150: What if you were trapped in a cycle of abuse? 52:10

Today's episode is brought to you by Audible. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, or expert advice, you can be inspired to new ways of thinking. And there's more to imagine when you listen. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog. Currently, I'm listening to Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, a wonderful audio title that challenges us to imagine a new way to lead

love, work, parent, and educate through the power of vulnerability. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash happening or text happening to 500-500. That's audible.com slash happening or text happening to 500-500.

This Is Actually Happening is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive.

It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Hello Prime members. Have you heard you can listen to your favorite podcasts like this is actually happening ad-free? It's good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime membership.

To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash ad-free podcasts. That's amazon.com slash ad-free podcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Check out our recently completed six-part series, The 82% Modern Stories of Love and Family, ad-free with your Prime membership.

Before today's episode, I wanted to remind everyone that there is now a Facebook group for the show. You can join the community on Facebook by searching for This Is Actually Happening Discussion Group. A big thank you to everyone who has already contributed, and I hope to see more of you join the conversation soon.

My earliest memories as a child were fear and anxiety. I was obsessed with being able to control the situation and I was never able to control the situation. And that would drive me crazy. That unknown just haunted me. Welcome to the Permatemp Corporation. A presentation of the audio podcast, This Is Actually Happening. Episode 150. What if you were trapped in a cycle of abuse?

This Is Actually Happening is sponsored by ADT. ADT knows a lot can happen in a second. One second you're happily single, and the next second you catch a glimpse of someone and you don't want to be. Maybe one second you have a business idea that seems like a pipe dream, and the next you have an LLC and a dream come true. And when it comes to your home, one second you feel safe,

And the next, something goes wrong. But with ADT's 24-7 professional monitoring, you still feel safe. Because when every second counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com today. I'm an only child. My mom was a single mom. My dad started experiencing some demons with drugs and alcohol. So they split when I was probably about one years old. So my mom raised me by herself.

I'm biracial, so my dad is black and my mom is white. And I was raised with my mom's side of the family, who also happened to be Jewish. So it was interesting. Growing up, I was like the only black girl in Hebrew school and things like that. So a lot of my family spent a lot of their time focusing on me because I was like the only great grandchild also. I think that I was just surrounded by a lot of love. And I just recall being pretty happy as a kid.

Also, there wasn't that many men in my family. And so it was kind of just all my aunts and my grandmothers and me and my mom and my cousins who were also all women. So I feel like I was raised by a lot of strong women who just taught me a lot about myself. I was always told when I was younger that I was like here before.

I just remember being so in touch with my emotions and knowing when things were wrong with other members of my family. I don't know, I always had the sense that I was also an old soul, and I think that goes back to maybe a past life. I remember one day I was roller skating at one of the cemeteries down the street from my house, and I remember me going up to some random tombstone and just being like, oh, hey, Mom, these are my real parents.

So it was kind of just this thing in my family that, like, it's just known that I've been here before. I feel it every day, and I felt it from my earliest memories. I remember my mom being super into, like, fortune tellers and psychics and mediums.

The same thing they would say all the time was like, your daughter is your guardian angel. And my mom would always say, because she had a past before she had me, that I just changed her life and I saved her life. And I think that was kind of a pattern and something I took with me really up until this day. Being 26 years old, I feel like I've always kind of saved my mom. And I was always her reason and her motivation to do a lot of things in life.

Growing up, I was very extroverted, very outgoing, very outspoken, very unapologetic. And I don't feel like I've changed much. I've always just been like an entertainer, just not afraid to take risks even as a child. I was very expressive. My mom is not so much of a young mom. She had me at 23, but we didn't grow up rich at all.

So she couldn't afford child care all the time. And so I would just kind of go to work with my aunt, which was at a bar. And I just remember also performing Unbreak My Heart in front of like a bar full of like drunk men and women shooting pool. And I was doing it for like Free Shirley Temples. So I was very outgoing and I still am. Growing up biracial...

It was interesting. You know, I never really felt that I was an outcast. I had a very open-minded family, and I'm very blessed and lucky to have been raised in that type of environment. But I remember having a lot of identity crises. I obviously looked different, and I knew why I looked different. I did have some type of relationship with my father's mother.

So I knew that I was black, obviously, but there's not many black kids in Hebrew school. In mine, there was just me. So that was interesting, too. I always felt like I stood out there. But I did go to public schools where it was natural for me to just become friends with the black kids. Like, I felt like I finally, like, wow, these people feel like more so my family than my family do sometimes. Like, they kind of just get me. They look like me. Like, now I feel like I have a sense of community at school. Right.

I think a lot of biracial kids go through this, at least friends of mine who you're just kind of not white enough for the white kids and not black enough for the black kids. But you look like the Spanish kids, but you're not Spanish. You don't speak Spanish. What do you people want from me? Like, I am trying to fit in here the best that I can. It's not really going well. And so I just ended up finding my people. So I remember my mom was dating a

a guy who at the time I was calling my dad because they started dating when I was so young and I loved him and he was black and also just looked like me and embraced me as his child. I think they started dating when I was two until maybe I was about five. I feel like I have that complete family now. I felt really secure, protected and at home. So then I got news that he was cheating on my mom and that was really devastating to me.

