - Gianmarco Moneti
It's your feeling. So
[00:15:41.710] - Clara Scarafia
Something that explodes inside you, that is this thing that is created and somewhere it has to go so it tears you apart because
[00:15:53.050] - Gianmarco Moneti
No but is the reality then that it explodes or is the game ultimately about being able to keep this thing from exploding? I mean, is it the foreshadowing of the explosion or the explosion itself?
[00:16:05.260] - Clara Scarafia
It depends on the situations in my opinion. Because in all cases it's a blast, in the sense, sometimes you can defuse it. Which I manage to do now. But at that time there I also found it very strange that I almost never exploded. I mean I the first time I was really sick, that I threw out anger about the situation was in September, late September. So I mean I went through months where I managed to precisely avoid the outburst, which however then actually came at some point. Even before that, however in the situations where I think now I have found a positive way to bring out the anger. Before my father's death
[00:17:15.370] - Gianmarco Moneti
Sorry. Okay.
[00:17:20.410] - Clara Scarafia
Let's say that before my father's death the feeling was always, "You explode. You're not safe to explode. Hurt yourself to get over it." I mean stuff that to me at the level of venting, it helped me, however I see that I have dealt with people over the years who had a thing of venting on objects, on other people, a thing of yelling at others, lashing out at others. I can't do this thing. I mean like the thing we were saying the other day about how I was in a fucking situation and I was worried about how it might turn out to tell another person and make them feel bad. I mean for me it was always that with my relationship with my dad I didn't feel safe enough to explode, because I knew that an explosion would bring a much worse one from the other side and that the harm I could do to myself was still less from what I could get from the outside. So it was a bit of a balancing act, figuring out what was the least threatening thing.
[00:18:37.660] - Clara Scarafia
Instead then I actually realized that since he passed away, I haven't had this fear here. I mean, I happened to get angry I happened to I happened to get angry anyway....
[00:19:30.060] - Clara Scarafia
After that thing there, I don't know I no longer felt that my anger could be dangerous and it was a mistake to let it out. And I have to say that it actually did so much even the relationship with Federico and the end of the relationship with Federico. Because Federico and I had come to a point where he was was, to say violent maybe is an exaggeration, however he had outbursts, because he had problems dealing with anger. He had outbursts, he made gestures that were particularly triggering for me, because being used to that kind of situation, where I was constantly living with my guard up and alert, whatever I might say or do, I found myself in a situation where the other person, he was triggering this anger, doing things that he knew would trigger this thing. And I didn't feel safe enough to explode, to get angry at him.
[00:20:50.730] - Clara Scarafia
So it's something that up to a certain point exploded in one way and from a certain point on, it's not that it stopped happening, however it found another way to vent. In fact I remember like the first time I got really angry after my father died, I mean where I vented in a way, was in September, it was his birthday and we were in a situation that we basically had to go home. But the power had gone out for three days, and it wasn't coming back, and so we were stalling in Arezzo because going home without light was a little, a little debilitating. At that time I tried to ask a little bit of the people who were in Arezzo to come to me, to see us and I got refusals from all sides and although I rationally know that it was my dad's birthday and nobody knew about it, I felt that I was left to my own devices and that everybody was always complimenting me on how well I was reacting to it, but because then, actually, when I was sick they didn't feel like being there.
[00:22:18.460] - Clara Scarafia
The first impression was that, then, it wasn't. I understand that there were a whole series of other issues, however, the impression was a little bit that, the feeling was really anger. I mean, I was in the car with my mom, I got pissed off, I started yelling, I said, "Of course it has to be like that though all the time, that you never ask anyone for shit and when you need a moment not even of understanding, but just of closeness, that is to say let's see each other, there's not, there's not that thing there." And so there it was a moment where though. After I exploded in this thing I vented and I was better. So it kind of changed, it was a different kind of anger, I mean I experienced it differently because it didn't seem so destructive at the time. And so there I realized that anger can also take somewhat more manageable forms, from a certain point of view.
[00:23:27.480] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay, let's try, if you like, because I don't want to focus too much on this anger thing, in case tell me. Let's try now to extrapolate, give it an image, a color, a sound.
[00:23:45.400] - Clara Scarafia
Then one sound comes to mind.
[00:23:49.240] - Gianmarco Moneti
Here I give you the strong means we have
[00:23:54.550] - Clara Scarafia
That is, a sound comes to mind. A whistle, a very loud whistle like a train, like a a teapot, a kettle. Because actually to me sometimes it happens that when I get so angry my blood pressure goes up, suddenly I hear tinnitus right. So for me anger has that sound there and it has the sound of teeth grinding because I connect it right back to the sounds that I actually hear.
[00:24:36.040] - Clara Scarafia
The form it might take I don't know.
[00:24:47.290] - Clara Scarafia
I mean it's strange because I mean like anger I precisely feel it as a stuff that presses you, that tears you apart, however I imagine it very square, I imagine it very compact.
[00:25:11.710] - Clara Scarafia
I draw a little picture, basically like inside the body I have a red rectangle, that is something that is there. And that, however, the moment it is triggered it expands, it expands a little bit more, always a little bit more and then it comes I mean I don't know, it's not like...
[00:25:42.350] - Gianmarco Moneti
All right, go ahead!
[00:25:43.370] - Clara Scarafia
The feeling, this kind of feeling, I don't know, it's a little bit different than the air thing I was saying before, because in my opinion the air thing I connect it a lot to vocality, that is, to speaking, to shouting, to Which for example is something that I almost never do. But I imagine it from a visual point of view I imagine it a dense stuff, like lava. I mean, I imagine it as a more... That yes, it expands, I mean it keeps expanding a little bit all the time and basically, unlike the thing I was saying before about air still being able to find ways out of the body... Whereas a solid stuff is necessarily going to tear you apart if it keeps growing in you. So a little bit that's the impression that gives me the rage.
