0:00

This Is Actually Happening features real experiences

0:02

that often include traumatic events. Please consult

0:04

the show notes for specific content warnings

0:06

on each episode and for more information

0:08

about support services. [♪

0:10

music ♪ I

0:17

was feeling as if I were

0:19

underwater. And everything

0:22

underwater is like

0:25

slow and dark and heavy.

0:28

I couldn't find the right

0:30

words to convey, I'm under

0:33

the water. I need somebody to pull me

0:35

up. From

0:45

Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You're

0:48

listening to This Is Actually Happening.

0:51

Episode 312. What

1:01

if you believed your love could cure him?

1:10

Today's episode is brought to you by Audible.

1:12

Audible is the home of storytelling. Audible

1:15

offers an incredible selection of audiobooks

1:17

across every genre, as well as

1:19

thousands of podcasts. Currently, I'm

1:22

listening to The Haunting of Hill House

1:24

by Shirley Jackson. After I was inspired

1:26

by watching the series and was told

1:28

the audiobook had a lot more depth

1:30

and intrigue, I've been riveted. As

1:32

an Audible member, you can choose one title

1:34

a month to keep from their entire catalog.

1:37

With the app, you can listen anywhere, as

1:39

it's all in one spot. New members can

1:41

try Audible free for 30 days. Visit

1:44

audible.com/happening or text happening

1:46

to 500 500. This

1:50

is actually happening is brought to you

1:52

by Progressive Insurance. Comparing

2:00

car insurance rates was as easy as

2:02

putting on your favorite podcast. With Progressive,

2:04

it is. Just visit the

2:07

Progressive website to quote with all the

2:09

coverages you want. You'll see Progressive's direct

2:11

rate. Then their tool will provide options

2:13

from other companies so you can compare.

2:15

All you need to do is choose

2:17

the rate and coverage you like. Quote

2:20

today at progressive.com to join the

2:22

over 28 million drivers who trust

2:25

Progressive. Progressive Casualty

2:27

Insurance Company and Affiliates. Insurance

2:29

rates not available in all states or situations.

2:32

Prices vary based on how you buy. I

2:49

had the good fortune of being raised

2:51

by hippies. My

2:54

dad came to Bloomington, Indiana

2:56

for college where I was

2:58

born. He was

3:01

from a farming family. He

3:04

was someone who wanted to look

3:06

at the world differently and live differently

3:08

than his parents. He

3:11

really tuned into the

3:14

spiritual hippie movement.

3:17

He got all the way to his senior year of college

3:19

and he dropped out. He

3:22

had already met my mom at that point. They

3:25

actually fell in love on an acid trip.

3:28

They were drawing circles on a piece

3:30

of paper and their circles connected and

3:32

that's when they both knew that they

3:34

were meant to be with each other.

3:38

My mom also, you know,

3:40

it's kind of a similar background in

3:42

that she came to IU for college,

3:45

started a degree and then dropped out with

3:48

my dad to go live on a commune.

3:51

My mom came from a very working class

3:53

background. Her dad was a truck driver and

3:55

her mom was a nurse. And

3:58

she also had a... a

4:00

just kind of deep-seated sense

4:02

of spirituality. And so my

4:04

mom and dad came together

4:07

and completely abandoned the dreams

4:09

their parents had for them.

4:12

And it did cause some fallout for both of

4:14

them. My

4:16

parents kind of created a family

4:19

with their friends, their group of

4:21

hippies. So I often say I

4:23

was raised by a pack of

4:25

hippies because the people who my

4:27

parents ended up forming an intentional

4:30

community with ended up really raising

4:32

me. There were

4:34

so many people who were

4:36

really deeply invested in me

4:38

growing up. Overall,

4:40

it was a really lovely way to be

4:43

raised. I

4:46

was born in 1976 and I was born at home. My

4:52

parents were living in this unroomed house

4:55

and they ended up moving

4:57

from this little house into

4:59

a trailer. It

5:02

was all pretty good. And then my

5:04

mom had a second child and I

5:06

think it started getting harder to support

5:08

us. They were

5:11

really struggling to get by.

5:14

And so my mom ended up

5:16

putting herself through an

5:18

RN program. She had

5:20

two kids when she started and she

5:22

got pregnant with my brother, Sam, my

5:24

youngest brother. I

5:26

remember times when my family had

5:28

to rely on government food that

5:30

was being handed out at the

5:32

local fire station and times

5:34

where all of us

5:37

kids gathered our change jars and dumped them

5:39

into a big pile on the floor so

5:41

that we could count up the change to

5:43

have enough money to go get milk and

5:45

bread. That was

5:47

one of the more challenging things

5:49

that sometimes cast a pall over

5:52

my family. I

5:55

definitely emerged as a caregiver

5:58

pretty early. in my

6:00

life, in a lot

6:02

of ways, my family's level of need

6:04

kind of brought out the part of

6:06

me that was like, I am the

6:08

meter of needs, like I am the

6:10

problem solver, I'll fix it, which

6:14

isn't necessarily a bad skill set to

6:16

have in life, but I was

6:18

pretty young when I started

6:21

feeling like I needed to step forward.

6:25

Growing up, it was a

6:28

very independent type of upbringing and

6:32

I think my parents' generation were coming

6:34

out of homes where there was a

6:36

lot of control, a lot of discipline,

6:38

and a lot of rules and sometimes

6:40

even abuse. So

6:42

I think they really were trying this

6:45

thing where, you

6:47

know, they wanted to see what would happen if there

6:50

was just total freedom. There

6:52

was just total freedom for

6:54

themselves and their children. I

6:58

started first grade at an alternative

7:00

school that was basically like a

7:02

school designed for the hippie population

7:04

in our town. So

7:06

I went to school with other kids who

7:09

were getting raised by hippies and

7:11

it was a really loving

7:13

environment, but there was a

7:16

kind of extreme permissiveness

7:19

and I did start getting

7:21

pretty heavily into drugs as a

7:24

teenager and sometimes

7:26

even drugs that have some

7:29

really serious consequences for my

7:31

brain and body. And

7:34

no one ever put the brakes

7:37

on that. No one was

7:39

really in charge or

7:41

like really minding the store. That

7:44

was a little bit scary in a

7:46

way. Not knowing where the

7:49

boundaries and the limits are. I

7:53

was coming of age in the early 90s and

7:55

I was considered overweight. I was like

7:58

a size 16 in high school. school.