And shortly after, my mom and I were out to dinner one night and she was like, I want to take you somewhere. There's kids there and I want you to meet someone. And I was like, OK, like, sure. So I remember going to someone's house and meeting this man there.

It was interesting meeting him because I'd never saw my mom be romantic with anybody else besides the man I was then referring to as my dad, which was her ex-boyfriend. So I remember being a little weirded out, like, why is she hugging this man like that or holding his hand or kissing him like that? My mom was like, oh, by the way, like, this is Steve. This is his little sister. You guys go play and, like, become friends. Go play dress-up or something. I was five or six at the time. And I was like, okay, like, well, this can't be that bad.

So I just remember the beginning being really cool. He had a big family. I didn't know much about them, but there were so many kids. So I just felt like it was fun. Like anytime my mom was like, oh, we're going to Steve's house. I'd be like, oh my God. Yay. Like it's a sister home or is his daughter home? He had a daughter who was a year older than me as well. My introduction to him was very sweet. It was fun. So I remember my mom saying, I know it's been us for a little while, but

I think Steve's going to move in. You know, he's going to help us with some bills. And it was probably two months before they decided to move in together. This is awesome. Like, and he was, he was cool. He was kind of like a big kid. So we had a lot of fun together during those first two months, honestly. But then things changed really quickly.

It's weird. I remembered a smell in him that started changing. I don't know if you've ever smelled like a drunk construction worker. It's a very distinctive smell of, like, sweat and cheap beer. He started drinking a lot more, and it would be him just coming home from work and drinking so much. And, you know, he was always kind of funny when he drank. I remember him, like, drinking. I'd be like, oh, we're going to have fun tonight because, like, I don't know. I guess when he got drunk, he was just kind of cool.

Obviously, that didn't last very long. The drinking picked up.

He was drinking one night and he just kept asking my mom, like, can you bring me this? Can you bring me that? And she was like, I'm going to bed. Like, it's one o'clock in the morning. I was up because he was outside with his friends and music was blasting. We lived in a really small house, so you can hear everything through the walls. They were kind of like paper. So I remember like tossing and turning, just like eavesdropping. And he was like, well, can you bring me another beer? And she was like, well, I think it's time to just like come inside. It's late. The neighbors are starting to wonder what's going on out here.

And I just remember him screaming at my mom and calling her the worst things I've ever heard anyone call anyone at six years old. And me just being like, there's no way that this guy who I thought was so fun and caring and loving could ever speak to my mother like that. We grew up in a very peaceful household. We all respected each other. I just thought this was so weird.

My thoughts of him changed immediately. When I heard him raise his voice at my mom, things just changed almost immediately.

I remember the next day saying something to my mom like, are you okay? Like, did that make you sad when he yelled at you? And she was like, no, it's okay. Like, he was just drinking a little too much. Like, that's what happens when people drink a lot. And I was like, oh, okay. So now when I associated him drinking as something like cool and fun, immediately I was like, okay, anytime he drinks is not going to be good. One night, it was probably six months after we moved in together, he had went away to jail.

for, I believe, a month. And it was for DUIs or something along those lines. And my mom had some type of like get together. I think it was a football game or the Super Bowl or something. And she invited their mutual friends over. And I just remember when everyone started coming over, she was just giving this disclaimer, like, do not tell Steve. You know, the adults are drinking some beer. We're literally just watching the football game.

And I was a little bit confused by that, but he wasn't home. And I was like, okay, it's fine. Whatever. People came, they left. Fast forward the week after he got out of jail. I remember going to his friend's house and he lived in a trailer park. And I remember going to the trailer park and it was probably around two in the afternoon. My mom was a waitress. So she was at her waitressing job. And I remember his friend bringing up the party. And as soon as he brought up the party, my stomach dropped. And I was like, oh my gosh, like this was a huge secret.

And I remember the look on Steve's face after his friend told him about the party. And it was scary. He kind of just blanked. He looked at me as if maybe I was supposed to tell him this information, and I obviously didn't. Later on that night, it was probably like 11 o'clock at night when she was on her shift. We were picking my mom up from work, and he was so drunk with me in the car driving. And she gets in the car. He gives her a huge hug, huge kiss. We're getting closer to our house, and he says, we're going to have some fun tonight.

I pull in. My mom's like, what do you mean by that? It's 11 o'clock at night. And I hear him say, so what happened when I was away? Like, what did you do? And my mom was like, I didn't do anything. I just, you know, hung out. I went to work, took her to school. We just, we didn't do anything. And then I hear him smack her and say, well, that's a lie.

You're not to hang out with my friends when I'm not around. I don't want you around other men. This was not supposed to happen. And my mom was like, I'm really sorry. Like, it won't happen again. But nothing went on. And he was like, I don't care that nothing... Screaming on top of his lungs. Like, I don't care that nothing went on. So whatever. My mom leaves the room, goes into the kitchen. I, I guess, didn't realize why she went into the kitchen. But it was to get a knife to defend herself because he was being really physical with her. And I heard them rumbling around the room and...

