132: What if you were kept from the one you loved most? 29:38

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.

Most of you aren't just listening right now. You're driving, cleaning, and even exercising. But what if you could be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Multitask right now. Quote today at Progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

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.

It's interesting always having this void there. It's a void. It's just knowing that you have something so wonderful that could love you so much and you could love so much that exists out there. Welcome to the Permatemp Corporation. A presentation of the audio podcast, This Is Actually Happening. Episode 132. What if you were kept from the one you loved most?

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. Grew up in the south, small town south of Richmond, Virginia. Had a good time growing up, had a good family. You know, everything a kid could need. Parents were wonderful.

At a young age they did split up though and that kind of changed the dynamic of my growing up. I think I was like 9 years, 10 years old, you know, right when my parents split up. And I took it really hard. I had a really difficult time with it. I just remember, you know, not really being able to accept it. It was very foreign to me.

I grew up having a sister and a brother. I had a hard time with it and so did my brother. My sister was too young to know really what was going on. In hindsight, I think it was just kind of a situation of my mother just kind of got bored with her situation and she just found love in another place.

My parents are, especially my father, he's very dignified with how he treated this whole situation. When my parents split, my father, he left to a different state. My father married somebody who was extremely fun. So I left my second year in high school to go live with them. I had a wonderful time with her and him, but it was very toxic for him. And I understand why it was toxic for him.

By the time I ended up with his second wife, it was this woman who had never been married before. She was in her older years. She did not want any kind of kids around. She wanted my father exclusively. She made it very clear from the beginning how I was not wanted. Anytime I brought a girl over, she made it extremely Christian situation where we shouldn't even be in a house, in a room together.

I had a room, I tried to put a picture up, she lost her mind. She was like, "You know, you cannot decorate this room in any way, shape or fashion. You're only here because you have to be here." I think is what she boiled down to it. I was extremely shy. I was this blonde, kind of boy band looking kid. They called me pretty boy or whatever. They didn't like how I looked. I had a horrible time at school, very unpopular.

I had two friends and ironically one of my only friends turned out to be a family member that I didn't even know existed. He was actually my grandma's cousin's family, which is weird as all can be. We just found each other randomly.

My school was just a lot of lower end kids and stuff when I was in Virginia. But when I moved to be with my father, as soon as I moved and I went to the new school, I had piles of friends. I had more friends than I even knew what to do with. People coming out of every corner.

Everybody was so standoffish and aggressive where I was at in high school. And then when I moved to this new school, everybody was just so about me. It was just like the new kid. I was popular. I was awesome. I was cool. The weirdest thing that happened to me is I had all these girls coming up to me saying, hey, can you come to my church this weekend? Which never experienced that before. Kids saying, can we meet up at church?

I remember there was these two girls, they were twins and they were drop dead gorgeous. And they just kept hanging out with me. They wouldn't leave me alone. They'd come to my house after school. They'd make me bracelets out of their like strings of their jeans. And I just felt like a freaking king. I felt like that I left hell on earth and I just bestowed upon myself the richest of life. You know, it was like, I just...

Having two friends and being miserable to having an entire school just loving you. It was absolutely crazy my English class Mrs. Barrett's class

She had a teacher's helper there that was a bit older than I was and she'd sit in the corner. She didn't really do too much. She was kind of just there in the corner to help us if we had any questions or anything like that. And I just happened to have my desk close to her. So when I was in there, I would talk to her quite often and see how she was doing and we kind of just formed a bond, a little relationship.

When we were together in the classroom getting to know each other, I never really did connect to her fully besides just knowing exactly who she was. It wasn't until the summertime broke out where the craziest thing happened to me. I was in my house just sitting around watching TV. My father was tired of me. He wanted me to get out of his way. I think he was trying to talk to somebody or something. I don't even know.

He said, "Hey, why don't you go somewhere and do something?" I told my father, "I don't really have any money." So my father gave me some money, left my house. As soon as I went to the gas station, there she was. That's where I first connected to her besides being in the classroom.

I see her at the gas station, she's pumping gas, and I look over and I say, "Hey, how are you?" And she says, "Good, you know." She recognizes me from school and all that stuff, and then I tell her, "Hey, you know, you wanna hang out? You wanna do something together today?" And she was all about it, and that's when it all started. So we left the gas station, she left her car there, we walked around the mall for a long time, we got something to eat,

We had a blast together. She laughed so hard and I did too. We just pretty much did what two young kids would do. Just hung out together the entire day. After that whole date scenario, I took her back to the gas station. She got her car. She went home. Her father was extremely upset that she left her car at a gas station.

