#dee lore

Dee was raised not by her emotionally distant mother, Barbara, or her father, Frank, but rather a "series of Mexican women" who served as nannies. Barbara, who chose Frank under the belief that he was wealthier than her former lover Bruce Mathis, consistently favored Dennis over Dee. Thanks to Frank’s real estate business and shady dealings, the twins had a financially stable childhood.

The neglect from her parents was supplemented by the dubious influence of her maternal grandfather Pop Pop (Heinrich Landgraf), a former SS officer, whose presence in her life introduced her to extreme ideologies and further complicated her moral landscape. Based on his uniform, he was a low ranking gestapo officer. He may have even been an acquaintance of Adolf Hitler. Barbara was certainly raised with a Nazi belief system, a tradition he would go on to continue with his grandchildren Dennis and Deandra. His home was filled with Nazi memorabilia including the German Shepherd painted by Hitler.

In 1981 when the twins were five, Pop Pop attempted to indoctrinate his grandchildren through a Neo-Nazi summer camp. All of this was so normalized within the family that the twins didn’t realize there was anything wrong or off with these things until their 20s.

Dee and Dennis went to Waldron Elementary school. They grew up in the Reynolds house that would later become the “Party Mansion”.

Frank was often away conducting business and Barbara was an absent mother addicted to amphetamines. Despite this, at some points they take trips to the Jersey Shore and the twins build positive memories there together.

Frank and Barbara were incredibly neglectful and verbally abusive to Dee, the “black sheep” of the family. Among other things, Barbara used to always say “Worst is first” because Dee was born first.

Raised primarily by a series of caretakers rather than their own parents, the twins were subjected to cruel psychological games like the Christmas "fake out," where Frank would show off the gifts the children had wanted most for himself, while Dee and Dennis received empty boxes. Frank would make home movies of Dee and her brother opening the empty boxes, laughing at their disappointment.

Such experiences contributed to her complex relationship with reality, where she often downplays or rationalizes the abnormal behaviors witnessed in her family, including those of her brother Dennis. For instance, she dismisses Dennis's violent act of snapping a crow's neck, revealing her struggle to maintain a semblance of normalcy against her better judgment. Later in life Dee still defends and downplays this behavior saying,

“Well, he kind of... snapped the neck, uh, off a crow one time a little bit. But that... but that's not not normal right, you know? (laughs) I mean, it was just like boys being boys. Yeah. That...Look, we had a totally normal childhood, and...Look, Dennis wouldn't hurt a fly. No way.”

To which Frank would say : “Whatever Deandra says is BS. She's probably just covering for him because she's afraid he's gonna snap her neck like that crow.”

While she does tend to minimize what she saw, she began having recurring nightmares about it that would haunt her for life. “I still have nightmares about it…And I'm old.”

Her tendency to put Dennis on a pedestal despite his glaring flaws also highlights her conflicted feelings of loyalty, envy, and shared identity as twins. Dee has always put Dennis on a pedestal, so when he does things that are clearly wrong she has to find ways to compartmentalize and rationalize it to herself. You can also see that Dee tells herself that her childhood was normal, despite all of the traumatic experiences.

Their extended family consisted of at least Pop-Pop, Uncle Max and Aunt Donna (Barbara’s sister) as well as their cousin of similar age Gail “the snail” who they found annoying, so they would frequently bully and throw salt at her.

Dennis:“No one likes salting the snail but she gives you no choice.”

Dee: “She doesn't leave you with any options.”

Barbara was a perfectionist about appearances, which not only made her extremely insecure about her own looks and aging but also incredibly cruel towards Deandra. She constantly told Dee that she “wasn’t pretty enough” for whatever she was trying to accomplish. She would also fat shame her when she was clearly not fat at all. (Also, Barbara later on dies from a botched neck lift after Frank makes one remark about her “turkey neck” after their divorce.) Barbara held herself and her children to impossible beauty standards, and Frank didn’t exactly help; he actually perpetuated it, going so far as to call Dee “a dog” and never calling her pretty. Dee grows to hate and resent her mother, and neither twin attended her funeral later on.