[00:26:47.920] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay. So a whistle. This rectangle that slowly grows and doesn't actually find a way out of the body. So do you have an image, even a work of art that could represent this?
[00:27:05.560] - Clara Scarafia
A silly thing came to mind: Lilo and Stitch. Have you seen it? The drawing that she, Lilo, does of Stitch of the anger, that is the level of meanness, which there actually is the level of meanness, however in my opinion it's more of a level of anger, that is that she basically does this little drawing of, now I'll give you an example, that is like this is how she draws Stitch. She draws two of them and she's like, your nastiness should be here and instead it's here, and that's a little too much for someone your size. So we have to try to get this level down" when in fact he's not mean. He is angry. He's angry even with good reason, in my opinion, because anyway you're a little being thrown on a planet, you've been imprisoned all your life, it's normal that you're a little bit angry, so that's the thing that comes to mind.
[00:28:06.210] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay. Have you ever felt imprisoned?
[00:28:10.650] - Clara Scarafia
Very.
[00:28:12.780] - Gianmarco Moneti
Without wanting you I don't want to ask you the question... Lilo & Stitch: Do you see yourself in Stitch?
[00:28:23.220] - Clara Scarafia
I see myself in both characters, because Stitch is angry, there is the animal side, the side that explodes, that feels things in a more visceral way. Lilo is a human being, however basically there has very similar reactions because anyway she grew up in a dysfunctional family, she experienced the loss of her parents which is stuff that has marked her so much throughout her life, so then there is also this willingness to create this atypical family to support each other, to be close to each other, so yes actually yes, I mean I feel both Stitch because of the anger thing and Stitch by the way when he gets angry he hits himself. The moment he tries to be good, when Lilo tells him he's too bad, he stops attacking others, hurting others, but he starts hitting himself because he's trying to turn off this thing that is very strong though. So yes I feel very Stitch, I never would have thought of that.
[00:29:27.780] - Gianmarco Moneti
Yes, let's say they don't give you much honor. You could have chosen among the great masters. It's a choice though, we accept it. I have another question with respect to this thing here that you are very free as usual to decide not to answer....
[00:29:44.700] - Clara Scarafia
I have another cartoon on this thing here.
[00:29:46.980] - Gianmarco Moneti
Sure tell me.
[00:29:47.820] - Clara Scarafia
I feel very represented by: Adventure Time. Princess Flame has a very bad relationship with her father. Her father keeps her inside a bell jar to keep her flames from getting too high and hurting people. He keeps saying that she is bad, simply because she also has motivated outbursts. Actually then, that is, if you read it in the family context in which she is, it makes sense. But on the father's side it's just something to limit her power, because if not she could become dangerous. And when then however she is put in front of a situation where she fights with Finn, she's about to leave Finn and she gets angry, she manages to contain that thing there, that is, she manages to say, "I'm not going to destroy the whole kingdom. It's better if we stay away from each other because we have a negative influence on each other and so we close this thing" And there again there is the stuff of contingency, of locking up anger seen as a negative thing, when then actually for her it will be one of the main things that will lead to her being a very good queen, when she becomes the queen.
[00:31:03.810] - Gianmarco Moneti
You've opened up in my opinion a very interesting, this parallelism that shouldn't be a parallel of anger and malice. And that's why the question I'm going to ask you: have you ever been afraid of feeling bad in relation to the anger you felt about your father's suicide?
[00:31:29.350] - Clara Scarafia
Yes, in a way. Let's say I had moments where I thought, I don't know. At first I thought it was unmotivated. Like, like like.
[00:31:48.050] - Gianmarco Moneti
No no, I wasn't asking on a motivational level, if anything, I was asking if you have this feeling of saying like, like I'm saying it to myself, "Oh my God, but isn't it that I'm a beast to think these things, to feel anger about something like this?" Again with respect to the talk yesterday, that of expectation about the reaction to an event, "Why do I feel anger when maybe I should be sad?"
[00:32:13.640] - Clara Scarafia
No. I mean when it happened I didn't think about it because in my opinion I was too angry to get to the point where I thought it wasn't legitimate. I happened to think about it last week though, because I was with Andrea and we saw that guy that you also met last summer. We were chatting and the thing about my dad came up and he says, "I knew he was missing, but I didn't know how. I'm sorry, I had no idea," and basically the Andrea said, "Well, yeah, let's say after it happened, all of us were really very angry with this thing that he had done because in short," that is, the meaning was "we were angry," and I thought at that moment if it was a legitimate thing, I mean just in general to be angry about the act itself. Because I thought if he had died any other way nobody would have been angry, because it would have been unpredictable stuff, not chosen.
[00:33:23.229] - Clara Scarafia
But then I said to myself "no," I mean in the sense they were feelings that were alive at that time, they made sense, now they're not there anymore and yet they were legitimate and it wasn't a matter of malice. It was just a matter of being again in a situation of responsibility imposed by someone else's decision.
[00:33:51.020] - Gianmarco Moneti
If you want to add something about anger in my opinion we've talked about it enough, I mean we didn't think by the way that we could talk so much about an emotion. Unbelievable.
[00:34:07.820] - Clara Scarafia
The last thing I would like to add, which I have actually already said more or less. In my opinion anger in order to express itself constructively has to be within an environment where it is not afraid of repercussions. By that I don't mean, "you piss me off, I'm going to slap you, and you need to shut up," however, I am of the opinion that sometimes anger, nonviolent anger toward other people The fact that you can say those two extra words to each other about the things that pissed you off, yell about something if it really sets you off. I think for that kind of outburst there, anger can be very constructive because it helps you understand in my opinion so many things about who you are and who you're dealing with, there really has to be an environment where you have to feel safe.