And my mom's screaming in the slaps. And I just hear, like, just stay in your room. Like, stay in your room. Everything's okay. Like, just stay in your room. And I was, like, just trying to plan an escape. I don't know if I can even get away. Will he hear me if I open my window? Like, would he do this to me? I'm not sure.

Screams in the kitchen. I guess he saw my mom with the knife and obviously threw it out of her hand. And I just hear like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And he's just slapping her and I hear glass breaking and I hear him call my name to come out there. And I'm like, OK, just a second. And I'm trying to act brave and not be scared. Mind you, I think I'm six, not even seven yet.

And I'm trying to be as brave as I can. So I walk out of my room into the living room. There is blood everywhere. There's blood on the walls. My mom is in a fetal position in the corner of my kitchen with glass all over her. And I just hear her saying, like, don't hit her. Don't touch her. Like, don't touch my daughter. And he didn't. But he said, come look at your mom. And he was like, this is what happens when you lie to me.

So I'm thinking, okay, well, I did lie to you. At least I didn't tell you the truth. I didn't tell you about the party. So am I next? Like, is this going to happen to me? He tells me to go back in my room. I remember the fighting continuing, him just kicking my mom and punching my mom. And I just hear screams and my mom screaming to me, call 911, call 911. I'm frozen. I remember being in my room and having to use the bathroom so bad, but I couldn't even move. Like I couldn't

tell my brain to move my legs to get up and leave my room to use the bathroom. So I peed on myself. And I remember thinking, well, this is what babies do. Like, why am I doing this? And I was so mad at myself for even doing that at such an old age. So I thought, I was like, wow, this is so embarrassing. I hope no one knows that I'm just wet myself.

And eventually he got in the shower and my mom walked into my bedroom and just saw me, I guess, frozen. And she threw me the phone and went, just call 9-1-1. You know our address. Just call 9-1-1. So I call 9-1-1. She's like, can you please stay on the phone with me until the police get there? And I said, no, I'm not going to stay on the phone with you. If he comes out of the shower, I'm going to be really scared. My mom asked me to call 9-1-1. Please just come to my house.

So the cops came as soon as he got out of the shower. I remember hearing the knock at my door, and I was like, thank God. Like, thank God. They took him away, asked my mom some questions, and did she want a restraining order and all of this stuff? And she said no. I specifically remember her saying no. Why wouldn't she want to do anything about this? He goes to jail for the night, and I remember waking up at maybe it was like 10 a.m. the next morning to a knock on the door.

And it's him. He's out of jail already. Before he even says anything to my mom, he walks into my room and throws a phone at my head and goes, in case you want to be a little pussy and call the cops again, here you go. And he threw a phone at me and I was like, how did he know that I called the cops? So at that point, I felt betrayed by the cops because I was like, I didn't want him to know that I was the one who called them.

And I remember the house being a mess. There was still glass all over the floor and they'd both just started cleaning up. 10 minutes goes by, maybe longer than 10 minutes, and I get another knock on the door and it's his mom. And she walks in and I'm like, wow, finally, someone's going to know what just went on. And maybe she'll talk some sense into him or, you know, take him away or something. His mom walks in the house and it was so eerie.

She goes under the sink, puts on some gloves, puts some hot water in a bucket, and starts cleaning the blood off the walls. He and my mom are talking like nothing ever happened. And I remember her vacuuming up the glass and cleaning the blood off the walls and just not even asking, like, what happened here. And asked me if I was hungry. While she was cooking breakfast, she was cleaning up the mess.

All four of us in house, me, Steve, my mom, and his mom, just one big group effort to get the house back in order. I don't know exactly what's normal and what's not, but this seems off. Something crazy just happened last night. I'm still scared.

And everyone around me is acting like nothing ever happened. Like, so am I the one freaking out about this? And also, like, who is going to reprimand him? You know, when you're a kid, you think your mom is just like God. So when his mom came, I was like, oh, thank God. Like, he would never act like this around his mother. And for some reason, it just seems so normal to her in the most insane way possible.

And then it was just, we all just ate breakfast together. And my mom obviously has scratches and bruises all over. But it was honestly like nothing ever happened. I remember going to school the next day. The bell rang at school and I was supposed to go and obviously get on the bus to go home. But I remember being frozen in my seat and just not leaving school.

They called my mom, and my mom came to the school, and I remember her talking to the guidance counselor and saying, yeah, we just argued. Like, it was just an argument. So I remember asking the whole ride home, like, why did you say that it was just an argument? And she's like, well, because it was, and if you tell people that it was more than that, then they might take you away. So I remember the whole ride home asking over and over and over again, are you and Steve okay? Are you and Steve okay? It was just...

a nervous tick that felt like I was asking every five seconds of that night and the following nights to come. I do specifically remember that night being the first time that I felt anxiety. I remember sweating and my heart racing and my vision being really blurry, walking into the house that day just thinking like, I don't feel well. And at that point, I guess I felt like I was going to pass out now that I know what anxiety feels like as an adult. From that point on, I feel like my anxiety just worsened and worsened and worsened.

