189: What if you couldn't stop shining?
46:47 Share

This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. That feeling that you get when you find out an important piece of information, that aha moment was happening constantly. I felt as if somebody put my brain into a microwave.

From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 189, What If You Couldn't Stop Shining?

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

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.

When I was born, my parents weren't married. I don't think they wanted to be together, but then my mom got pregnant with me and my parents did end up getting married for a short period of time, but I always felt like things were not solid. I grew up with my brother who is seven years older than me.

My brother was from a different relationship and so my mom favored him and my dad favored me. He was very much my mom's child and I was my dad's child. As long as I can remember, I knew this. In fact, I felt like my mom didn't like me from a very young age.

I came home one day from first grade and we got to the house and everything was gone. And my mom turned and looked at me and said, your dad doesn't want to be with us anymore. What's difficult about this memory for me is that we arrived home and he just wasn't there anymore.

This was the one guy I could count on. And I felt abandoned. I didn't understand what was going on. And my mom didn't have anywhere to go once they decided to get a divorce. So we all moved in with my grandma. From that point on, I felt displaced because I was in this family unit where my mom didn't treat me the way she treated my brother.

She had him when she was 19, so they kind of grew up together. It felt like I wasn't meant to be in that family. My mom and my brother had such a close relationship, and now the one person who would actually pay attention to me had left.

So when I was seven years old, my brother got into high school. And once he was at his freshman year, he said, I'm done with school. I don't care to be doing this anymore. And she said, yeah, that's fine.

You can drop out if you want to. So he would sit around the house with my mom and her boyfriend and they would drink all day. They would drink all day. And so I remember the scene where my brother was drinking a beer with my mom. Mind you, he's probably 15, 16 years old. They were watching South Park on TV. And I had drawn my mom a picture of

I brought it to her to show her, oh my gosh, mom, look at what I've drawn for you. And she took it and she said, yeah, great job. And then she put it down on the table next to her beer and continued watching South Park and laughing with my brother. And the look on her face was, she was annoyed. She was annoyed that she had to praise me.

Nobody thought that that was strange. I think nobody recognized in that moment how much that type of attitude would impact me. I think at that age, I knew that I was supposed to be an obedient little girl and obedient.

I decided that the only way I was going to get attention was to be more like the adults in my life. And so I cussed a lot and I had a hard time having healthy routines. I had a hard time doing my homework. I would like ride my skateboard around the neighborhood and just cause as much ruckus as I could at that age.

But I think at that age, you don't understand why you're doing these things. You don't understand where this angst comes from. My dad got an apartment. I saw him every other weekend and on Wednesdays.

I remember having a lot of fun. He had a pool and he got a two bedroom so I could have my own bedroom there. And he very much wanted to be in my life. He very much wanted to be the best dad that he could.

And so that was kind of my getaway. I didn't feel like I had to walk on eggshells around my dad. And I could just go over to my dad's house and be a kid again.

When I was about nine years old, I had been living with my mom and her boyfriend and my brother in this house for a little while. And my mom started going out every night. She would go to bars with her boyfriend. She would not get home until one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning.

I had always known that my mom drank and smoked weed, but I never recognized that as something that I should be afraid of. One night, she came home, I was asleep, and I heard her and her boyfriend fighting, screaming at each other to the point that it woke me up.

I heard bottles breaking and the fighting got more intense and I heard the police show up at the door. That night, my mom ended up getting arrested for domestic violence.

During this period of time, she was getting drunk so often and I just remember this period of time as her being unable to connect with me. There's just a vacant place in my mind where my mom should have been.

I have this memory one night of my mom coming home and I had missed her so much. So I went into her room and she was getting into bed and I asked her, can I have a hug? And she said, sure, you know, just come lay down next to me. A couple of minutes went by and she was screaming for her boyfriend and

And she said, come fuck me, come fuck me. As if she had forgotten that I was right next to her. I don't know what the situation was, but I remember that being a big moment of me realizing that I can't count on my mom to remember that I exist. Looking back now, there were so many situations in which I was endangered and I thought that that was normal behavior.

It was definitely a theme throughout my life that my parents had better things to do and that I was left to figure it out and fend for myself and develop any skills necessary to survive.