[00:35:02.630] - Gianmarco Moneti
Well, we want to pause and move on to. I at least I had worked out two other emotions/states of mind, the ones I at least found and would like to see with you with respect to the interview as well. Then it's you instead to add more we talk about it.
[00:35:21.170] - Clara Scarafia
I would take a break.
[00:35:22.040] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay.
[00:00:02.560] - Gianmarco Moneti
The second state I wanted to talk about is precisely that of evasion/confusion, indeed evasion first of all, although let's say you've already talked about it also talking about anger. So if you want, you can add other elements than evasion, other elements that we haven't touched on. Although I think we've talked about it enough, you've given a clear explanation of evasion as you've experienced it. If you want to add other elements with respect to the evasion.
[00:00:43.440] - Clara Scarafia
So in general for me escapism is a very important thing, I mean for me it's a dimension that exists a lot in my daily life, like even just the fact that I always read a lot anyway. To me reading helps me a lot to escape and to disconnect. I also have this thing that for me sometimes escapism results in dissociation, which that's kind of problematic stuff instead, which is just that I find myself in some situations where the level of stress and anxiety is so high that my mind becomes estranged, that is, my consciousness, my conscious side becomes completely estranged, it goes somewhere else, it's not there anymore and I go on autopilot. This thing happens to me in doing different things, I mean like even sometimes it happened to me to fail exams because I was so stressed at that moment that I was in that situation and I couldn't calm down so I shut up my consciousness and I let a part of me that is very automatic talk though. But actually in situations like for example exams or anyway stuff that has a lot to do with my conscious side, which has studied, which has understood certain concepts, the part that stays there, that all that baggage there is as if it doesn't have it and so I find myself in situations where I'm like I'm not there and it continues to do things, however sometimes after days, when I return to a state of relative calmness, that I come back present, I say, "Fuck but I've been like two days that it's like I'm not there
.[00:02:37.320] - Clara Scarafia
Whereas escapism is a much more active thing, that is, it's something that happens to me when I can keep consciousness present and I say to myself, okay, in order to avoid getting to a level where I dissociate and I'm no longer there, I have to try to do things that help me to escape in some way and therefore allow me to create that balance between moments when I do the stressful thing and I'm there, and moments when I'm still there but I'm doing something that helps me to dilute to decompress. All the various art forms that I enjoy, I mean music and reading, movies help me so much in that sense. Because I can really attach myself to what I am following and so anyway there is a different form of presence because detached from the tasks, the unpleasant things however at the same time that is, they are present in what I am doing.
[00:03:55.350] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay, this obviously applies both in your daily life and then also in the time when the fact of your father happened, but let's say with more preponderance in dealing with that kind of grief, seeking escape.
[00:04:16.470] - Clara Scarafia
There, however, escapism has always been very much mixed with dissociation, that is, even the things I was saying the other day about drinking a lot, going out, doing stuff even though maybe I didn't feel like it because sometimes I was doing it just to not think about it, to detach myself. There, however, I was very often actually disassociated from what I was doing, that is, it's not that I felt present at that moment and then above all I also realize that having a very strong way of feeling feelings, that is, any emotion comes to me in a very strong way, always, whether positive or negative, I realized that at that moment there, even before the thing with my father happened, however at that time there, just before it happened, that we were in a complicated situation anyway, once I remember telling Federico that I felt completely apathetic because I said: "I have received so many beatings, so much beatings in the last period that I don't feel anything anymore.
[00:05:31.254] - Clara Scarafia
" And there I also said it in a somewhat vindictive sense, because what I said to him was really, "You think you've torn me apart but I don't feel anything," so I told him, "Even though this thing in theory should make me feel so bad, it doesn't make me feel bad anymore because I don't expect anything, I don't feel anything."
[00:05:59.820] - Gianmarco Moneti
Did it also have a physical power, in the sense it can express escapism with a physical state?
[00:06:08.640] - Clara Scarafia
Then the positive evasion? Yes, I mean it's like the stagnant, calm, serene water of the pond that you look at it it's there, every now and then there's some ripple however it basically stays there, it's calm. So this impression just that escapism is something that makes me detach, but at the same time it's there contingent, I mean I know I'm looking at this thing, I'm doing this thing. It helps me detach from another thing in the knowledge that the other thing is there and that I will have to go back to it sooner or later.
[00:06:46.240] - Gianmarco Moneti
The negative one on the other hand?
[00:06:48.280] - Clara Scarafia
The negative one has no real aspect in my opinion. Even physically it's very difficult to describe because it's really apathy I mean it's really not feeling anything, letting everything slide over you, which is something that I realized that even with the anger issue, it's not strange actually that I had a period where I didn't feel angry. That is, I had a period where I got very angry, because of something that had happened, then I had a later period where all the other, kinds of things that should have created anger for me, that is, even the relationship with some people I was working with, in theory should have made me angry, but it didn't make me angry, that is, it slid over me because the feeling was just that I had gotten such a blow, I had been so angry about something else, that that thing there didn't play a role and so it's a stuff of gray, of fog, of everything still everything still.