8:01

And this is the era

8:03

of Kate Moss and super,

8:05

super, super skinny. That was

8:08

on all the magazine covers

8:10

and there wasn't really much

8:12

representation of curvy women at

8:14

all. And so

8:17

the combination of going a

8:19

little overboard with drugs and

8:21

then also just being bombarded

8:23

by our culture with this

8:26

idea that my body was

8:28

wrong and you know I

8:30

was ugly and undesirable really

8:33

messed with my concept of

8:35

like my own worth and

8:37

my own desirability that led

8:40

to a kind of

8:43

challenging adolescence. And I

8:46

think I really struggled

8:48

to believe that I

8:51

could be loved in

8:53

a romantic way that I was unlovable. When

8:57

I left high school I

9:00

was able to secure a

9:02

scholarship to go to Antioch College,

9:04

which is really exciting for me.

9:07

And so I did. I went

9:09

and I had a really good year there

9:12

and I left all

9:15

of that substance use behind.

9:17

And then my folks had

9:20

made just a tiny bit

9:22

more money than they had

9:25

the year before. So I lost

9:28

the scholarship. I left

9:30

Antioch College and that opened

9:33

a chapter in my life that

9:35

was very adventurous. I

9:39

did go back to partying

9:41

pretty hard. But I also

9:43

kind of set my mind to

9:45

like okay if I am not

9:47

going to get an education in

9:49

the traditional sense, I

9:51

am going to get an education in the world.

9:54

And so I worked

9:56

these low-wage jobs

9:58

and I would

10:01

save every single penny that

10:03

I made and then I

10:05

would take myself on these

10:08

incredible trips. As

10:12

I was settling down, kind of

10:14

coming out of this time period

10:16

where I had all my great

10:18

travels, I was 23

10:21

and had a friend that had a

10:23

baby. I went over

10:25

to her house to meet her baby

10:28

and she and her partner had a roommate. And

10:30

this roommate and I chatted a

10:33

bit and you know he just

10:35

seemed kind and funny. And

10:38

pretty shortly after that he asked

10:40

me on like our first sort

10:42

of official date. We

10:45

were kind of hot and heavy

10:47

pretty fast and it

10:49

was so magical for

10:52

the first couple

10:55

of months that we lived together. But

10:58

within two or

11:00

three months Scott had

11:03

an episode of depression and

11:05

it was really kind of

11:07

startling. I mean it changed

11:09

his personality dramatically and

11:11

he was pretty irritable and

11:14

he lost his sex drive. And

11:17

he could not name that

11:20

it was depression. You

11:23

know a lot of what he explained to

11:26

me about how he was feeling had to

11:28

do with me. He'd

11:30

say it was because I had

11:33

done something, some small thing that

11:35

irritated him. And when

11:37

he lost his sex drive he said

11:39

that he just didn't find me attractive

11:41

anymore. So

11:44

when we had only been together for six

11:46

months because this depression had dragged on for

11:49

a bit, we ended up

11:51

going to couples counseling and

11:53

after like a couple

11:55

months in couples counseling, he started

11:58

to feel better. He started to come out of it. depression

12:00

and I sort of felt

12:02

like, oh okay, like we handled that, we

12:05

tackled it. And

12:07

now it's better and we can move

12:09

forward. Eventually

12:12

we ended up deciding to

12:14

get married and definitely

12:17

I noticed that there were

12:19

more of those periods of

12:21

time and because we'd

12:24

been into therapy and it had been

12:26

named as depression, like I knew it

12:28

was depression, but it wasn't

12:30

ever something that Scott could

12:32

really like name and identify

12:34

when it was happening. I

12:38

would sort of just rationalize it like, okay,

12:40

well, I've seen this and I know he'll

12:42

come through it and I just kind of

12:44

have to bear with him during these times.

12:48

Also, I hadn't had anyone

12:51

show interest in having

12:53

a relationship with me, definitely not making

12:55

a life for me and I wanted

12:57

to get married and have kids. I

13:00

really thought like this was my

13:02

opportunity to do that because he

13:04

always seemed really committed to being

13:06

with me and so

13:08

I think I liked the certainty of

13:10

that. There

13:14

was a side to Scott

13:16

that I didn't really

13:18

have a name for

13:21

or could explain that would come out

13:23

every once in a while. It tended

13:26

to come out during times

13:28

where Scott was actually in

13:30

a really good mood and

13:32

really energetic and he'd be

13:34

dreaming big dreams and really

13:36

productive at work and

13:39

then his mood would kind of

13:41

like ramp up a little more

13:43

but it would turn sour and

13:45

sometimes in

13:49

those head spaces he

13:52

would really get angry.

13:56

This was just like a different level of

13:58

anger and And it

14:01

really did scare me sometimes.

14:04

And it really threatened my dream

14:06

of marriage and babies and this life

14:08

that I imagined. And so I

14:10

think I just wanted to shove that

14:13

down and forget about it. I

14:17

had a very clear story that

14:19

we were deeply in love and

14:21

we were gonna get married and

14:23

the depression was woven into that

14:25

story and something that I felt

14:27

like I could manage. But

14:30

there wasn't any room in that story

14:32

for these rages. There

14:36

was some part of me that knew

14:39

that this wasn't healthy, but

14:42

that would have been so threatening to

14:44

this story. And I was really invested

14:46

in this story that I

14:49

was gonna have this life and

14:51

I couldn't let it in. In

14:55

2003, Scott and I did get married. We

15:00

started our life together and it

15:02

was actually really happy.

15:05

I got pregnant with our

15:07

first child and he was born in

15:09

2005 and

15:11

it was just a golden time.

15:15

Scott was an incredible father

15:18

during that period of time.

15:23

He did the night shift with me

15:26

and I don't know if I've ever

15:28

seen a man so in love with his baby.

15:31

He was great, he was

15:33

supportive and we were great and

15:36

we just had so much fun being a

15:38

family. And as my first child

15:41

grew, I applied to go

15:43

to graduate school. And so I did MSW.

15:47

I liked the first few

15:49

social workouts I got a lot.

15:52

So I was happy when I worked. I

15:54

was happy with my family and

15:57

everything seemed kind of

15:59

perfect. Scott's

16:02

depression even seemed like it had just

16:04

sort of cleared up. He

16:09

had a really challenging childhood.

16:11

His mom had bipolar disorder

16:14

and was really significantly

16:16

impacted and would have

16:19

very long manic

16:21

episodes where she'd become psychotic

16:24

and violent at times.