Everything in my life felt like a tornado. And I knew at that time that my place in the world was not going to be with this family. And that was scary. I was afraid of losing my mom because even if she didn't care about me, she's my mom and she's supposed to be the one who always loves you.

I was afraid of losing my dad because that was my only connection to what love and comfort felt like to me. I was on the phone with my dad and I asked him, can I come live with you? And I remember him sounding so happy and he said, yeah, of course. That beginning part of my life living with my dad felt so freeing.

I had someone who would give me one-on-one attention, who would ask me how my day at school was. I remember being really happy. I really thought like, "Wow, my dad has come and saved me." I remember my dad coming to me later that night and saying, "Do you ever want to see your mom again? Because if you don't want to see her, you don't have to."

In that moment, I said no. And it became very clear to me that my dad's idea of our world would be him and I against the world. That was the last time I spoke with my mom for 10 years. From this point on, it truly was just my dad and myself talking.

As much as he tried, he did not have the capacity to work out problems with me. He didn't have the capacity to understand that I no longer had a mother figure in my life and that would deeply affect me.

I now had this deep wound of abandonment that was never even recognized, let alone worked through. Now I have lost my mom and my brother, and the person who now is supposed to be taking care of me does not want to talk about that. When I was 12, I told my dad I want to go to a different school.

By this time, I had developed a love of grunge, punk, 80s metal, and I very much found my identity listening to music that let me scream. On the first day, I met these kids who kind of looked like me, and they were nice to me, and so it felt really empowering to

So I was 12 and it was my seventh grade year. I had befriended some high schoolers who I told I was also in high school. So I tricked these kids to come over to my house when my dad wasn't home and brought weed. And that was the first time that I smoked weed. I definitely felt good, but more importantly, I felt accepted.

And that's kind of where my drug addiction started.

The day before my freshman year, I met this guy who I had known for a little while, reached out to me and said, I want to be with you. I think you're amazing. Please come over to my house before freshman orientation. And I became joined at the hip with this guy. He asked if I like to smoke weed.

And from that day on, I smoked weed every single day as much as I could for five years. This is also where my drinking and other drug use took off. He also introduced me to ecstasy, which I immediately became obsessed with. Again, every drug that I did felt like I want to feel like this all the time.

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 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 remember one time during this period of time, I had taken ecstasy consecutively for a couple of days.

It was a Sunday and I was finally sober and my boyfriend took me out to a sushi place and I remember feeling as if I was in a dream. I told him, I don't feel real and I don't think you're real and I don't think any of this is real. And he was so confused. He was like, are you okay? What do you mean? And I just repeated myself, you aren't real. I'm not real.

After a few days, I felt better and I thought, oh, that was weird. It did not deter me. And so I continued on. Throughout high school, I definitely found my identity in doing drugs, drinking, and doing anything that I could get my hands on.

And so around 16, I was a junior in high school and I became very interested in psychedelic drugs. So I began taking mushrooms. I took acid and I thought, oh my God, I have found it. This is terrifying. And I want to do this more.

My best friend, Sam, and I, we were partners in crime, and she was really somebody who I trusted. Sam knew another girl in our school who was known as the bad girl. She said, if you've done acid, I have something for you that's cheaper. It's technically legal. It's called 2-5-I.

I was like, I haven't heard of 2-5-I, but I'd be down. Let's do this. We put the tab under our tongue and within 15 or 20 minutes, I was higher than I had ever been before.

I felt like Sam and this other person were having a really good time, but I became really afraid and I felt like I couldn't speak. And when I did speak, I was looping. So I would say the same things over and over again.

After I had that experience, once everything was over, I felt that in my brain, I would never be the same person again, that I couldn't look at reality the same way again.

Over the next three months, I was still smoking weed every day. I was drinking whenever I got the chance. I would be doing mushrooms. I know I did 2-5-I several times. And over this period, I was doing nitrous pretty often, maybe every other day.

I remember feeling so out of it after one of my trips that I had to tell my dad. I was so scared. I thought that I had broken my brain. So I went to my dad and I said at the beach the other day, me and Sam took 2-5-I and I'm afraid that I'm never going to be the same or that I overdosed and now I've broken myself somehow.