I think what was most prevalent to me was the nervous tics of asking, are you and Steve okay? I was honestly asking that question every two minutes. Be like, are you and Steve okay? Are you and Steve okay? And I was just...

hoping that she would just say yes so I could calm down. I thought that if I heard that they were okay and they were not fighting, that my heart would stop racing, that I would maybe be able to eat. Okay, as soon as she said yes, I was able to breathe. But then two minutes later, I would ask again, are you and Steve okay? Because my anxiety would just come back and I'd be like, are you and Steve okay? Yes, please stop asking me that question. My answer has not changed from the last 20 times you asked me this hour. Like, we are fine. There's no fighting. And I'd be like, okay.

I would just continue asking in hopes that when she said they were okay, it would be the truth. But nine times out of ten, that was never the case. And I would feel really betrayed and lied to. So at some point, me asking that question over and over and over again, even saying it right now makes me sweat and feel really nervous. It was always physical. He never just yelled at her. He always hit her or threw something at her.

or there was strangling going on, and they were truly just never okay. Today's episode is brought to you by Quince. It's been a busy season of events and travel, and my wardrobe has taken a beating. A total overhaul isn't in my budget, but I'm replacing some of those worn-out pieces with affordable, high-quality essentials from Quince. By partnering with Top Factories, Quince cuts out the cost to the middleman and passes the savings on to us.

I love the Italian board shorts. They're made from quick-drying material and offer UPF 50 protection for all-day wear, so I can go from hiking to lounging on the beach without a wardrobe change. And compared to other luxury brands, the prices are well within my reach.

Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Go to quince.com slash happening for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash happening to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash happening

This season, Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites, like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies, like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow.

Let's face it, we were all that kid. So first call your parents to say I'm sorry, and then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply. So during this time that my mom was with him, I just remember always being so excited to play with his little sister.

He was probably around 32 to 35 at that time, and she was around 14 to 16. So she was a little older than me, but a lot younger than him, so it always felt like we were a lot closer than they were. So as my relationship started to grow with his little sister, she became really comfortable with me and her just telling me all of these stories. So his family lived in a duplex, right?

They owned the whole thing. They were renting out the other half to a man, his wife, and his three kids. I mean, he was cool, and they were black, so I loved going over there and hanging out with them because I just felt like myself around them. I remember her saying that she just had things to tell me, but she couldn't tell me because we were just honestly never allowed to leave the house.

So she got like a black light, like a black light bulb for her room. And then she got a bunch of like glow in the dark pens and paper, like black paper, and was writing to me with these pens and paper that you can only see when the black light was in. And we would just sit in her bed and she would tell me how much she loved the neighbor and how much she wished that, you know, he wasn't married and she feels like he loves her too.

And this happened for months. We would just go in her room and write back and forth about the neighbor and her, like, love for him. A couple months after we started talking about him, she started telling me that at first he kissed her when his wife wasn't around. And she would be like, you know how Steve is, so if he finds out or my parents find out, it's going to be big trouble. So I'd be like, okay, I'm not going to tell anybody. So I remember one night she comes in and she's writing on the paper and she goes, I think I'm pregnant.

A couple weeks went by, and her parents were very controlling. And so I remember her mom saying something along the lines of, you haven't gotten your period. Take this pregnancy test immediately. I don't even think anyone knew that she was having sex. It was positive. So the first thing the family does when they find out that she's pregnant is they fill up a bucket with bleach, straight bleach. I don't even think there was water. It was like hot bleach filled

And they took her to the basement and said, you have to clean this entire floor. Maybe if you inhale the bleach, it will kill the baby and we won't have to take you to the doctor to get an abortion. Steve was a Jehovah's Witness. His entire family, mom and dad's side, were Jehovah's Witnesses. And I don't think that coincides with their religion.

Her hands were so blistered up, pretty much bleeding from just dipping her hands in this bucket and scrubbing the floor. And her crying is like, I can't take the smell. I feel like I'm going to pass out. My hands are burning. And I think after about an hour, they were like, all right, it's fine. I think two weeks later, they made her pee on a stick again as if that actually caused her to miscarry or something. She was obviously still very pregnant. The next step was just, OK, she's got to get an abortion.

So I remember him telling my mom, I'm not going to the doctor with her, so you have to take her to get an abortion. You're going to take her to get this abortion. So a few weeks after that, we made the appointment. We drove about an hour and a half away. And she went in to get the abortion. And I remember saying in the car and her coming out crying, saying that she was already six months pregnant and that she couldn't get an abortion.

And then the whole story kind of came out that this man who was about 23, maybe 24 even, impregnated this 15, 16-year-old girl. He was then kicked out of the house next door. World War III broke out in that house that night, and I just remember thinking, like, this all makes sense. The way that they're treating her, the way that they're treating each other makes me totally understand why he is the way he is.