16:28

His dad drank heavily and

16:30

was just not a very

16:32

kind person. And

16:35

I remember even thinking to myself,

16:37

you know, maybe having a family

16:39

has done something to anchor him

16:41

in a different way. You

16:44

know, I think I really thought like

16:46

problem solved. Like we got through it.

16:48

Like we're good. Then

16:52

I got pregnant with my second daughter in 2009.

16:58

But Scott actually got pretty

17:01

angry that I was pregnant.

17:04

And he was also just mean. I

17:09

remember this time very early in

17:11

my pregnancy. I had given

17:14

up refined sugar to lose

17:16

some weight. But I got pregnant

17:18

and I'm like, okay, I'm going to have cravings.

17:20

I'm going to eat refined sugar. We were at

17:22

a wedding and I was like, oh, I just

17:25

want to have this wedding cake. And

17:28

he looked at me and at a table

17:30

full of people, he said, look, you're going

17:32

to get fat. It

17:35

totally floored me that he would say

17:38

something like that in front of a

17:40

whole group of people. And

17:42

he was so cold about it. He

17:45

almost looked at me like he was kind of disgusted with

17:47

me. Like, oh, you're going to get fat again. That

17:51

was the beginning of knowing like

17:53

some tide was turning that was

17:56

not feeling very safe and secure

17:58

and good. Things

18:02

really deteriorated from there. Scott

18:06

had become absolutely

18:08

obsessed at this point with climate change.

18:11

Like, it was all he could talk

18:13

about. And he

18:15

was spending hours and hours and

18:17

hours volunteering for this organization that

18:19

was focused on renewable energy. At

18:23

one point, he asked me if he could take

18:25

two weeks off to really work on this event

18:28

that they were going to host. And

18:31

he took two weeks off, and then he

18:33

just didn't go back to work. You

18:37

know, it was like a month, and then

18:39

it was like two months. And I was

18:41

pregnant, and the only person

18:43

working. When

18:46

I would try to talk to him about

18:48

it, he would get irate and say I

18:50

wasn't supporting him and that he had to

18:52

do this. He was

18:54

really focused on the apocalyptic

18:57

side of climate change. But

19:00

he would talk about it in such detail

19:02

and with such animation that it would be

19:04

a little frightening. And it would frighten our

19:06

son, who was only four at the time.

19:08

And I would ask him to stop talking

19:11

about it in front of our son, and

19:13

he would insist that our son needed to

19:15

know that we're all going to die. It

19:20

got real bizarre, and

19:22

he wasn't sleeping much. I

19:26

think at that point, I recognized that

19:28

he was manic, but I could not

19:30

talk to him about it. Any

19:33

discussion of mental health would just set him off.

19:36

And then he really crashed, and

19:38

he became so, so depressed.

19:41

Foul mood and irritable kind

19:43

of depressed, where he would

19:46

really lash out at me and

19:48

my son. And

19:50

then finally, at the very end of

19:53

my pregnancy, I think that was probably

19:55

the first time that I really seriously

19:57

thought about leaving him. a

20:01

tiny infant and

20:03

we had no money. I was

20:07

back to work full-time and

20:10

it was just chaos and

20:12

I just didn't have the bandwidth to really even

20:14

deal with what had just happened and I just

20:16

sort of put it in the vault

20:18

with everything else and was like okay

20:21

well that happened but I

20:23

gotta keep moving forward and

20:26

it was just two children and

20:28

working full-time you don't have a

20:30

lot of space to contemplate things

20:33

it was just go go go this

20:44

is actually happening is sponsored by better

20:46

help what's the first thing you do

20:48

if you had an extra hour in

20:51

your day get more work done or

20:53

take time to relax or spend it

20:55

connecting with friends a lot of

20:57

us spend our lives wishing we had more

20:59

time but the question is time for what

21:01

most of us have trouble answering this question

21:03

because we don't often prioritize what matters most

21:06

therapy can help you find what matters to you

21:08

so you can do more of

21:11

it therapy for me is often giving

21:13

me the space and time to reflect

21:15

on what I really want to prioritize

21:17

therapy doesn't take time it gives time

21:19

time to focus on what helps you

21:21

thrive so if you are thinking of

21:23

starting therapy give better help a try

21:25

it's entirely online designed to be convenient

21:27

flexible and suited to your schedule learn

21:29

to make time for what makes you

21:32

happy with better help visit

21:34

better help calm slash happening

21:36

today to get 10% off

21:39

your first month that's

21:41

better help help.com month

21:44

that's better help

21:47

help.com/happening okay

21:49

it's time to commit 2024 is the year for

21:52

prioritizing yourself begin

21:55

your new smile journey with bite and you

21:57

could start seeing results in just two to

21:59

three weeks Just order your at-home

22:01

impression kit today for only $14.95 at byte.com.

22:05

Byte clear aligners are doctor-directed and

22:08

delivered to your door. Treatment costs

22:10

thousands less than braces. Plus, they

22:12

offer financing options, accept eligible insurance,

22:15

and you can pay with your

22:17

HSA FSA. Get 80% off

22:20

your impression kit when you

22:22

use code WONDERY at byte.com.

22:24

That's byte.com. Start your confidence

22:26

journey today with Byte. At

22:36

some point, I just started focusing on

22:38

myself and I was just taking really

22:40

good care of myself and I was

22:42

enjoying being a mom and I liked

22:44

my job. I had a job as

22:46

a hospice social worker. Things

22:49

with Scott felt manageable again.

22:53

Then, at the height

22:56

of me being strong

22:58

and healthy and in

23:00

great shape physically, I

23:03

just all of a sudden

23:05

started to feel really tired.

23:09

This was in the late summer of

23:11

2014. I

23:14

remember thinking that my job was just

23:16

getting more stressful and that's why I'm

23:18

getting tired. I scheduled

23:20

a week off for the week of my birthday

23:23

in October. I get

23:25

to my week off and

23:27

almost immediately, I start

23:30

having the symptoms of a cold. I'm

23:32

even more tired and I'm

23:35

achy, really achy. It

23:38

was a type of tired that

23:40

I'd just never experienced. My

23:45

whole body was like lead

23:48

and getting up from the couch felt

23:51

nearly impossible. I was

23:53

dragging my legs behind me

23:55

because they were so heavy.

