Podbit · Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
After Ashley's secretly gay father died in 2017, the family had him cremated and then — during a move — lost his ashes for several years. They were eventually found in the guest room closet. As Ashley put it: 'Even in death, my dad is still in a closet.'
Where this was said
At 8:47 · chapter starts 2:32
Ashley's story is the crown jewel of the episode — a masterclass in secrets layering secrets. It starts at age 12, when a middle-school biology Punnett square assignment sent Ashley home to collect her parents' blood types. The math didn't add up, and when she confronted her mother, her mom dissolved into tears and revealed the sperm donor conception. Years later, at 19, Ashley discovered her father watching gay porn — his excuse that he was following a Men's Health magazine link didn't survive basic investigation. Ashley researched his browser history, burned the findings to a disc, and left her mother to decide what to do. Her mother never confronted him. Her father died in 2017, never publicly acknowledged as gay, and was subsequently cremated. In a final, perfectly ironic twist, the family lost his ashes during a move — only to find them years later in a guest room closet [1] — Ashley "After Ashley's secretly gay father died in 2017, the family had him cremated and then — during a move — lost his ashes for several years. T…" 08:47 . A late conversation with Ashley's dying aunt revealed that the father's lifelong 'college roommate' had long been understood by the extended family as likely his partner [2] — Ashley "A deathbed visit to Ashley's dying uncle surfaced the truth everyone had quietly accepted except Ashley's mom: her father's lifelong 'colle…" 09:16 . The donor, meanwhile, was no vetted medical resident as promised — just a friend of the doctor paid $20 a Dixie cup, who left behind approximately 18 half-siblings across 23andMe and Ancestry [3] — Ashley "18 DNA half-siblings from one donor: Ashley discovered approximately 18 half-siblings on Ancestry and 23andMe, all from the same unvetted s…" 10:26 [4] — Ashley "Unvetted donor paid $20 per donation: Ashley's biological father was not a vetted medical resident as her mother was told — he was just a f…" 10:08 .
Ashley first discovered she was donor-conceived at age 12 through a biology class Punnett square assignment, when the blood type math didn't add up.
A Punnett square in 7th grade biology kicked off Ashley's lifelong unpeeling of her family's secrets: she was donor-conceived, her father was secretly gay, and his ashes literally ended up lost in a closet for years. The wild part? The sperm donor was an unvetted friend of the doctor, paid $20 a Dixie cup, who left behind roughly 18 half-siblings on DNA sites.
Ashley's mother found her father watching gay porn and he claimed he was accessing a Men's Health quiz link. When Ashley went to investigate his computer, what she found was unambiguous. Her father had a very specific type — and was a big Heath Ledger fan.
After Ashley's closeted gay father passed away in 2017 and was cremated, the family lost his ashes for several years, only to find them in a guest room closet.
A deathbed visit to Ashley's dying uncle surfaced the truth everyone had quietly accepted except Ashley's mom: her father's lifelong 'college roommate' was almost certainly his partner. They had dinner together for hours at a stretch until the night he brought Ashley's mother home. The secret had been silently understood within the family — for decades.
Most people confuse things they value instrumentally (because they get them other things) with things they value intrinsically (for their own sake). Greenberg's friend stayed in a miserable relationship for years because she was living by her parents' values, not her own — the values map made the mismatch instantly visible.
Jungian analyst James Hollis distills a good life to four things: shut up (have gratitude, stop whining), suit up (prepare yourself to fulfill a role), show up (do the actual work in service of others), and daily get out of stimulus-response to ask what your deeper wish actually is. The whole landscape of self-help slots into just these four bins.
Toward the end of their 20s, many men discover that all the strategies that earned them recognition and success have stopped working. It's a second adolescence — more important than the first — where the question shifts from 'how do I play the game?' to 'who do I actually want to become?' Most people going through it look fragile from the outside. They're actually building a foundation.
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Men need a 'bank account' of masculine status — muscle, money, success — before society grants them permission to express vulnerability. Chris Bumstead can cry at the Olympia and get celebrated. A struggling nobody doing the same thing gets contempt. This creates a tragic paradox where the men who most need emotional support get the least of it.
Emotional sensitivity isn't a defect — it's a high-resolution scanner for human experience. Highly sensitive people pick up body language, tone, and unspoken tension that others miss entirely. In the right environment, that's not a liability. It's a superpower.
Her supervisor told her she was too emotional for the pediatric ICU. So she asked herself: 'What area of medicine can I cry in?' That question led her to psychiatry. Finding the environment that holds your emotional sensitivity isn't retreat — it's strategy.
For someone with RSD, ghosting isn't ambiguity — it's a self-verdict. Their brain doesn't read 'this relationship ended,' it reads 'I am the reason this failed.' No closure means the brain fills the gap with evidence of personal insufficiency, and it keeps filling indefinitely.
More freedom doesn't produce more happiness — it produces more anxiety. Kierkegaard identified this 180 years ago: the more options you have, the more you feel the 'dizziness of freedom,' a paralytic unease at having to choose any single one. The freest generation in history is, by his prediction, exactly the most anxious.
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