Dee was a successful child beauty pageant winner, winning several shows she entered on her own despite both parents’ constant criticism of her looks and lack of support. (Later in life when she performs for Frank’s Little Beauties Pageant, during her original song “Moms Stink” she throws a photo of Barbara in the trash onstage).

Dennis and Dee were also raised Catholic, frequently attending church and confessing their sins.

By the time she reached middle school in the late 1980s, she had been diagnosed with scoliosis and made to wear a back brace, which became the source of a lot of bullying down the road and earning her the nickname “Aluminum Monster”. Dennis began to fit in with the “cool kids” more than Dee was.

Later on Charlie reads her middle school diary entries from her childhood bedroom in the Reynolds House / Party Mansion and discovers the following snippets from this period..

“Dear Diary, the dance was a total disaster. I cried myself to sleep again last night. Mom forced me to wear the back brace. And all the school chanted "aluminum monster!”

and

"I'm totally gonna tell Eric how much I like him tonight. Even though Danielle was like all over him today in school. Mother said, "Don't bother. He wants a pretty girl instead. "'

This period marked a turning point for her depression and possibly the beginning of her s**** ideation.

In the early 1990s, the gang entered high school. Dee attended the Academy of Notre Dame an all-girls academy that was affiliated with St. Joseph's Preparatory School, which Dennis Mac and Charlie went to. By 1993 Frank was gone in Vietnam opening a sweatshop. Dee had already established herself as unpopular due to her back brace and horrible self esteem. However, she continued to try to fit in and become a “cool kid”. Having no friends, she hangs out with Ingrid “Fatty Magoo” Nelson, another girl in her class that is frequently bullied.

Other classmates of hers included the Waitress, Maureen Ponderosa, Stacy Corvelli, and Nikki Potnick.

She attended physical therapy twice a week with Matthew Mara, a boy from St. Joseph’s with a huge crush on Dee and whom the gang would tease. Dee found belonging and power in taunting him, making him do all of her math homework as well as embarrassing things (like making him eat horse poop before getting to kiss her then refusing because ‘his breath smelled like shit’) much to Dennis and his friends’ amusement. She would also make fun of Brad Fisher for his acne along with the other students. The gang would also drink and party underage frequently.

During this time Dee found an escape in drama class with Dr. Larry Meyers. He made her feel a sense of self worth when she was performing, as he encouraged her talents and cast her in roles.

Around 1994, the twins graduate high school. Around this time Dee decided to stop going to her church, which may or may not be linked to her newfound passion for the pro-choice movement. She got into University of Pennsylvania and chose Psychology as her major, and was assigned a dorm with a female roommate. Somehow Dee’s insecurity and possibly internalized misogyny created a strange dynamic between them of jealousy, rivalry, and obsession.

By 1997 her back brace was removed. Dee enters into a secret sexual relationship with her professor Dr. Gainer. Her roommate issues escalate as Dee finds her “annoying” and accuses her of copying her and wearing her clothes, which Dennis claims happened the other way around. The conflict came to a head when, as she puts it, she burned her roommate “Down to the box springs whilst she was sleeping” after she “crossed” her.

Dee is sentenced to be institutionalized, and presumably get no support from her parents during this phase. Not only does Barbara see her as even more of a disappointment, Frank probably wouldn’t set foot in another mental hospital even if he wanted to. The family becomes more estranged, and while the twins remain in each others lives, they distance themselves from their parents. [edit: this would actually be mainly after the roller rink era, as the twins were still very involved in with their parents’ expectations at this point]

By 1998 Dee was released with medication and a treatment plan, which probably caused her personality to seem more “sweet” than usual. Mac and Charlie were working at the roller rink where she also had a head injury around this time that went untreated.