23:58

I started to feel really tired. started having the

24:00

shortness of breath. I

24:03

went to my doctor and

24:05

she couldn't find anything that

24:07

seemed particularly wrong, but

24:09

I just was getting even worse

24:11

and the shortness of breath was

24:14

getting worse. I couldn't

24:16

catch my breath and I was

24:18

getting really freaked out. So

24:21

I went to the emergency department and

24:24

it really took some doing to get

24:26

my breathing under control. Finally,

24:29

after several rounds of

24:32

steroids and injecting a

24:34

muscle relaxer, finally

24:37

I got to where my breathing was

24:39

stable and they told me I had

24:42

an adult reactive airway disorder,

24:45

which was odd because I'd

24:47

never had any trouble with my

24:50

respiratory health ever. I

24:52

went home and by the

24:55

very next day, I was having

24:57

these problems again. And

24:59

then I started to get profoundly

25:01

weak to where

25:04

I was barely able

25:06

to walk. I

25:09

was feeling as if I were

25:11

underwater and

25:14

everything underwater is

25:17

like slow and dark and

25:19

heavy. I

25:21

couldn't find the right words

25:23

to convey. I'm under the

25:26

water. I need somebody to pull me up.

25:31

One night my legs totally gave out

25:33

on me. We called

25:35

my doctor's office and they said, I

25:37

think you've just really got hit hard

25:39

by a virus and you're really struggling

25:42

right now, but I bet in a

25:44

few days you're gonna feel better. That

25:47

was the first time that I

25:49

had an internal feeling of like,

25:52

no, no, something

25:54

else is happening. Like something is going

25:57

on in my body that is really...

26:00

wrong. But I couldn't

26:03

really give voice to that.

26:06

All I said is I'm really

26:08

scared. I ended

26:12

up going to bed that night and then

26:14

waking up in the morning to find that

26:16

my legs just didn't work. I

26:20

could not stand on them. At

26:24

that point, you know, we called the

26:26

doctor's office again and said something

26:28

has to happen. And

26:31

she said to me, I think that

26:33

you might be having this rare autoimmune

26:35

reaction that people can have when they

26:37

get a virus. And it's actually

26:39

pretty serious and you do need to go

26:41

to the hospital right away. When

26:44

we got to the hospital, my torso

26:46

and my arms were starting to

26:48

become so weak that I couldn't

26:50

move them. At which

26:53

point, my whole body

26:55

became paralyzed. Little

26:59

by little, my ability to breathe

27:01

began to wane because

27:04

also the muscles that control my

27:06

breathing were becoming paralyzed. The

27:10

hospital staff decided that I needed

27:12

to be on a ventilator. I

27:17

was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre

27:19

syndrome, which is an

27:21

autoimmune disorder that can paralyze

27:23

people and it's very serious.

27:26

What happens is that the antibodies

27:28

in your system, instead of like

27:31

attacking the virus, they attack this

27:33

myelin sheath that we have around

27:35

our nerves and they cause

27:37

damage to it. And that's what

27:39

causes the paralysis. And sometimes

27:42

that damage is irreversible. Oftentimes

27:45

people can come back from full

27:47

paralysis but they will always have

27:49

problems. They

27:52

gave me the treatment for Guillain-Barre,

27:54

which is pumping good antibodies into

27:56

your system. And they gave

27:58

me this IV antibiotic. treatment because

28:00

they thought I had some kind of

28:02

infection but they didn't know exactly what

28:05

and I was better

28:08

like really better. They

28:12

took me off the vents after three

28:14

days. By day

28:16

six I was up and walking

28:18

the hallways and

28:21

I was like back. I

28:23

was walking staircases and

28:26

doing all the tasks all the

28:28

tests that they had for arm

28:30

strength that was passing with flying

28:32

colors. They just

28:34

couldn't believe it. Like we

28:36

never see this with Guillain-Barre. People with

28:38

Guillain-Barre are here for six months at

28:40

least and I thought it

28:42

was great news. I'm like oh my

28:44

god like I'm the miracle person. So

28:48

we were all very happy and I

28:50

got discharged home and then

28:54

I started to

28:56

have these periods

28:58

where I would become very very weak again.

29:00

I was just

29:03

right back to barely being able

29:05

to get to the bathroom. My

29:09

husband and I had both read a

29:11

ton about Guillain-Barre and we were like

29:13

this is not what happens. This

29:15

doesn't make sense. That's

29:17

when I started to realize

29:20

that I was

29:22

misdiagnosed. It

29:25

was so frightening because whatever

29:27

that thing was that was wrong with me

29:29

had caused me to be paralyzed before and

29:31

I don't

29:34

know if that's gonna happen again. Like am

29:36

I gonna suddenly be paralyzed and not be

29:38

able to breathe? I

29:41

got so sick that I was

29:43

hospitalized again. I ended up for

29:46

the first time having a neurologist

29:48

suggest that I might have something

29:50

called a conversion disorder and

29:53

that was a huge turning

29:56

point and a very sad

29:58

and bad way for me. me because

30:02

conversion disorder is the modern

30:04

day equivalent to Freud's hysteria.

30:09

It's where your buried

30:12

trauma is, you know, like

30:14

somehow your system just like can't face it

30:16

and can't cope with it. And

30:19

it's causing you to have these

30:21

somatic symptoms, these symptoms

30:23

that seem real to you but

30:25

they're not of physical origin. It's

30:29

the fancy way of saying it's all in your head. I

30:34

knew there was something physically wrong

30:36

with me but unfortunately

30:39

the neurologist I've been seeing

30:41

really took that conversion disorder

30:43

ball and ran with it

30:46

and said the entire thing,

30:48

the full paralysis where I

30:50

was put on the ventilator,

30:52

the respiratory arrest, the

30:55

whole thing was a conversion

30:57

disorder. I

31:00

remember being in the office with him and my mom was with

31:02

me and I'm saying to him,

31:04

but I didn't have reflexes. That

31:07

doesn't compute. You can't

31:09

psychologically influence your body to

31:11

not have reflexes. That doesn't

31:14

make sense. It

31:16

was extra frustrating because I

31:18

at that time was a

31:21

social worker with a master's

31:23

degree and my concentration was

31:25

in mental health and I

31:27

had done an entire semester

31:29

on this diagnostic and statistical

31:31

manual that this diagnosis comes

31:33

out of conversion disorder because

31:35

it's a psychiatric diagnosis. I'm

31:38

just like, no. And

31:40

the other thing I kept

31:42

saying was like prior to

31:45

this event, I had

31:47

not had really significant trauma

31:49

that could cause a conversion

31:52

disorder. For conversion

31:54

disorder, it's usually like somebody loses someone

31:56

who's very close to them and they

31:58

can't cope with it. And so they

32:00

develop somatic symptoms or somebody was

32:02

sexually abused as a child and

32:04

they've repressed the memory and they

32:07

just can't face it. And so

32:09

their body starts to sort of

32:11

tell the story, right? But

32:13

I hadn't had anything like that. And

32:16

when I said that part, this

32:19

neurologist actually said, this is

32:22

my mom sitting right there in the

32:24

room, said, well, you were probably abused

32:26

as a child and you've blocked it

32:28

out. What?