He made it loud and clear that this was a very inappropriate situation. You do not leave your car behind. That's the first time that I got the wrath of him. I was very young and I had never been in love before. I guess you could call me a late bloomer. I spent a long time playing with toys and action figures. I was definitely ready for more.

I've fallen for girls before, but this was kind of, I think, my plateau of the first time that, you know, things are about to really get serious. You could feel it in the air. I thought about her a lot. I still wanted to be with her. She had a great time, I could tell. But she was kind of staying offish after that.

She had a really good friend, Jamie, who lived close to me. And one situation led to another and her friend actually ended up coming over to my house. My father had just gotten this new place for us that had like a swimming pool. So we started hanging out and I was new at this whole experience of women and love and all this stuff. Jamie decided that it would be an awesome situation to go to the new swimming pool that was in the neighborhood.

Next thing I know, Jamie takes all her clothes off and I do too and we go skinny dipping together. I've never really been around a girl naked before. A beautiful summer night, you know, nobody around, just her and I naked swimming and holding each other. It was just very young kids kind of waiting to do something but inexperienced.

Knowing that her good friend spent some time with me, I guess some jealousy and different thoughts progressed in her mind. And then she started pursuing me fully after that. She wanted to hang out more and do more stuff together. We had a small window. It was a summertime, but you know, it was just the short window of the summertime before she went off to college.

So she goes to college. I go there all the time. I was going there every single second that I had. We were definitely hanging out, getting more serious, getting more intimate. I kind of like screwed up my senior year quite a bit from skipping out to go see her in college. I remember the first time I met her at college, my father telling me, you be careful, don't let anything happen.

I actually was driving to go see her and my car broke down a cone of fire on the side of the road. And I remember being so pissed off and frustrated beyond belief just because I wanted to get to her and I couldn't get to her that day. I was so in love that I didn't know any better. And I was just hardcore in love with her. And she could just tell me that, you know, the worst thing in the entire world. And I'd still probably stick around.

We started to get into a routine where we would get intimate, but it wouldn't go all the way. She started to seem to be more serious and then our relationship got more serious and then our intimate relationship got more serious. And then we finally got to the point where we were actually as intimate as you can get.

Every chance I could possibly have in between school and work and whatever I had to do, every minute, second, hour that I had, I would just go to see her. So after a short time period,

of her being in college. She just happens to get pregnant. And that's when every single situation that I've known and she's known has completely flipped around and changed things completely.

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.

I was there with her when she found out she was pregnant.

I was stupid, young, and excited and ready to have a kid. I was as excited as any dumbass could be. I could not wait to have a kid. I was dedicated 500%. I wanted everything to do with the situation. I was giddy excited about it. It was a "I'm going to kill you" moment is pretty much how it went from her.

It was a lot, a lot of aggression from her. It was not a happy moment. It was a, it was kind of like, hey, you, you did this to me and now you must die. It was just so much aggression and just craziness right after that. It was just like my life was just flipped upside down right after that. She left the school pretty abruptly.

She ended up back home with her parents for a little period of time. I was trying to still see her obviously, still in love so much with her. I'm working and still doing my thing. I'm wanting to see her unbelievably, you know, every second that I can and communication abruptly stops.

I still try to stop by to say hi. I stop by a couple times and it works out good for me. I am able to talk to her. It's not the same as it was when she was at college. It's definitely a different dynamic. One of the times I remember coming to her house, her parents weren't there. I laid on the floor with her and just kind of held her and just wanted to be with her so bad.

Her dad has a lawn care business and he's out a lot, he's cutting grass, he's doing different things. And then he finds out that I'm trying to stop by and see her and that's when things turn even worse. Between her and her father, they decided that they were going to give the kid up for adoption.

There was definitely no call, no asking of me. She never gave me the chance to talk about it. It happened. Everything happened so fast. It was that little time, little short time period of trying to meet up with her and then her making her decision with her dad. They just made their decision. It had nothing to do with it. There was no asking me whatsoever, period, hands down, nothing.

I feel the hurt from that nonstop to this day. It still hurts me as bad as it did then as it does now. It was just kind of like a defining moment in my life that I just felt all this love that I was going to have a kid and it was just shut in my face and it was just like I had nothing to say or do about it. And it just kind of changed the whole dynamic of who I was going to be for the rest of my life.