She ended up having the baby, but I remember that being such a pivotal time in my life, realizing this family is just as batshit crazy as he is. I remember when they said we were moving, specifically. The house that we found was about an hour away from my family and an hour away from his family. We had one neighbor across the street and one neighbor to the left of the house, and

And I remember thinking, okay, well, even though it's really far to get here, at least there's neighbors here. I remember moving into the house and immediately it felt like as cold as he was, that he kind of just got colder. So I remember unpacking everything,

And I remember him pulling out a gun like we were packing and it was not a little handgun, but it looked like a shotgun. It was long, it was brown, and it was really intimidating looking. And I remember him just placing it in the middle of the dining room table. It always stayed in plain sight.

So when he and my mom would argue in this house, something would always tell me, like, let me just make sure this gun is always in the dining room. So I'd always creep past their room down the stairs and just literally peek over the staircase and just make sure it was there. Anytime it was there, I felt like I was okay and things were okay. I was going into fifth grade, having to meet new friends and also having this anxiety of what's going on at home and not really wanting my peers to know what was going on at home.

My mom still had her job in the other town once we moved, so when she had to go to work, she then had to drive an hour there and an hour back, which means she was home even less, and I was with him even more. So the more time we spent together, just the two of us, as he, quote-unquote, was watching me, which mostly consisted of him being belligerently drunk, working in the shed, and then telling me to get in the car and go somewhere with him as he was what I would consider now blacked-out drunk.

I remember just always saying, like, no, it's okay. I would rather just stay in a room. And he was like, well, you can't stay home alone, and I got to go do this, so you've got to come. Anywhere we went, we'd go down these long, winding roads that were kind of dark all the time. And I had no clue what direction we were going in because it all just kind of looked the same in the woods. He was drunk. He was drinking while driving, beer can in his hand.

He shuts off the lights in his truck and just starts flooring it down this winding road. And he was like, I know where I'm going. Like, watch this. Like, and we're not hitting anything, but I'm already anxiety ridden as a child enough. And now I'm in a pitch black car on a pitch black road. And he is speeding down this road, basically saying, if we die, we die.

no regard for my life no regard for his own life and I just remember praying so hard just saying like I really don't want to die but also having this calm feeling like I have no control over this I can't stick up for myself to this man I'm too scared of him so if I do die it's okay I remember telling myself it's okay if you die like it's okay it's okay if you die

Those were the types of things that would happen when my mom was at work. And I didn't tell her. I don't even think to this day I've told her about all of these things that would happen because I never wanted to betray him. I never wanted him to hurt me physically. He was already hurting me enough by hurting my mom and putting me through all of these things. So I just really never wanted to turn my back on him. I had so much loyalty to him. And that was out of fear, obviously.

Maybe it was a few nights after that. My mom came home and he was really drunk and just started screaming at her as soon as she got out of the car. I remember they were outside in the garage and he was just screaming at her and she was like, listen, I just got home from work. I don't have the energy to do this. My mom was exhausted all the time. They came inside. They're fighting. I was downstairs crying.

And before I could even make it up the stairs, I'm by the refrigerator and he's shoving her into cabinets. So I remember being, OK, this is the night. He is so drunk. I don't even think he knows what he's doing. And he will not stop hitting her. Same thing happened. They're physically fighting. He gets in the shower. My mom comes upstairs and goes, we're leaving. Pack a small bag and let's get in the car and go.

We get in the car. My mom starts the car. I just remember her moving so slow. And I just remember saying, hurry up. Like, I never yelled at my mom. But this night, I was yelling at my mom, like, start the car. Back up. What are you doing? Like, we've got to go. He comes running out in a bath towel, goes behind the car, and pulls some type of wire. I don't know if he had this planned or he rigged this up. But as soon as he pulled that wire, the car shut off. And we just had no way out. Just thinking, wow, like...

This was our chance. And being so mad at my mom and saying, you blew this. You did not move fast enough. Now this night is going to get even worse. My mom told me to take my bag and go to the neighbor's house, which one of my friends lived there with her grandparents, and saying, you know, I'm really scared to go home. My mom said I can come sleep here. Is it okay? They allowed me to sleep there, which I'm forever thankful for. So I'm not exactly sure what went on that night.

So we went to school the next morning and I go home and she has dinner waiting and he's in the living room watching TV. Everything is so normal. There's broken glass everywhere yet again. And there's like dents in the wooden cabinets, cracks in the wooden cabinets. There's dents in the wall. Mind you, this was a brand new house that we moved into. I just remember knowing that something so bad happened. And that same night,

them arguing again and me being in my room and him coming to my room and saying, if I kill your mom, I'm going to have to kill you too because you'll never shut up. You'll never stop crying. And I can't live with that. I can't hear you crying every day. So if I kill your mom, if she makes me so mad that I have to kill her, just know that I'm going to have to kill you too. I immediately felt responsible for her life.

I don't think he wants to kill me at this point. I don't think that's his goal is to kill a child. And I felt like if I wasn't around, then maybe he would kill her.