32:32

It was so frustrating.

32:36

But beyond that, it was

32:40

demoralizing and

32:42

terrifying because

32:45

I had been home

32:47

from the hospital and really, really

32:50

sick for like about six weeks.

32:53

And he's telling me, it's

32:55

all in your head. There's nothing I can do for

32:57

you. It was

32:59

so scary to

33:01

be that sick and to think

33:04

that there was no path forward. There

33:09

was absolutely a

33:11

part of me that couldn't

33:14

shake what he'd said. And

33:18

I would have these moments where I

33:20

would think about it obsessively. Could

33:22

it be true? Could

33:24

it be that my mind is doing this? That

33:28

was awful because I already

33:31

felt like I couldn't rely on

33:33

my body. And

33:35

now I'm being told that

33:38

my mind has failed too and

33:40

I couldn't trust my mind either. It

33:43

just felt like such a black hole.

33:45

Could this be true? It

33:48

also induced it for me, just

33:51

a huge feeling of guilt, like

33:54

something that I did me

33:56

not taking care of myself, me

33:59

not facing. things properly. I

34:02

wasn't able to be a mom at

34:04

this time. I could barely

34:06

get to the bathroom. I couldn't give

34:08

my children a bath or read them

34:10

bedtime stories. I couldn't hold a book.

34:14

There was an emotional part of

34:16

me that was like, I did

34:18

this, I brought this on myself,

34:21

and I'm failing my kids because of it.

34:24

And I think the

34:26

most challenging element was

34:28

the uncertainty and it

34:31

was like, what's the

34:33

end point of this disease process? Right? Like,

34:35

do I have something that's gonna kill me?

34:38

And then not knowing how long I

34:40

was gonna be in that state of

34:42

illness and how it

34:44

changed everything about me.

34:46

I am

34:50

an energetic person

34:53

and I was like, so

34:55

physically impaired. I had

34:58

been such a caregiver that had

35:00

been such a big part of

35:03

my personality. I took care of

35:05

people and it felt like I lost

35:07

me. I lost myself.

35:11

I lost the things that make me

35:13

me. It unlocked

35:17

this relentless pursuit of

35:20

health and myself. Like, I

35:23

had to get back to myself.

35:26

I have to get back to my life. In

35:30

the winter into the spring

35:33

of 2015, I was experiencing

35:35

still periods of

35:40

profound weakness. My

35:42

body couldn't hold itself up anymore.

35:45

That was my life. For months,

35:49

that coupled with a

35:51

lot of moments where I

35:53

would have involuntary movement. I

35:56

had this one really odd experience where half of my life was

35:59

just a little bit of a half of my body

36:01

became paralyzed, like I couldn't move it,

36:03

and half of it was tremoring. And

36:06

then I would have intermittent pain.

36:09

It would just sort of come on all of a

36:11

sudden. It could be pretty severe at times. On

36:14

any given day I could wake

36:16

up to a whole new bizarre

36:18

set of symptoms, like weird

36:21

buzzing sensations in my body, like

36:23

there was like an electrical wire

36:25

that was buzzing. But

36:28

the constant was this utterly

36:30

debilitating weakness. After

36:34

trying to go to

36:37

a couple of different doctors, as

36:39

soon as people saw the conversion disorder

36:41

diagnosis on my chart, they didn't want

36:43

to do anything more. So I

36:46

finally met with a psychologist and

36:49

she ended up finding that I

36:51

did not have a conversion disorder.

36:54

And so we start looking at other

36:56

options. And

36:58

then I ended up having

37:00

another like weird neurologic episode

37:02

and I decided to go

37:05

to the emergency department and

37:07

a physician's assistant, she said, you

37:09

might want to find somebody that

37:12

knows about tick-borne illness. So

37:15

we went home and my

37:17

husband was like researching tick-borne

37:19

illness and he found the

37:22

Columbia University Research Center on

37:24

tick-borne illness. And oh

37:26

my god, it was like every symptom.

37:29

Every, every symptom I had had

37:31

was on that list and

37:33

it was super exciting. We

37:37

found a nurse practitioner who

37:39

had a small private practice,

37:42

what she called Lyme aware, and

37:45

we made an appointment with

37:47

her and I talked my

37:49

doctor into starting me on

37:51

the medication for these tick-borne

37:53

illnesses. And

37:55

I had a really

37:58

violent reaction to the medication. Then

38:00

when it. Happens with

38:02

lime disease and tick borne

38:04

illnesses. and my brain

38:06

got really inflamed of us are having his of

38:08

violent of the said that were like. Seizures

38:10

like I was just like

38:12

taking. All over flop and like

38:14

a search. It

38:16

was a very weird moment

38:18

in time because I was

38:20

like so excited at we

38:23

found that we find out

38:25

that and dad a search

38:27

treatment and i am leg

38:29

sicker. Even still, More

38:31

debilitated. Only actually

38:34

got to see the nurse practitioner that knew

38:36

about it. She set me off the medicine and

38:38

then add to start back on a lower

38:40

dose. And that really

38:42

began my. Education and

38:45

about Lyme and bacterial

38:47

illnesses come along with

38:49

to buy. The

38:54

next two years. Were. An

38:57

absolute roller coaster ride with my Hell.

39:01

Sadly, After one year

39:03

on that roller coaster, the

39:05

stress of it really impacted

39:07

my husband's mental health. And

39:10

he began having a period of

39:12

time or his raises became something

39:15

yeah and what they ever had.

39:17

An. A

39:20

level love, screaming. Became.

39:23

Really menacing. And it wasn't

39:25

short outbursts, it was long

39:28

tirades, then. It was

39:30

very irrational and it was

39:32

triggered by the tiniest of

39:34

things. Not.

39:36

Knowing what I was gonna contend

39:39

with data day with my health

39:41

and then not knowing if I

39:43

was going to be frightened and

39:45

scared by my husband's. All

39:47

of that me about period of time.

39:50

Just so a challenge here. I.