I crawled underneath my bed and I cried so hard. I think I cried every tear that I could ever cry for every tear that I didn't cry at the beginning of my life and every tear that I will ever cry for the end of my life. I don't think I could even cry for the rest of my life ever again because I think every tear that I could ever cry, I did underneath my bed that day.

You know, for a lot of us that just live humble and meek lives, you know, that's kind of what our thing is. You know, we work hard and we have children and they carry on our name and that's kind of a big deal. It meant everything to me. It was, you know, I was just this little kid and to know that I had a child,

It was a big deal to me. And when I say a big deal, I mean a big deal. I took it to the deepest depths of my heart and I held it there with the strongest passion that I could possibly hold. Having a kid, I mean, that's really a huge part of human existence. And if it's immediately taken away from you with no thought or recourse and you have no option to say you're part of it, it's a really hard situation.

I man up and I say, "I'm not gonna let this shit happen."

I start finding her dad wherever he is. So I'd go wherever the hell he was cutting grass and I'd find him and I'd walk up to him. Just a tiny little scrawny kid then. He was a big dude. And he would push me down on the ground and he'd kick me, yell and scream at me and then he'd back off and feel bad and stand back and I'd leave. And then I'd come back and find him again. Over and over and over and over again and just tell him exactly how it felt. He'd scream at me

And then I'd get in my car and try to find him. And then I'd leave where he was at. And I'll never forget one time he was in, we're talking late 90s. He was in one of those big, beautiful Dodge Rams. And he was behind me. It had some crappy little Honda from the 80s.

And man, he was up behind me with that big, beautiful Dodge and bumping my bumper so hard. And then he just ran my ass right off the road. And then thankfully he kept going. His wife, which was her stepmom, called the house. They got the number, I guess, from her. And she went off on my dad.

I felt like he didn't give a shit because she went off on him and he hung the phone up and he said, "You better listen to everything she says because that woman means business." Well, what about me? What about how I feel? They're just telling you their part. What about my part? I didn't even do anything wrong. A lot of the guys in that time period would have been like, "Hey, whatever, whatever, move on to the next one."

I mean, I'm just different, I guess. That's just not how I felt. I wanted my kid. I wanted to be with her and I wanted my kid. And then I started to feel like I didn't even want her anymore. I just wanted my kid. That's all I wanted. I felt very lonely and I spent a lot of time, as he would say, running the roads. I just felt lost. I just felt like, you know, I had this whole relationship blooming in a kid being born and I was being held away from it.

I remember walking into a lawyer's office, this young stupid looking kid with bleached blonde hair walking in, young as can be, and saying, "Hey, you know, this is what's going on, da da da da." And I'll never forget him telling me, "Hey, you know, in this state, there's nothing we can do. You know, the father has no rights."

And that was kind of a turning point for me. Knowing that there was not anything I could do, it finally got to the point where her father took her to some special home for pregnant women that was non-disclosed where I could not find her. And I was shut down so much it was like I had no voice. It was like screaming in silence. Just try to say how you feel and nobody gives a shit.

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update, and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. From plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie.

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. After he put her away in that home, she finally one time got on the phone and contacted me and told me, hey, I'm giving our kid up for adoption. I found this family that I really like. Do you want to meet them?

God, yes, please, please tell me what's going on. I'll be there. I walked out of work. I told my job that I had some kind of crazy medical condition. I don't even know what I said. I ran out of work, got into my car and I raced down to where she was at. Found the cheapest possible hotel room I could possibly find. Through this Christian adoption services, we were supposed to meet the new parents the next day.

I didn't agree with it, but I wanted a part of something. So I was in my hotel room. I was probably about 15 to 10 minutes away from the meeting spot in the morning. And then come later on that night, she called me up and she said, hey, you know, we're not meeting up. It's not going to happen. Things changed. And I was really upset and really disappointed. But I took her word for it.

Early in the morning, drove back, come to find out the meeting definitely took place. She just decided that night that I wasn't going to be part of it. And she tricked me. I could have met my potential new family for my child. I could have met them.

I think that the meetup probably would have been extremely heated from me. I was going to have a lot of things to tell him, you know, just like, you're never going to be the dad of my child. I'm the dad of my child. You'll never be the dad of my child. I will always be my kid's father from the day she was born to the day she dies.