[00:07:58.330] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay you want to try to
[00:08:05.890] - Clara Scarafia
So in my opinion, like the feeling that I get from escapism is kind of a good or bad situation of balance, stability. That is, I have in mind how to represent it to you. It's kind of something like this, that is, I am going to create indeed a situation where there is an underlying basis that is very stable and so I know that I am within that thing that causes me to break out, and that it is somewhere else than the rest that is to what is conscious what is pure presence and pure action in the things of life. But still within that stability there are feelings, because still the things that I go to do, to see, to read create an internal reaction in me. So it is as if there are little flashes precisely of emotions, of feelings, however, they are flashes that are contingent in that sphere there, which is a sphere anyway that takes me outside of myself and that is a contingent stuff, that is basically I don't know if I am explaining it well but, the moment I decide to do a certain thing that helps me escape, I know I'm going to have feelings, I know I'm going to have emotions because I'm also doing it for that, but that that emotion, those feelings are there and I can decide to stop looking at the thing I'm looking at, I can decide to stop reading, that is, there is a decision-making capacity that is very much there.
[00:10:48.570] - Gianmarco Moneti
Somehow you know what is the range of those sensations that you want to go for, so it is a safe place where you know that you can always dock in the moment when you want to escape, precisely.
[00:11:01.710] - Clara Scarafia
That's right, it's interesting because even within this balanced pattern there are contingencies, that is, there are always things that like the movie I was telling you the other day, which was a bad movie, and I thought, "I'm going to watch a bad movie because I'm in a bad mood, I'm sad, I want to escape, I'm going to watch some stuff about teenagers because I'm not a teenager anymore anyway, at the limit I can recognize some things that I've experienced, but it doesn't call me into it anymore. And then suddenly there's that thing that calls you into it and so yeah. I mean that thing there is interesting.
[00:11:45.390] - Gianmarco Moneti
It's very nice, because by the way, first you drew the barrier and then you drew precisely the emotions that you would be looking for, but what's for example, always going back to the suicide element, what's behind that purple curtain?
[00:12:05.040] - Clara Scarafia
Everything else. That is, there is consciousness, there is action in my opinion, that is, behind the curtain is what you go to put on the back burner for a moment, that is, living an active life and having to do certain things, there is a whole much wider range of possibilities even from an emotional point of view and unforeseen and unpredictability. Whereas here you actually find a certain degree of predictability. Then the thing happens that you don't expect on the other side, and I experience it very much as there are almost only unexpected. I try very much to control things in my life, that is, I have this need for control that sometimes also creates imbalances for me. But if I had to say really objectively how I experience reality, for me reality is unmanageable stuff, that is, stuff that you never know what you might expect. So I mean I don't know, I mean practically the situation on the other side is this that there are a whole series of variables of issues, of situations, of feelings that are all completely different and they all come from different parts sometimes they don't end because anyway it's sudden stuff that then goes away.
[00:13:45.560] - Clara Scarafia
But the feeling is always the same, which is that there are so many things that then touch and so even when they go to touch they create stuff for you. Again, there's always stuff that touches and that initiates you to certain things, certain connections, certain things that hurt you. It's kind of what's behind it, which is the fact that for those who can see it in a more coherent, linear, certain, and even intended scheme of things, Here not.
[00:14:28.480] - Gianmarco Moneti
Here is a twofold question to always try to find this translation. On the one hand, the first one I ask is, do you have any artistic work in mind that is musical or iconographic that represents this escapism?
[00:14:54.530] - Clara Scarafia
So I check among the things that I had marked because actually -- I mean I felt very. Here, one movie that I had marked down among the various things that I think makes this escapism stuff very much is Donnie Darko. I mean Donnie Darko when I was growing up was kind of one of my favorite movies, I had seen it 100 times, and still there, although there is no suicide, there is still a sacrifice, there is still a seeking the good of others while putting one's own on the back burner, and there is so much of this thing there of both disassociation and estrangement, somehow there is the fact that nevertheless there is a protagonist who is on the one hand having this imaginary friend, seeing this person who doesn't actually exist and that is a factor that yes, comes from the outside, so from his medical history, from a whole series of things, and then there is also the issue of time travel, that he has molded it to a person that he will see in the future so there is a real stuff there is a real thing about this thing here.
[00:16:15.671] - Clara Scarafia
But yet on the other side there is still a willingness to give it a face, to give it a form and to say, "okay, I get in contact with this entity which however is stuff that I have formed in my head," so in my opinion that is a film that gives a lot on that aspect here.
[00:16:37.790] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay. Sounds?
[00:16:39.530] - Clara Scarafia
Sounds. A bit of a simmer. Watery sounds, however related to liquid, muffled water.
[00:16:56.840] - Gianmarco Moneti
Something rumbling that has no contours, however.
[00:17:01.010] - Clara Scarafia
Exactly. It gives me that impression there, that kind of thing.
[00:17:06.440] - Gianmarco Moneti
And since right behind that you were going for something anyway evading, is there anything in particular that you remember last year that you were using to evade? Just I'm talking to you on the level of filmography and on the level of music in particular.
[00:17:23.480] - Clara Scarafia
Especially stupid movies, I mean stupid, light movies, which is something that I usually don't care about. I mean that's another interesting thing, in escapism I actually don't just look for this thing here, sometimes I actually try to hurt myself, I mean I listen to things, I watch things that I know are going to make me sick, sure, and I look for that thing there. And that though actually sometimes it's helpful because the moment you're in real life and you know you're hurting about something, however you can't get it out in any way, I mean you know it's there, but it always stays kind of hidden. In the last year this has also happened to me a lot actually, I mean it has happened to me sometimes even this no often not, they are less of escapist stuff, which has happened to me less than usual however just given that feeling of apathy, of detachment, of blockage. Sometimes I've been going after things that I knew would make me feel bad or there was a possibility that they would make me feel bad.
[00:19:08.163] - Clara Scarafia
And nothing basic, then they did what they were supposed to do. So an evasion that is, however, aimed at actually feeling something, that is, aimed at feeling something strong, even unpleasant, unwelcome.