So a week before my 17th birthday, I was on the bus with Sam. We often took bus trips into the city. Summer was just starting. It was so beautiful outside. And there was this moment where

I was sitting in the back part of the bus and there was this man. He looked very old, very disheveled. He was probably houseless for quite some time. And he looked at me and he said, how long have you been shining for?

In that moment, I had this rush of recognition. This was a sign to me that the universe saw me, that I was special and I was seen and I was part of this plan. And this man was here to tell me that. He was there to recognize my shine. I remember saying, I just started. And he said, you're beautiful, keep going.

When this happened, I thought that Sam and I are on the same page. She sees that, you know, we're shining. This is amazing. We're going to have such a great summer. I don't think I recognize the difference between my brain building this story in my mind that is not in any way rooted in reality. I just thought, oh, this is the truth. This is what's happening. The truth is being revealed to me.

So I was not scared of this experience at all. In fact, what I felt was that I was being initiated into adulthood. Everyone kind of opens their third eye when they become an adult and this was my time. It was finally happening to me. I would finally get to know the secrets of the universe.

I believed that I was now seeing into this system that controlled the world. But my thought was, you have to be 17 to be able to see this system at work. And I thought, oh, our society is controlled by aliens. That night was really interesting.

Everything was kind of normal. I kind of brushed my dad off and I went into my room and I remember this very clearly. I took a toke of the bong and as soon as the smoke hit my lungs, I was fully engulfed in this imagery. And it was that the devil himself appeared to me. He says to me, are you sure this is what you want?

And I said, I've wanted this for my whole life. The devil bringing me deeper into this knowledge of how the world worked. He pulled back the curtain for me and he told me that I was very special, that I was meant to sing for my generation, that I was ushering in a new world order.

I believed this, truly. In that moment, I felt like, wow, this is what all of this pain has been for. I've been on this path for my whole life, and what a beautiful thing.

I didn't have any fear around this. I thought, yeah, maybe I am special. Maybe my mom left me for a reason. Maybe it was because she wanted to sacrifice our relationship so that I could make this deal with the devil someday. Like it was very much, oh, this is just the next step in my world.

I went to sleep that night and then I woke up the next day and at some point throughout that day, my dad took me to get Jack in the Box. We were sitting out on a picnic table just eating and a crow came up to us. And my dad started feeding the crow some of the fries and I asked him, are you teaching me how to feed the crows? And he said, yeah, sure.

And this was a moment where I realized, I think my dad has been grooming me for this for my whole life. This is why he asked me if I didn't want to see my mom again. This is why he let me do drugs because I was this special being and that I was part alien even and that he was trying to protect me from the world.

That night, I started to get very paranoid about this whole situation. It was kind of sinking into my mind. My dad has been grooming me. Maybe he's trying to get rich off of me. Maybe he's trying to harvest my energy. And so the night before my 17th birthday, I ran out of the house around 11 o'clock at night and

I told my dad, I can't do this anymore. I can't let you take advantage of me. I sat on the sidewalk, maybe half a mile from my house. I just picked a spot, sat down. I put in my headphones and the first song that plays is Nowhere Man by the Beatles.

It was the universe giving me a sign. You left your dad's house. Now you're a nowhere man. You're making your nowhere plans for nobody. Yeah.

In that moment, I was like, I can't go back home. I know that my dad has been exploiting me. And one of my really good friends just pulled up on the side of the road and was like, hey, what are you doing? Do you need a ride somewhere? And I told him, yeah, I do need a ride. I need a ride to the girl who got me to Five Eye. I need a ride to her house. So my good friend brought me over there.

Her mom is gay. And so her mom and her mom's girlfriend were there. So there were three women in this house. And I thought, oh my God, this is the three witches. I was meant to be here the night before my 17th birthday. Here we go. This is going to work out perfectly for me. And so she wanted me to explain why, why are you here? Like, tell me what's going on.

So I explained to her that my dad was exploiting me. I can't go back there. He's abusing me. There's something very wrong. And she said, you know what? You can stay here. You don't ever have to go see him again. And so I did. I stayed at her house that night. All the while, I was unable to sleep. I suspected that aliens were updating the software on my brain.