39:54

must have had a really big

39:56

vaults gonna just sort of served

39:58

all that ugly hard

40:00

stuff into the vault and tried

40:03

to make our home happy for my kids

40:06

because they had just lived through a really

40:09

awful two years. We

40:11

really tried to just launch back into life

40:13

as usual and we were pretty successful for

40:16

a while. My husband

40:19

went back to school

40:22

and I finally got back

40:24

to work. I started a private

40:26

practice and I became a licensed

40:29

clinical social worker. I loved being

40:33

a therapist that was enjoying being

40:35

with my kids and I was proud of

40:37

my husband for doing this thing that I

40:40

knew meant a lot to him and it

40:42

seemed like we'd been able to reset.

40:48

Then one day, Labor Day of 2017, I came home.

40:50

My husband

40:56

was on his computer. He

40:58

turned around and looked at me and he looked off.

41:02

Something was not right and

41:05

he said, I need to

41:07

tell you something and

41:10

he said to me, where's your cell

41:12

phone? Are you sure it's not out

41:14

here? And I'm like, no it's not out here. And

41:17

then I noticed his cell phone

41:19

had tape over the camera and

41:21

the microphone and

41:23

then he like shoved it in this

41:26

pile of camping mattresses that we kept

41:28

in the front porch. I was

41:30

like, that's weird.

41:32

I sit down on

41:34

the porch swing and he just starts to

41:37

pace in circles. He's

41:39

got his wild look in his eye and he

41:42

starts telling me this

41:44

story. This group of

41:46

women have targeted him and

41:49

he calls them gander stalkers.

41:52

She isn't actually a word

41:55

but it's what his word for it

41:57

was. Gander

42:00

stalkers have targeted him and

42:03

they're watching him through the computer

42:05

and they're watching him through all

42:08

of their phones and They

42:11

want to destroy him and they want to

42:13

destroy his life because he was

42:15

looking at pornography They

42:18

found out about it and this

42:20

is their mission. This is what they do. They

42:22

find men who look at pornography and they target

42:25

them I've

42:27

worked on psychiatric units before So

42:30

I was like, oh shit. He

42:32

is psychotic Once

42:35

you've seen someone in a state of psychosis Like

42:37

there's just a certain look people have like on

42:39

their faces and in their eyes and it's

42:42

kind of unmistakable Once you learn

42:44

how to recognize it He

42:46

was so clearly there. I Immediately

42:50

started to try to coax him into

42:52

going to the hospital and he would

42:55

not have it it

42:57

was absolutely terrifying

43:02

We're in this like tiny house. My

43:04

kids are there and he's

43:06

totally psychotic and

43:08

I cannot get him to go to

43:10

the hospital He

43:13

maintained this delusion about the

43:15

gander stalkers the whole time

43:17

but the kind of pitch

43:19

of his paranoia grew

43:22

and grew First

43:25

it was like they're watching me. He

43:28

would get really really scared if any

43:30

of us pulled out our phones He

43:34

also had what's called delusions of

43:36

reference You can have

43:38

delusions where you're looking at something

43:40

from the outside world and

43:43

in your mind it very clearly says

43:46

these people are out to get me and as

43:49

time went on he began to believe that

43:51

they were going to kill him and He

43:54

was absolutely terrified

43:59

To be watching somebody who's

44:01

like in a waking nightmare

44:03

and you can't wake them up.

44:07

It was awful. I

44:10

just couldn't get him help. And I

44:12

did everything I would need to

44:15

do to make that happen. I got

44:17

a chance to call the emergency

44:19

services therapist. And she told

44:22

me that there was nothing she could do.

44:25

That he didn't have a diagnosis

44:27

on his chart of bipolar disorder

44:29

or anything related to psychosis. And

44:32

I was just gobsmacked.

44:36

I have no idea what to do now. Angie

44:48

has made it easier than ever to

44:50

connect with skilled professionals to get all

44:52

your home projects done well. Just bring

44:54

them your project online or with the

44:56

Angie app and answer a few questions.

44:58

With Angie you can book instantly at

45:00

an upfront price or request and compare

45:02

clothes from multiple pros so you can

45:05

find the best price for your project.

45:07

So the next time you have a home

45:09

project just Angie that and start getting the

45:11

most out of your home. Download

45:13

the free Angie mobile app today

45:16

or visit angie.com. That's A N

45:18

G I dot com. If

45:20

I asked you how many subscriptions you have would you

45:22

be able to list all of them and how much

45:24

you're paying. If you would

45:27

have asked me this question before I

45:29

started using rocket money I would have

45:31

said yes. But let me tell you

45:33

I would have been so wrong. I

45:35

can't believe how many I had and

45:37

all the money I was wasting. Rocket

45:39

money is a personal finance app that

45:41

finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions monitors

45:43

your spending and helps lower your bills.

45:46

Rocket money has over five million users

45:48

and it's helped save its members an

45:50

average of seven hundred and twenty dollars

45:53

a year with over five hundred million

45:55

in canceled subscriptions. Stop wasting

45:57

money on things you don't use.

46:00

Cancel your unwanted

46:02

subscriptions by going

46:04

to rocketmoney.com/wondery. That's

46:07

rocketmoney.com/wondery. rocketmoney.com

46:09

slash wondery. Eventually,

46:20

his psychosis got

46:22

so severe that

46:25

one night we were at

46:27

home and just trying to get

46:29

some sleep. I

46:31

remember hearing his footsteps on the

46:33

stairs and they were loud. And

46:36

he wakes me up and he tells me there's

46:38

something that I have to see downstairs. So

46:42

I just went ahead and I got up

46:44

and my cell phone was

46:46

sitting next to the bed. I

46:51

just sort of discreetly like

46:53

picked it up and pressed

46:55

it against my thigh. And

46:58

he, for the first

47:00

time in our whole

47:02

time together, like

47:04

16 years, he

47:07

laid hands on me. He

47:09

grabbed my arm and he twisted it.