[00:19:31.600] - Gianmarco Moneti
But do you remember? Can I ask you if you remember back in the day what you listened to or what?
[00:19:37.870] - Clara Scarafia
Yes, so I put you on this list as well. So there are some things -- here's one thing that can come in handy in this situation here is the fact that I always mark down everything I watch and everything I read, so I go and review in the movie diary for example.
[00:20:14.660] - Gianmarco Moneti
Movie diary? Beautiful.
[00:20:16.940] - Clara Scarafia
Yeah, there's this app called Letter Box, which basically you can mark things you see, so then it basically puts, like, everything you mark you put in a journal divided month by month to see what you saw. Back too far back. So, here for example what I see here is that I for March, April and May I saw almost nothing, I saw almost no movies. For example I saw one movie in April, but because they took me to the movies.
[00:21:06.460] - Gianmarco Moneti
So you didn't choose it.
[00:21:10.870] - Clara Scarafia
No, Exactly. And then in May I saw a couple of movies that were more on the lighter side, though, let's say. And instead in June I saw for example Promising Young Woman, which I knew was not a heavy subject, however I knew it would have nothing to do with what happened to me. Then I saw other movies instead, like Mysterious Skin, which is a movie that's basically about these two kids who then as adults meet again and they've both been molested by a baseball coach, but nobody did anything about it and they experienced it completely differently. One of them discovered his homosexuality as a result of what had been there and then started prostituting himself, having a completely unregulated life. The other one, on the other hand, is convinced that he was abducted by aliens: that is, he basically has these gaps of when he was seeing this coach and he's self-convinced, he's suggestible about the alien thing and so really, there's already a giant dissociation stuff here. I mean I knew well or poorly what the underlying theme of the film was, even though it's stuff that doesn't affect me personally actually, I knew that anyway it could make me feel bad, because anyway within the film there's also this thing of the absence of the family, of the fact that the parents maybe knew, but they preferred not to do anything, so anyway I knew it could give me a little bit of this feeling here.
[00:23:01.029] - Clara Scarafia
Then I saw Reprise, which is kind of the first film in the trilogy of that director who also did The Worst Person in the World, which is a film that is now very famous. I haven't seen it yet. It talks about depression, it talks a lot about depression. The main character I don't remember if he even came out, I mean he came out of a clinic because he tried to commit suicide, so I knew it was going to be heavy, and yet in this case there was a twist. By the way if you happen to watch this movie.
[00:23:41.020] - Gianmarco Moneti
I watch them all.
[00:23:41.830] - Clara Scarafia
These extra ones here, I'll mark them for you because they're not written. There's a moment at one point basically there are these two guys who are best friends, they both want to be writers. One never breaks through, the other breaks through right away. He starts having drug problems, depression, he's very sick. Then there's a period where he's not in the friend group anymore and there's this period instead where he comes back and so he's dealing with a whole situation that he left years before, so he's in this situation here. At one point there's a moment where they go to a party all together at these people's house, they make a disarming mess. Instead to me that stuff put a lot of happiness I mean it put a lot of joy in me, because it made me think, "fuck though you see there can still be this thing here." That is that the feeling for me is always very I was talking about it both in therapy and with Andrea, I talked about it a lot, that me having this way of experiencing emotions very intensely there are also moments where maybe I go out, I'm in a situation that I like, I'm with people that I like, I do stupid things, like we're in the car, you sing in the car and I in those moments there, I feel very happy.
[00:25:08.289] - Clara Scarafia
I mean I feel a very powerful stuff of happiness, of wanting to crystallize that moment and say, "fuck there's this too," which for me is a very important stuff, also just for a psyche thing, I mean I need to have those points of knowing that I can go back there that that moment was there, can be there.
[00:25:29.710] - Gianmarco Moneti
Which may also be these that I drew just now.
[00:25:33.910] - Clara Scarafia
And so there instead I was expecting to be very sick, instead there I had a moment of joy of saying "fuck but these things here happened to me too, they can happen again." So yeah, then aside from that actually here I see there are a lot of other stupid, stupid movies. And then there was the musical period, because musicals are kind of my comfort zone when I'm sick. That's it. Then for example I watched the new IT movies my dad and I used to watch the old one all the time, and so I watched the new ones with the knowledge that anyway they might be a little bit upsetting and actually not. Here then in October in my opinion, here also started another phase, because for example I still watched, I mean always in this grid here, I found myself watching new things, which I knew could potentially make me feel something however they were things that I had not seen before.
[00:26:52.320] - Clara Scarafia
Then there was a moment when I started to feel better. Anyway in the fall, slowly I started to feel better, to feel a little bit more stable, I had a moment where I decided to rewatch some things, which is something that I actually do very often, however I really wanted to avoid, I mean first in my opinion on a subconscious level I kind of wanted to avoid triggering those things that might have carried over with all the memory that was there and so for example I rewatched Girls Interrupted, which is one of my favorite movies, I also reread the book recently. Then here's like all the stuff that relates back to the movies that I've marked there. Ah here it is, one night we had film forum with Marta, Caterina and Federica from a distance and we watched Million Dollar Baby. Million Dollar Baby is a movie that I watched with my dad so many times, one of the movies that we always watched together, and that is the Irish appellation that he uses to call her that my dad sometimes used with me and so I said, "I'm going to try to watch it.
[00:28:14.583] - Clara Scarafia
" Let's see how it goes. In my opinion I started off with such high defenses that I didn't cry because I already knew he was going to hammer me so I was pretty straightforward. While Marta, Caterina and Federica who had never seen it cried so much, they were terrible.