I would spend a lot of time at my grandparents' house the summer after we moved into the house in the town that was about an hour away. And I remember that being one of the worst experiences of my life, one of the worst summers of my life, is just, I would call, and my mom would get home really late from work, so it's, you know, it's a lot of work.

you know, a given that she would sleep late. But every morning when I would wake up around 9 a.m., I would call my mom. And if she didn't answer, I would just start pacing and having extreme anxiety attacks thinking, OK, she's dead. And he killed her because I wasn't there. If I was there, he wouldn't have killed her. And this was five days a week for three months of the summer.

This changed my life drastically because I would spend a lot of times going to my grandparents' house or spend a lot of time at friends' houses. And at that point, I just stopped because I then felt if I was home, sure, he might beat her up or things could get really bad, but I don't think that he's going to kill her if I'm there because then he has a bigger decision to make.

I had to put myself in this horrible situation in order for my mom to make it out alive. Luckily, during this year of my life, I met my best friend, who is still my best friend to this day. She was going through something really tragic. She had just lost her mother a couple of weeks before we even became friends.

So I remember telling her everything that had been going on and just feeling like so much lighter, like, wow, I finally have someone I can confide in who's not going to judge me or my mom. She would invite me to sleep over and sometimes I would be scared to leave the house or sometimes I'd want to leave the house. She would begin sleeping over my house a lot.

And mostly because she didn't want me to be alone. And she knew that I was sometimes scared to leave my house. And she witnessed some horrific things. But I always felt so secure when she was there. So it kind of just was a huge security blanket for me. She saved my life in a lot of ways and helped me also save my mom's life. The town that we moved to was a predominantly black town.

I was starting in a new school and I was making a lot of new friends and it was a predominantly black town and so a lot of my new friends are black.

I had this one friend. He was a little boy. He was a boy my age, about 10 years old. We were best friends. We hit it off immediately. He also lived down the street. My mom picked him up from school one day and saying, hey, I really want to hang out with him. And I was so excited that me and my new friend were going to hang out. My mom was going to go take us to get ice cream. So we went to get ice cream with my friend. It was just me, him, and my mom. And on the way back, and

I remember Steve was outside and was like, well, where were you? And I was just frozen. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to lie because I was very scared of lying to him after he told me what could potentially happen to me if I lied. And I said, well, my friend, and I named him, came with me to get ice cream.

First question he asked was, well, what does he look like? Is he black? And I was like, yes, he's black. And he's got braids. And he's my best friend, one of my best friends. And then it was just...

him screaming at my mom saying that I, her black child, was not allowed to hang out with these people and was just like dropping the n-bomb and making me feel so bad for something that I felt so good about. And I was just so ashamed of

that I kind of sold out my mom and now she's going to have to pay these consequences tonight. And I had a good friend and now I'm not going to be able to hang out with this friend anymore. That night was pretty terrible. I just remember him dropping the N-bomb all night to me and my mom. Hurt me so bad. And then saying I wasn't allowed to hang out with those types of people anymore. And I was so confused because I was that type of person.

It just really confused me after I thought I was making a lot of personal growth as far as feeling okay in my own skin.

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair? Done well. Kitchen sink install? Done well. Deck upgrades? Done well. Electrical upgrade? Done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high-quality, certified pros at Angie.com.

Most Americans think they spend about $62 per month on subscriptions. But get this, the real number is closer to $300. That is literally thousands of dollars a year, half of which you've probably forgotten about. Thankfully, Rocket Money can find a bunch of subscriptions you've forgotten all about and then help you cancel the ones you don't want anymore. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions,

monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features.

Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash wondery. That's rocketmoney.com slash wondery. rocketmoney.com slash wondery.

On one end of the spectrum, like I'm living this hellish life where I feel like I'm being tortured in my own home. If I say I'm walking on eggshells, if I say a wrong thing, if I do something wrong, if I cry, everything is wrong. Everything that I do is wrong. And whatever I do wrong, he is not going to physically harm me. But my mom is going to pay for all of my wrongdoings. So in the house, I was a.

quiet, passive shell of myself who showed no personality. I was just like a soldier. Like anything anyone needed, yes, sir, no problem. I didn't show any type of emotion in the house. When I went to school, I was able to be myself. And so all the quiet that I was going through at home, all the silence, I let out at school in front of people who accepted me. When I was around people I wanted to be myself with, I was full out myself. Like,

unapologetically me. The second I stepped into the house, I was a different human. I think I was feeling a lot of resentment against my family, even though they didn't know what was going on, but no one ever asked. No one ever said like, hey, how's living with Steve?

No one ever said, does he treat you well? Does he treat your mom well? And the one person who I expected to ask was my aunt because we were so close. And another person I always hoped would ask is my biological father. When I would talk to him maybe once a year, I would just be hoping he would say like, so how's Steve? Like, do you like living with Steve? Is he good to you? And then I could finally just let everything out.

You think of your dad as like this superhero. And I would think maybe he would finally become a dad to me and want to protect me from this situation. But he never asked. My family really never asked. And I guess that's just because, like I said, the second I stepped out of this house, I wasn't sad. I was really never sad. I was always happy. So I guess there wasn't really any warning signs.