47:12

He twisted my wrist and

47:16

wrenched the phone away from me. And I

47:19

was like, this is a new level. He

47:24

pulls me towards the computer that grabs

47:26

both of my arms and

47:29

he is showing me the Craigslist

47:31

IQ page. He

47:34

says to me, I

47:36

know what you did. I

47:38

know you're behind all of it. And

47:42

I was just like, no,

47:44

honey, no. Why

47:47

would I do this to you? Why

47:49

would I bring this on our family? And

47:52

he just goes on this

47:55

tirade about how I

47:57

am behind everything. figured

48:00

it out from the Craigslist tycoons and

48:03

I'm the mastermind. At

48:07

this point, you know, we'd already done

48:10

this like walk-in clinic and

48:12

they wouldn't prescribe him antipsychotics and

48:14

what they prescribed him was basically

48:17

it was like a really strong

48:19

antihistamine. So then he

48:21

tells me, and I know you're

48:23

trying to kill me, I know that you

48:25

had them

48:28

give me this poison and he

48:31

picks up the pill bottle and he

48:33

opens the pill bottle and he pours

48:36

a bunch in his hands and

48:38

he tells me, I know these

48:40

are poisons and that I'm

48:43

going to take these pills to

48:45

prove to him that they're not poison and

48:48

that's when he actually attacked

48:50

me. He

48:52

grabbed my arm and he started to try

48:54

to push the pill into my mouth and

48:56

we're both standing at this point. I'm

48:59

resisting and I'm trying to pull away from

49:01

him and so in that process, like we're

49:03

backing up and we're backing up and then

49:05

we hit the sink and

49:07

I can't go any further away

49:09

from him and he's pressing this

49:11

pill against my lips really really

49:13

hard and I'm gritting my teeth

49:16

and I'm still just trying to get away

49:18

from him but I'm back to the sink

49:20

so I start jerking my body side to

49:22

side trying to just get loose from him

49:25

and then we end up tumbling to the

49:27

floor. I don't have

49:29

the strength to fight him off. He's a construction

49:31

worker and he quickly, you know,

49:33

gains the upper hand and he gets

49:35

on top of me and he pins

49:37

my arms with his legs and

49:40

I clenched my teeth so hard

49:43

that my teeth actually cracked and

49:46

I'm just crying so hard not to

49:48

open my mouth under all the pressure

49:50

that he's putting on it. I

49:54

don't know how long we were like that but

49:57

in those moments I really

49:59

thought... that he might kill me just

50:02

from the struggle because he was pressing

50:04

so hard and he was so strong. Luckily,

50:08

his own mind distracted

50:10

him again. He thought

50:13

of some other thing he'd seen in

50:15

the Craigslist tycoon that could prove that

50:17

I was behind it all. And he

50:20

actually got off of me on his

50:22

own volition and

50:24

he walked back over to the computer.

50:29

As quietly as possible, I creeped

50:31

up off of the floor and

50:33

I crawled until I was just behind him.

50:36

And then, as fast as I could, I

50:40

sprung up and I grabbed the

50:42

landline and I turned around and

50:45

I sprinted for the bathroom. I

50:48

got in there and I locked the door and I

50:51

called 911. I

50:53

was worried he was going to come through and I

50:55

think I said, you have to stop this because the

50:58

cops are on the way. At that

51:01

he fled. He left

51:03

the house and didn't come

51:05

home until the next evening.

51:11

Four days later, Scott

51:13

had another violent episode with

51:15

me. He pushed me

51:18

down in our gravel driveway and

51:20

he stole my car. He

51:23

drove my car to

51:25

southern Indiana. He

51:27

really believed that, you

51:29

know, this group of men were after him. I

51:31

was after him. My brother

51:34

had come to stay with me to help keep me

51:36

safe and he thought my brother

51:38

was trying to kill him. Everyone was trying to

51:40

kill him. So

51:42

he just stopped the car in the middle

51:44

of one of the busiest highways in Indiana

51:46

and just left it in

51:49

the lane. He got

51:51

out and he ran through

51:54

the median for a while and he found

51:56

a state police outpost. He

51:59

went in and he asked the police officer

52:01

for help because he thought he was being

52:03

chased and he thought he was going to

52:05

be killed. And somehow

52:07

that police officer talked him in to

52:09

going to a hospital

52:11

down in Southern Indiana

52:13

that had psychiatric emergency

52:16

department. And he had

52:19

a moment of lucidity, remembered

52:21

that he had pushed me

52:24

down and he realized he

52:26

had to get killed.

52:28

He did want to be hospitalized in Bloomington, which

52:30

I was all for. And he was not

52:33

kept for a super long time. And

52:36

he was discharged on a medication that takes four

52:38

to six weeks to build up to a therapeutic

52:40

level in your system. So of

52:43

course he quit taking it. So

52:46

it wasn't the end of things. The

52:49

end didn't come until I moved

52:52

out in May of 2018. I just

52:56

finally decided like, didn't do

52:58

it anymore. So I asked for

53:00

a legal separation asked him

53:03

to leave. Unfortunately,

53:05

he wouldn't leave. So

53:08

I ended up leaving our home with my

53:10

kids and moving into a crappy apartment. I

53:15

was really grieving the loss of

53:17

him and our marriage, but

53:20

I was finally finding some peace.

53:22

And I

53:24

just realized like, I absolutely could

53:27

not go back. It's

53:31

still very complicated. The

53:33

duality of losing someone

53:36

and having that both be a thing that you

53:38

grieve and a thing that brings you peace. I

53:42

remember this one moment when

53:45

we were house sitting for

53:47

someone and my mom took

53:49

my kids. I was alone for the first time

53:51

since we left. And I

53:54

remember this wave of grief hit

53:57

me and it was so powerful that

53:59

it actually knocked me over and

54:02

I was crying for Scott because

54:05

it felt as if this illness had been

54:08

like a death. It

54:10

just completely took away the man that

54:12

I knew and I was crying

54:15

for myself and

54:17

all that I'd been through and all that I had

54:19

lost and I was crying for my kids. They

54:22

no longer had you know a

54:25

family, an intact family and

54:27

I couldn't grieve this with him. I

54:30

couldn't even acknowledge it was hard with him.

54:33

There was no closure.

54:35

That was something that just got taken from

54:37

both of us. I've

54:42

definitely still had struggles with

54:44

Lyme disease. I had a

54:46

really significant relapse of Lyme disease in

54:48

2020. Lyme disease is gonna be

54:52

something that I'm always gonna have to deal with on

54:54

some level and there's been

54:57

something about coming through all this where it's

54:59

gonna like hey you know life is fragile

55:01

and you never know what's gonna happen. After

55:06

actually leaving and kind

55:09

of getting settled in in my own

55:11

new life, I bought my own home.