[00:28:37.140] - Clara Scarafia
Instead then there's a whole kind of series of movies that I think even there you go back into the realm of "it might make me sick" but I don't know because I've never seen them. I mean for example, which I put you on the list there as well, there's After Sun, which is a movie about a father and daughter who go on a vacation together and she's little and it happened to me a lot to go with my dad on vacation when I was little because my mom worked at the restaurant. It's a beautiful film because it's a very quiet film, and you see the last days of this, of this father, this daughter on vacation. In my opinion the director had a way of expressing the mental illness in the father with a disarming delicacy, because in my opinion it's one of those situations that if you've never lived through or you've never been interested in the subject, you might even think that he's fine, that is, you might think to yourself, "boh, whatever, yes, a little bit strange at times.
[00:29:47.191] - Clara Scarafia
" But instead there's a whole series of things that I think when you see him, that is in the sense a whole series of things that I've seen, that I've actually done even from a certain point of view so, I mean, there's that whole that area there.
[00:30:05.880] - Clara Scarafia
Instead always on the movies that I rewatched knowing that they might make me sick there is then, Girls Interrupted I said it. No here's a movie that I rewatched recently because I think I've seen it. I knew they would come in handy at some point, fortunately. Okay, in January of this year I saw the Tenenbaum family, Wes Anderson's The Tenenbaums. I absolutely love that movie. And then there's this thing here that, we had also seen that with my dad and he had always compared himself to his dad. Effectively I mean it's all very linear, because anyway he arrested, he messed up a lot and with the family he acts present yes, but because he needs something. And then in Tenenbaum there is one of the scenes that breaks my heart, which I also put the link here, which is the scene of Richie Tenenbaum, the former tennis player who failed, attempting suicide in the bathroom of his sister's ex-husband psychiatrist.
[00:31:56.760] - Clara Scarafia
And that scene in my opinion perfect, I mean perfect for the kind of scene that for the kind of music there is, because anyway there is a song by Elliott Smith. Which also Elliot Smith by the way died at the age of 34 and he might have committed suicide, he's always in that line of, you don't know for sure because he didn't leave notes he didn't leave anything, however there is that possibility here. It's beautiful in my opinion because you go from a moment where we have a colorful, mega-saturated film, despite telling a disastrous family story because it's actually a disastrous thing anyway, there's always this hope, this underlying thing, that almost seems very light. Then instead there's this scene where suddenly he goes into the bathroom, turns on the bathroom light, everything is blue, suddenly everything is very cold, and there's the scene that while he's shaving, you can hear the voiceover of him saying, "I've decided, tomorrow I'm going to kill myself." And in my opinion that's maybe one of the most powerful portrayals I've ever found on the subject, maybe because it's unexpected.
[00:33:15.524] - Clara Scarafia
I mean it's just something that you find yourself watching: a suicide attempt in a Wes Anderson film that is stuff that at first I think you don't explain it that much.
[00:33:30.740] - Clara Scarafia
Besides the fact precisely that there's this whole thing of shaving, getting a haircut. Of course, this letting go of the past a little bit is that, in my opinion, like one of the most important things. In fact the things that I've marked here, in this list are all stuff that I actually experienced as realistic for one reason or another. But precisely also the question of how you react to a suicide, in my opinion I mean there is that question there because everybody expects you to a tragedy precisely to react in a certain way. But there is also then the whole question of focusing on the why, but never so much on the how, that is, on the moment, per se. In my opinion all these representations express suicide or potential suicide in a very realistic way, as I experienced it for how I heard it told in real life.
[00:34:46.500] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay well, shall we take a break? The topic of evasion seems to me to be concluded.
[00:34:54.600] - Clara Scarafia
However, if you don't remember the scene, I would show it to you.
[00:34:57.510] - Gianmarco Moneti
Ah yes, thank you. Actually, the interviewee better than the interviewer, I would say it also takes very little, though.
[00:35:50.120] - Clara Scarafia
And then from a figurative point of view it's interesting because it still continues to respect the perspective. I mean although there is a change of colors and musically it really changes register is I mean I don't know in my opinion this is one of the best scenes they've ever done in a movie, I don't know. And then there's suddenly when they're out of already and already it goes back to being a little bit like it was before.
[00:37:21.790] - Gianmarco Moneti
Dude, I didn't remember that.
[00:00:01.140] - Gianmarco Moneti
Then, under your will, you also want to address the issue of loneliness.
[00:00:12.960] - Clara Scarafia
That then, that in my opinion is a more vague theme, that is compared to these that we have talked about so far in my opinion are stuff that you can better isolate, that is that basically there is what I felt, what I think the person might have felt in the act, what I think might be the perception or what you think might be the normal perception of how you should react to something or how you should experience something. Loneliness in my opinion is stuff that kind of attaches to everything, but that is not loneliness a unique and ultimate sense of loneliness of a lonely person. In my opinion the feeling is that anyway, good or bad, when a person makes such a gesture, especially as it happened in my personal history, of what I have seen and experienced, there is still a, that is, my perception is that there was still a person who was in a moment of extreme loneliness, of loneliness that was from a certain point of view created by the environment, by society: that is, a person who good or bad felt rejected by society.
[00:01:34.950] - Clara Scarafia
And the biggest problem probably arose the moment this person started to feel rejected even by the inner circle of people who could have helped him out, But at the same time, seeing it from the outside, I saw how much all the people involved tried to actually help out and so this feeling that, I mean my feeling is that actually loneliness is something that springs from within you and that you create for yourself, somehow. That is, that I understand that there is an external perception of being rejected however it is also so much something that I think comes from you that is, it comes from the person, because actually what I noticed and that is, I noticed, basically This clarinet is starting to upset me.... That basically that is all people feel lonely basically. At least a time when you feel lonely and you don't know who to ask, I think it exists for everybody and it's there. That is, that then the fact that you don't seek the outside is due to different factors, because it may be that you don't seek the outside because you want to push yourself into that situation, that is, you want to put yourself in such a situation where you can't second guess yourself.