I felt really betrayed by my family for a long time, and it really was not their fault. I was just scared if I said something that they would take me away from my mom, which would ultimately mean that I was not there to protect her anymore. As I got a little older and headed into middle school, this is when I started becoming a little more ashamed and embarrassed of it, and I just stopped talking about it publicly.

So now I'm really in this by myself. Like, I'm in this by myself. The more that I talk or the more that I voice my opinion, my mom is getting the wrath of all of this. I truly just didn't know where to go from here. Like, do I keep expressing my opinions now that I'm older and not as scared of this person? Or do I just be mute like I have been? And I remember talking to my mom about it. And I remember giving her an ultimatum at this point saying,

If you stay with him, I'm moving out, I'm switching schools, and I don't want to talk to you. I always knew that maybe if I did, she would choose me. A couple of weeks after that, he went back to jail for suspended license or something along those lines. And he was gone for a good four or five months at that point. And let me just tell you, those four or five months were some of the best of my life.

And I remember telling her, like, do you feel happy? Like, doesn't this feel good? And she was like, it does feel good. And I said, well, what's going to happen in two or three months when he comes home? And I think that conversation was what changed in her because we ended up looking for houses to rent. And before he got out of jail, we ended up moving out. And when I say moving out, I don't mean we moved an hour away. We actually moved a couple of blocks away.

But I felt like as long as we were out of that house and had doors to lock that he did not have the keys to, then we would be safe. I don't think that he knew for a while that we were living so close. But the day that he found out, he came to the front of the house and she obviously wouldn't let him inside. I don't think he ever came inside of our new house.

And he was outside of her window on the ground level floor screaming like, well, if I can't have you, no one can have you. And I'll kill you if you're with anybody else. So it went from the anxiety of living with someone who I always felt like could kill us at any second to then living down the street from someone who I knew could kill us at any second.

I really don't know which anxiety or which fear was worse, being able to watch his every move and be able to plan and know what he's thinking or not being able to. For about a year, we were getting threatened by him coming to the house calling. It didn't feel like we were away for a long time.

Being away from him was just a completely different anxiety than it was being with him. I didn't have the nervous tics of asking, are you and Steve okay? Are you and Steve okay? That stopped. But I didn't sleep for a year straight. I would only sleep when the sun was up. I didn't trust my mom. I really didn't trust her. My anxiety about her lying was hard, but I didn't trust her.

I would have panic attacks anytime I'd hear anything outside of my window. Immediately would have a panic attack. I would sleep with a knife under my pillow.

Being so deprived from sleep because of fear makes you think really crazy things. So at this point I was like, well, maybe if I killed him first, he couldn't kill us. Or like I would think like I know where the gun is in that house. Like I could easily go in there one night and hope that he's drunk and literally kill him. And then I wouldn't have to worry about this anymore.

Obviously, I didn't do it and I wouldn't do that. But I feel like he killed the child in me. He killed any relationship that me and my mom had a chance of having during that time of my life. And I felt like he deserved a lot of bad things to happen to him. But everyone in his life was scared of him. So no one stood up for him. No one ever told him what he was doing was wrong, ever.

I remember my grandfather passed away. Like maybe I was 16 or 17. And this was three or four years after everything had ended. We haven't really heard from him or anything. And him showing up at my grandfather's funeral. And at this point in time, I was disclosing a few things here and there to my aunt, who I was extremely close with. And so she knew when he showed up.

We both kind of just like blacked out and just wanted to attack him. Like we kind of like ran over to him and like it was kind of like a what could have been a brawl at my grandfather's funeral, but it wasn't. He left. That was the last time I've seen him.

Even after years of them not being together, I think just living with that fear constantly and just having anxiety about the unknown. The unknown was always what scared me most because when you're living in it and you're living, you're seeing these things happen, they're happening, there's nothing you can do about that. But I became obsessed with the idea of control.

My earliest memories as a child were fear and anxiety. I was obsessed with being able to control the situation, and I was never able to control the situation. And that would drive me crazy. That unknown just haunted me. And it still does. Like, when I don't know things or when I don't feel like I'm in control of something now, I get so anxious because I always need a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C. And obviously, that comes from those times of my life.

I remember being so scared that everyone in my life was lying to me. So I remember having a friend. We would talk on the phone all the time. And I remember one day we were talking about nothing on the phone and I said, please don't ever pretend to be my friend if you're not my friend. And she was like, what do you mean? Please don't pretend to be my friend if you're not my friend. Just say it. Like, you don't have to call me and we don't have to talk on the phone and pretend to be best friends. And she was so thrown off by that. And I would say it all the time. Like, we would be out having fun. I'd be like, are you really having fun? Are you sure you're having fun? Like, little things like that. And I would say,

And even in my relationships today, and I remember bringing these nervous tics into my past relationships and being like, are you happy? Like, is everything okay? And that was the equivalent of, are you and Steve okay for me? Like, if I felt like things were bad, I'd be like, are you happy? Are things okay? Yeah.