55:13

You know I lost my home. I

55:15

just I couldn't

55:18

get Scott out of that house and I

55:20

decided just to give it to him in

55:22

the divorce but I ended

55:24

up buying a home. It's really

55:26

beautiful. You know little

55:28

bit I love it and it's really

55:31

mine. Our divorce

55:34

was final in August of 2018 and I started dating

55:36

in November of 2018. On the

55:44

second date I went on after

55:46

trying out the Bumble app, I

55:48

met this man who ended

55:51

up being kind and smart

55:53

and supportive and I ended

55:56

up falling in love. At

56:00

the same time, I was

56:02

still really grieving my

56:04

marriage and also had

56:06

a pretty terrible case

56:08

of PTSD symptoms that

56:10

was impacting me quite

56:13

a lot and like being wildly

56:15

in love and like the euphoria

56:17

that comes with that, that was

56:19

another like roller coaster kind of

56:21

a time. And

56:23

there was something about finding

56:26

a new love that was

56:28

a healthier love, a healthier

56:30

relationship that allowed me to

56:32

see the patterns of dynamics

56:34

in my past relationship differently.

56:38

And I had this really interesting thing

56:40

happen to me where, you know, I

56:42

talked earlier about like there

56:44

was this vault and I just

56:46

kept pushing things into the vault. And

56:49

there was this one night I was lying in

56:51

bed and all of a sudden the vault flew open

56:59

and years and years

57:02

of memories of,

57:04

you know, Scott being controlling

57:07

or raising his voice at

57:09

me or treating me unkindly

57:11

just came

57:13

flooding out. And

57:16

it was totally overwhelming when it happened.

57:19

But I really did need to be

57:22

loved and when my new partner was capable

57:24

of loving me to really

57:26

reckon with the way I'd

57:28

been loved before that was

57:31

so hurtful. One

57:35

of the things that absolutely changed

57:37

for me having lived through all

57:39

of this is that I really

57:43

believed that love is

57:45

curative. I

57:47

thought love can conquer

57:49

the obstacles. And

57:51

so I think for years I

57:54

just thought I could love Scott

57:56

out of his traumatic childhood and

57:58

his mental health. illness. There

58:03

came a point when I finally realized I

58:05

had to leave him where

58:07

I really understood

58:09

that love by itself, no

58:11

matter how much love I had, it wasn't

58:14

actually going to save him. I

58:19

really switched to like

58:21

really consciously channeling love

58:23

and compassion for myself

58:26

and not being so much in

58:28

the mindset that like it's my

58:30

job to save people because

58:33

sometimes you just can't. Honestly

58:38

I don't know how to make peace with that.

58:40

It's a hard reality of life

58:43

and it's important to know

58:46

when it's time to take

58:48

those kind of valuable resources and

58:50

tend to yourself with them. I

58:55

still do know my own words and

58:58

I still have that thing

59:00

I discovered the first time I was

59:02

sick which is just this persistence

59:04

in me to get back

59:07

to health when I'm not

59:09

in health, to get back

59:11

to happiness when I'm not

59:13

in happiness, and I

59:16

have that for my kids too. Like I feel

59:18

very dedicated for them and whatever life is going

59:20

to throw at us we're going to get through

59:22

it and we're going to get through it together.

59:38

Today's episode featured Mirabai Rose.

59:41

To learn more about

59:43

Mirabai, you can find

59:46

her on Instagram at

59:48

mirabai.rose. That's MARABAI.rose. And

59:51

on her website

59:53

at mirabairose.com. That's

59:56

marabairose.com. There you

59:58

can find links

1:00:00

to her own podcast, Badass,

1:00:02

Tales of Resilience, which showcases

1:00:04

authentic conversations about trauma and

1:00:06

resilience. You can also find

1:00:08

links to her memoir, Holding

1:00:10

Hope, One Family's Odyssey Through

1:00:12

Lyme Disease and Psychosis, which

1:00:14

dives deeper into many aspects

1:00:16

of the story you heard

1:00:19

today and more. If you'd

1:00:21

like to reach out to

1:00:23

her, you can email at

1:00:25

contactatmirabairose.com or on Facebook at

1:00:27

facebook.com/m a r a b

1:00:29

a i. From

1:00:36

Wondery, you're listening to This Is

1:00:39

Actually Happening. If you love

1:00:41

what we do, please rate and review the

1:00:43

show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Amazon

1:00:45

Music or on the Wondery app to listen

1:00:47

ad-free and get access to the entire back

1:00:49

catalog. In the episode notes, you'll find some

1:00:51

links and offers from our sponsors. By supporting

1:00:54

them, you help us bring you our show

1:00:56

for free. I'm your host,

1:00:58

Whit Misseldine. Today's episode was co-produced

1:01:00

by me, Andrew Waite, and Sarah

1:01:02

Marinelli, with special thanks to the

1:01:04

This Is Actually Happening team, including

1:01:06

Ellen Wesper. The intro music features

1:01:08

the song Illabi by Tipper. You

1:01:11

can join the community on the

1:01:13

This Is Actually Happening discussion group

1:01:15

on Facebook or follow us on

1:01:17

Instagram at actuallyhappening. On the show's

1:01:19

website, thisisactuallyhappening.com, you can

1:01:22

find out more about the podcast,

1:01:24

contact us with any questions, submit

1:01:26

your own story, or visit the

1:01:28

store, where you can find This

1:01:30

Is Actually Happening designs on stickers,

1:01:33

t-shirts, wall art, hoodies, and more.

1:01:35

That's thisisactuallyhappening.com. And finally, if you'd

1:01:37

like to become an ongoing supporter of

1:01:39

what we do, go to patreon.com/happening. And

1:01:41

$2 to $5 a month goes a

1:01:44

long way to support our vision. Thank

1:01:46

you for listening. music.

1:02:00

Download the Amazon Music

1:02:02

app today or you

1:02:04

can listen ad-free with Wondery

1:02:07

Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before

1:02:09

you go, tell us about

1:02:11

yourself by completing a short

1:02:13

survey at wondery.com/survey. Keep

1:02:15

your heart rate up month after

1:02:17

month with Audible's pulse-pounding collection of

1:02:20

mystery and thriller titles that you

1:02:22

can't hear anywhere else. With captivating

1:02:24

sound design, eerie soundscapes,

1:02:26

and dynamic performances, you're

1:02:28

guaranteed to stay gripped. As an

1:02:31

Audible member, you can choose one title

1:02:33

a month to keep from their entire

1:02:35

catalog. Check out We Play Games for

1:02:37

a chilling psychological thriller about a seemingly

1:02:39

perfect couple who loves to play a

1:02:42

game only they know the rules to.

1:02:44

Together they scheme to manipulate those around

1:02:46

them and when their perfect facade

1:02:48

crumbles, they turn the game on

1:02:50

each other. New members can try

1:02:53

Audible free for 30 days. Visit

1:02:55

audible.com slash thrill or text thrill to

1:02:57

500 500. That's audible.com