[00:03:20.580] - Clara Scarafia
Exactly also the thing about the Di Tenenbaum scene: there is this thing of him nevertheless seeing what he is leaving behind. When in my opinion actually, there are times when you don't even see that, and so I get the impression that, even from the outside, that is, even from the person who didn't do the deed but suffered it, somehow found himself suffering it in some way, the feeling is a little bit that as much as there is a willingness to be close, there is an underlying incommunicability. I happened to talk about this anyway, and actually I in my life, at least, I don't know any person who has missed a parent by suicide that is, I have never known a person to whom such a thing has happened. I don't have that feeling precisely that as much as I precisely am very grateful to the fact that anyway I had so many people who were there for me and even with my mom anyway when we were facing the aftermath, I didn't feel alone at that moment there sincerely, I really felt that I had a network of contacts of people who did their best to, I don't know, even to not make me feel that way.
[00:05:49.600] - Clara Scarafia
But basically in my opinion you always end up coming back to one i.e. I at least always ended up reflecting on this loneliness thing of isolation because I realize that precisely although all people experience loneliness at times in life the types of loneliness are always different always due to different things, sometimes they are due to nothing at all. In my opinion sometimes there are times when you just feel lonely. I have the impression that sometimes loneliness becomes a self-feeding thing, because you start to feel lonely and you know that if you wanted to you could look for contact, you could look for the other person to not feel that way basically or to overcome that state there anyway. But at the same time there are times when you don't feel like doing that. That is, you don't feel like it makes sense to you.
[00:07:03.300] - Clara Scarafia
In my opinion sometimes it can also be a matter that being a very very strong feeling but also a very personal feeling, that is one of the few things in my opinion that springs from you and you feel it and it's there and you're feeling it, in my opinion from a certain point of view the fact that you don't look for an external foothold is also a bit of a thing of recognizing the purity of that feeling there, that is, the fact of saying, "it's mine, that is a feeling that is only mine because it springs from me, it has nothing to do with external causes, I felt it springing up, I feel it's there." Sometimes you almost feel like you are disrespecting that feeling if you try to look for something outside, also because you know you might find it. So nothing this is kind of the thing I wanted to say about loneliness.
[00:08:05.480] - Gianmarco Moneti
I would like to ask you a question with respect to this thing here. As usual you are always free not to answer. With this discourse that you have opened now, somehow this came to my mind: have you also tried to empathize with the thought of feeling that loneliness that led your father to commit suicide?
[00:08:37.120] - Clara Scarafia
So since it happened, no, I haven't tried. Because the problem is that I, I mean I had it better. But I that loneliness there I have already experienced it and I know how, I know how it works. It's a kind of loneliness, a kind of thinking that I try to keep away from but not because I don't want to know, but because I already know. Because I know that for me it could have a practical repercussion then actually. That is, I know that the moment I start thinking that he might have felt a certain way I would then go and awaken a whole series of things that I have already felt. And if I then got to a certain point where I precisely set off that circle where it becomes self-feeding, I don't know actually if I would be in a position to ask for help, and so yes, that is a feeling that I identified with anyway, but because of what I experienced.
[00:09:43.840] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay so you don't find it completely directed to the next phase of what happened.
[00:09:55.570] - Clara Scarafia
No exactly that is because basically I have tried to keep myself very distant actually from what he will have felt, I have tried not to question myself too much and I have really tried to keep the thought away because precisely already to a certain degree, being able to understand it, I know that I could not experience it with that degree of detachment so I can say "okay I get it, I'm sorry but I get why. That is, I understand the point you've reached to be able to do such a thing." So yes, there has been an escape from the thought, there has been this thing here, there is just putting distance with that thought there.
[00:11:01.910] - Gianmarco Moneti
Okay. So why did you want to talk about loneliness?
[00:11:06.320] - Clara Scarafia
Because in my opinion anyway it's a looming thing. I mean as much as I tried to keep that thought away, however already the fact that I wanted to talk to you about it, talked to you about it in these terms
[00:11:23.870] - Gianmarco Moneti
So what did you draw?
[00:11:27.050] - Clara Scarafia
I don't know, what you feel, I mean what I think you feel a little bit in those moments there. That is, the fact that you start from a little thing that is there and then it feeds and goes to feed other things that feed back in turn.
[00:11:45.470] - Gianmarco Moneti
But somehow you knew this thing and being very clear about that feeling there you always had as a security "no this is not something that now I have to, I can't afford to experience it."
[00:12:00.260] - Clara Scarafia
Yes.
[00:12:01.650] - Gianmarco Moneti
And so before though in what sense you said, before somehow you also said almost the exact opposite, right? Also the importance of even trying this: in what sense with respect to that vicissitude?
[00:12:20.370] - Clara Scarafia
It's strange because I feel both at the same time, I mean I feel from a certain point of view that it's important to give space to that loneliness, to say "okay it's a legitimate thing that springs from me and I don't want it to be touched by others, I don't want it to be contaminated in any way" however in my opinion it's also a little bit related to the fact that actually in the moment when you find yourself having that kind of feeling there, of being completely excluded from the world and being completely alone, the only thing that can get you out of that thing there and actually come out of it, that is to talk about it, even talk about it in other terms, that is to say that you felt down in the dumps, you didn't get in touch you didn't come out for a while. Because you were down in the dumps. I mean I've often been in situations where I didn't feel comfortable talking about how I had been, but I always kind of demurred and anyway from the outside always came that interest to involve me, to get me out of that loop so then actually I was able to get out of that loop.