As soon as I found myself doing that, I went and got therapy because that was something I did not want to do. I did not want to be this person anymore. That was the first time in my life I was like, I need serious help because I'm still doing these things that I used to do when I was six years old. And now I'm 20 at the time, 22 years old, asking my boyfriend 10 times an hour, is he going to hurt me? Are things okay? Even when things were okay.

So as the years kind of just went on, I found myself being 22 years old in a very toxic relationship. And it wasn't toxic in the way that my mom and Steve's relationship was. But I found myself being okay with a lot of things that...

Prior to the relationship, I would say all the time, I'm not going to stand for that. And my mom put up with all this stuff. I would never be like her. And then in reality hits, and that's all you're accustomed to, you put up with a lot of things that you said you would never put up with. Him and I were friends for a very long time and I felt comfortable with him. So when we started to pursue a romantic relationship, it was like,

He wanted to protect me. He knew everything that I went through and he thought that that was crazy and thought, you know, we're going to change this. You know, we're going to have a strong, healthy relationship because he also had a pretty rough upbringing. So we're like, we're going to be that change. We're going to get married one day and have kids and be like these great parents to our children so they don't have to deal with this stuff like we did and all these promises in the beginning, obviously. Yeah.

And then I almost feel like me being so vulnerable with him allowed him to take advantage of all of my weaknesses. I've never had a man in my life love me this way or choose me or want to protect me. So as long as he was showing me love and choosing me and, quote, unquote, protecting me, I think he thought anything else he could just get away with and I would always be there. And that was the case for a long time. There was...

infidelities after infidelities and lying after lying after I had said many times like, you know, it upsets people. But for me, it upsets me more than the average person, I would assume. And when I wasn't with this person, I would feel physically ill because I know that this is not the right situation for me to be in. But I didn't know how to get out. I couldn't get out. It was an addiction. And I like to think that's how my mom felt with Steve, that it was just an addiction, like she couldn't let go.

I started defending him, defending his behavior to my friends when they would say, you're not being yourself. You've got to get out of this situation. I'd be like, you know what? It's really not that bad. You guys don't know him. When I would hear myself saying those things, I would hear my mom saying those things.

And that was frightening. I just remember saying, I'm just like my mom. Like, I am going to be just like my mom if I don't get out of this situation. And I stayed in that situation for four years. There was a really big incident that happened at the top of the year where it was just a total betrayal of trust.

I found myself depressed going to the doctors, taking a month off of work because I couldn't get out of bed. I developed vertigo, I think, from my anxiety, messing with my brain. I was running into walls. I just wasn't okay.

I almost feel like I was addicted to trauma and drama and fear and pain. Like growing up, that's all I saw. This is just what life is. And if things were going too well, it didn't feel right. Like if I was actually happy and we were having a good week in my relationship, things did not feel right.

And I was just kind of chasing the high of the drama and just like, well, maybe if we fight, that means he cares. You know, things are going well now. Did he stop caring about me? He doesn't fight with me. He doesn't want to do anything. It was just so toxic. Obviously, I know that trauma and drama and manipulation is not love and it's not something anybody should be used to. But I don't think when you go through those things, you know that until you actually have a streak in your life without those things.

I don't think in my life I've ever lived like a full month without shit hitting the fan or being scared of something. And so when I wiped my hands clean of my last relationship, that was kind of a vow to myself that I'm creating my own normal now. Like this is my new normal. And the past seven, eight months of my life free of that drama have been the best times of my life.

My grandmother, my mom's mother, has also a past of being in toxic relationships. I mean, my mom saw my grandmother getting beat by this man. And I guess when that started playing out in her own life, she was also very tolerant to it. You try to like break these generational curses and just do better for yourself. But I truly don't think that's possible without getting help.

I've never been so scared of myself than I was in therapy, just scared knowing that I literally have the power to change all of this and to not be like my mom. And when I think about the things that I maybe dislike about her or the things that she's done in the past, they're direct reflection of things that I don't like about myself. And that's something that the therapist has helped me with. I just wish that my mom would get the same help that I got. My hopes and wishes for myself changed.

personally, are to just give myself the love and respect and loyalty to my own happiness that I feel like a lot of people in my life haven't given me, but to also in the future raise a family that doesn't have to go to therapy and talk about their traumatic childhood. I just want my future children to have the complete opposite upbringing than I have.

I want to just be free of this story and this traumatic part of my life. And I want to just start over. I want to start a new life for myself. Today's episode featured Arielle Hermanson. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at A-R-I-J-B-L-I-G-E. This Is Actually Happening is brought to you by me, Whit Misseldein. If you love what we do, you can join the community on our official Instagram page at ActuallyHappening.

You can also rate and review the show on iTunes, which helps tremendously to boost visibility to a larger community of listeners. Thank you for listening. Until next time, stay tuned.

If you like This Is Actually Happening, you can listen to every episode ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

Across America, BP supports more than 300,000 jobs to keep our energy flowing. Jobs like updating turbines at one of our Indiana wind farms and producing more oil and gas with fewer operational emissions in the Gulf of Mexico. It's and, not or. See what doing both means for energy nationwide at bp.com slash investing in america.