I never would know, you know what I mean? He could be the coolest dude in the world. He could have worked so hard. I couldn't think of him as like a third family member now and I couldn't be doing things with him all the time. I didn't have the chance to know how it could have played out. She reached out to me finally after a long period that I didn't talk to her. She told me that she had her child. She told me that her dad was there beside her, was excited to see our child.

He held our daughter and said, "I understand every single thing that he said. I understand everything that he was trying to do. I know why he stuck around. I know why he did what he did." And then the next day he killed himself. He hung himself in his storage building that he kept all his lawnmowers for his grass cutting business. He hung himself.

It was already a situation that was the worst situation I've ever been through and it's just an empty void knowing that I have this child that I never had a chance to have and I was pushed away from it the entire time. And one of the people that pushed me away so hard from it felt so bad at the end that he killed himself.

It's just absolutely horrible, unbelievable, and just sad at the same time. I mean, I just felt like that. Why the hell did you do something so stupid? We could have just worked this out, you idiot. You know?

You just acted like everything was so horrible for you right then and there. We could have done something about this. We could have made it right. We could have worked things out. We could have been best friends now. He could be someone I could call on a weekly basis and talk about stuff. He could have helped my whole situation turn back around again. He could have been the savior that I needed for the situation if he just didn't give up.

And that's the thing that's so frustrating about suicide is you may feel like that every single thing in the world is going to end right that minute. It always gets better and people don't always understand that, but it does always get better. You know, you always find the silver lining down the road. There's one thing I've always thought about my daughter.

I think about her every second of every minute of every hour of every day from the late 1990s till 2019. I still think about her to this day.

I'm very successful in my life. You know, I like to think that I'm upper middle class. I'm a respiratory therapist. I work in the medical field. I help people all the time. I do a lot of stuff in my life, you know, and I could be just as successful as I am now with her. You know, it's always in the back of my head, no matter what. It just it just lives there. And I hope one day that I will meet her. And that's just what I want out of my life.

You know, our child was adopted. I tried to get with her to try to see what was going on. I met up with her, man, probably like a year after that. Oh, and it was bad. It was real bad.

After all this took place, the affection and the love that I once felt for her took a big 360. I still can't accept it to this day. Don't really know what she's up to now. Don't really care either, to be honest with you. She went down a really dark road, and I've heard things that she got bad into drugs and stuff. I mean, she lost her dad, you know?

I researched as much as I could and I found out the adoption agency that had my kid. And then I found the counselor that made it all happen. I got to know her on a very personal basis. I hounded her many times, many days, many nights. She was a very sweet woman, very kind to me, took all the abuse that I gave her, but she couldn't disclose what was going on.

She always just kind of stuck with me for years. She would reach out to me periodically and

catch back up and talk about different things. And there was nothing she could do about it. I knew that there was nothing she could do about it. She could just only provide emotional support. And she definitely told me on more than one occasion, she said that she's never had to dealt with a situation like this where God was trying so hard to be involved and couldn't be involved. And she just felt so bad for me.

I met my wife about 10 years ago. She's had a lot of mixed feelings about this whole situation. When we were younger in our marriage, she did not want to talk about it at all. She didn't want to hear about something so sad and tragic or whatever. I guess she knows now as we've gotten older, it doesn't really affect our relationship.

I think a higher power looks out for us because I have a daughter who's here with me all the time that's 10 years old. You know, I have my missing daughter. Having my daughter when she was born, it obviously brought back memories and feelings of, you know, the daughter that I couldn't watch being born and that I couldn't have.

I felt guilty when I do stuff with my daughter. It's definitely changed every aspect of my life. I would be a totally different person right now if it wasn't for this situation. I will tell my daughter at some point in time about her half-sister. Now she would be 18 years old. She could possibly be trying to look out for me if she's been told about me.

It's interesting always having this void there. It's a void. It's just knowing that you have something so wonderful that could love you so much and you could love so much that exists out there.

It's going to sound really cheesy, but I'm an 80s kid. It's like Fievel from American West. And we're sitting there singing Somewhere Out There. It's just kind of the same way. It's like Somewhere Out There is my kid. There might be a night that she's sitting there upset, and there might be a night I'm sitting there upset. And she's far from me, and I'm far from her. And maybe one day we can be together.

I do have something saved away for my first daughter. When her mom and I first met, her mom gave me a ring. I still have it to this day, and I still have several things from when we first dated. I just hope one day I can meet my daughter and just give her that ring and just tell her how much I love her. This Is Actually Happening is brought to you by me, Witt 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.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.