[00:13:41.670] - Gianmarco Moneti
But how did you experience loneliness? I'm sorry but I always ask you respect to the after your father.
[00:13:49.110] - Clara Scarafia
Bad. Bad because from a certain point of view one thing I did a lot from the moment it happened was trying to deviate from the figure of my father in terms of me carrying a baggage and that I could do the same things, I could make mistakes, I could make the same choices because precisely even that stuff we were saying before about being bad, I don't think my father made the choices he made because he was a bad person, in everything he did in life. He was definitely a weak person, that he was. That is, he always looked for the easy way out, the thing that at the moment seemed the easiest, which then instead poured more burdens on him than before. So I always kind of had this thing that I had to detach myself from him and when in the before already I always felt it very strongly this thing because he kept reiterating how much we were alike, but I kept detaching myself from this thing because I knew him and I saw his mistakes and I didn't want to recognize myself in that thing there.
[00:15:08.810] - Clara Scarafia
So much so that I got to a certain point that before what happened, I would have wanted to have a nose job, because when I looked in the mirror I would see my father's nose I was sick. For me it was something to be suppressed that is, this closeness, there should not have been this similarity between us, there should not have been. The moment it then happened, after the parenthesis of very great anger that put these issues here on the back burner a little bit, now I can see it with some detachment. Still not with nostalgia, that's not. But I have made a whole series of decisions that have actually given me a chance to put myself back into a perspective whereby I don't have to make any rash and final decisions. Even the fact, for example, of changing my last name. I had set my mind last fall that I would change my last name. Then I decided no because it's one of the few concrete things I have left, at least. I don't remember what the question was anymore though, I got lost.
[00:16:27.020] - Gianmarco Moneti
No no no no no it was, but you answered, what was the contact with loneliness after your father, so somehow
[00:16:36.500] - Clara Scarafia
Up to the contact with loneliness was simply that I continued to feel the kind of loneliness that I have always felt because anyway sometimes it came back and it comes back because anyway I know it comes back cyclically. But for now I'm managing that motto of "go out into the world, talk to people. Don't feel like it? Impose it." And then exactly actually if you think about it it's not that kind of purity of feeling that you don't want others to contaminate it, the moment you realize that you come out of that cocoon there you still realize that that feeling was there anyway. Sometimes you really say to yourself, "but why do I force myself into that loop?" That is, because then when I come out of it I'm glad I got out of it. But the moment you're in it, it throws you back down a little bit. And exactly that's why I also tried not to think about how it might have been for him from a certain point of view not only because exactly I think a little bit I know but also because as much as loneliness maybe looks a little bit alike for everybody, it's different, it's always different.
[00:18:02.170] - Clara Scarafia
So I don't think, I mean I don't apply myself so much to thinking about how he might have been at certain times, what he might have felt, because I will never know. I mean even if he was still here I couldn't know.
[00:18:17.110] - Gianmarco Moneti
Somehow you have already said that, however I want to ask you this question. Somehow then in this loneliness you were also afraid to be him?
[00:18:33.340] - Clara Scarafia
Yes that unfortunately yes. I try so hard to detach myself from it precisely because I see commonalities and I feel sometimes that there are commonalities and I simply wouldn't want to. But yes, that has happened to me at times.
[00:18:55.120] - Gianmarco Moneti
And this loneliness is hard to I mean really charged, it's something of... It's almost even fear, just just solely of being in that... I don't know, I can't... You said well, there's no clear image to be able to represent this, although what you drew, the more I look at it, somehow it's like a vortex, right? What did you represent? A vortex that carries you? It's so many vortexes that almost break you into so many parts.
[00:19:33.990] - Clara Scarafia
Then it always brings you back down. One thing it takes in my opinion is a lot of willpower to try to get out of it. What I often think about the issue of suicide in general is that it is potentially something that for those precisely who have this kind of problem and predisposition toward life, it could happen at any time i.e. there is no That is, there are ways to prevent it, because then there is the whole issue precisely of treatment, social networks. But objectively in my opinion there is no way to put a point and define that that thing will never happen.
[00:20:31.770] - Gianmarco Moneti
I mean almost a matter of sensitivity, I would say. You are more at risk of getting into that vortex there, of your own. Look you do this for me, this is a gift I ask you for me, can you draw me the beyond loneliness on the next page, please? What is beyond loneliness.
[00:21:03.930] - Clara Scarafia
So I thought of it a little bit like this, let's see if I can represent it.
[00:21:50.530] - Clara Scarafia
In my opinion, this thing that I'm trying to draw, is that on the other side instead of a vortex that pushes you down there is still stuff that supports you in some way. And that it's not linear because still it's not that the moment you come out and you're better then it's all solved, it's all good, but there's a whole series of stimuli and a whole series of things that are there, exist and can help you a little bit in the moments when you think that the vortex is the only viable thing, the only thing that exists, the only thing that you want above all. I mean this thing of saying " boh yeah however actually now that I'm out of it since on the other side there are stimuli, there are some different things, there are some even good things however that are not always good" in fact there is this thing of high and low because even in social relationships it's not that just by going out and seeing people you're better off, there's that maybe you go out and you see the wrong person and you make wrong talk and you think "fuck, it's even worse than I thought.
[00:23:04.520] - Gianmarco Moneti
However, it is a continuous line that does not return on itself.
[00:23:07.730] - Clara Scarafia
Exactly I mean the impression is this. And that actually there is something on the other side because I have the impression that when the whirlpool pulls you in, it's very difficult to remember that there is something else outside.
[00:23:27.530] - Gianmarco Moneti
Of course.
[00:23:30.350] - Clara Scarafia
In my opinion it's a little bit like this.
[00:23:34.440] - Gianmarco Moneti
Enough is enough, I would say