And then the day of my 17th birthday, I woke up at her house and it was also a graduation for my high school. And I thought, oh my God, this day is for me. Everyone is celebrating my coming to the earth. We went to school that morning. I saw Sam pretty immediately and Sam was like, are you okay? And I just told her like, you know what's happening. This is all for me.

And I think because it was my birthday, because we were always high, she just, she brushed it off. But that afternoon, she told one of my other friends to take me home. When I got home, my dad was there. And he said, what have you been telling people? I got a call from the police.

I just went to my room. I didn't know what to do. I was now stuck in this house with this man who has a cosmic grudge against me. And so I went out into the kitchen and I got a steak knife and I walked up to my dad and I said, I'm sorry for this cycle to be complete. You have to die.

the aliens or whoever was initiating me into the system, what they wanted was for my dad to die. This is in my head the right thing to do. And even though it's going to be painful, this is just what I have to do. I thought the fate of the universe was on my shoulders.

Immediately, he grabbed the knife out of my hand. He gave me a big bear hug and said, go to your room. And he dragged me to my room and he said, don't come out until I get you. I don't know how long I was in my room for, but at some point he came to my door and said, okay, bring a change of clothes.

I didn't know where we were going, but in that moment, I thought, oh, okay, well, I didn't kill him, so maybe he's taking me somewhere so that I can be reprogrammed or I can take different steps. Kind of like I failed that part of the test, but maybe he's taking me somewhere to make up for that. And in fact, he drove me into the city. And so I was like, oh my god, what?

Of course, you know, all the signs are here. I'm going into the city where I first saw the light. Even as we were pulling into the emergency room, I didn't recognize that there was something wrong with me, that there was a need for me to go see a doctor.

More of the same, more of me trying to find meaning in every interaction. I was completely enthralled, I guess, in this fantasy land.

I saw a psychiatrist and, you know, he asked a couple of questions. Do you know where you are? Do you know what day it is? What are you seeing things? Are you hearing things? I didn't want to tell them because I thought they know that I'm this special being that's coming into the system and is going to make a great change. So they're trying to call me crazy.

So I said, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm fine. I don't know what you're talking about. And so they sent me home with some antipsychotic medication and said, please go to sleep and come back to us if things aren't subsiding. My dad brought me back home and I could not sleep that night.

My head was hot. My thoughts were racing. I couldn't understand why I hadn't gotten a giant reception yet. I couldn't understand why. Why wasn't I glorified yet? Why are these doctors coming after me? The next morning, my dad came in and saw the state of things that I hadn't slept. I couldn't stop pacing and saying things in fragments.

He took me to the hospital. They put me in a psychiatric padded room and asked me a bunch of questions. And I tried to encode my language. I tried to avoid their questions. There was no longer a sense of, I'm me, I'm 17, I go to high school. There was no longer any need for that.

The only way that I can really describe it is like that feeling that you get when you find out an important piece of information. That aha moment was happening constantly. I felt as if somebody put my brain into a microwave.

And at first, for me, these hallucinations felt so exciting. I finally feel like I am meant to be somewhere. And I felt really safe in this hallucination. I felt at home, finally safe.

But the longer it went on, the more anxiety and fear started to creep in. The first day into the second day, the more I kind of realized that my friends weren't reciprocating these ideas back to me, I think put me on edge. I had somehow let them down somehow.

by not going through with this killing my dad. And the more I was questioned, I became in fear for my life, in fear for the life of everyone that I've ever known. And by the time that I was hospitalized, I had the mindset of a fugitive that had just been picked up and put into a padded cell. And it kind of started going down a dark rabbit hole from there.

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.

I was put into a youth mental health facility. I was put on a lot of drugs and I truly thought that they were going to abduct me, take me to an alien testing facility, kill me.

And so I was fighting them. I was resistant completely. And so that was the first time that they had to hold me down and inject me with sedatives.

Slowly, over the course of a couple of weeks, the more I was able to let go of the narrative that had become my reality, the easier it was for me to kind of interact with other people and start stepping back into reality. I ended up getting released from the hospital about a month after my initial admit date happened.

It was the dead of summer. It was beautiful outside. And I had to transition back into my life. But I knew that I couldn't smoke weed. I knew that I couldn't drink because they had diagnosed me with both drug-induced psychosis and bipolar disorder.

I tried to go back to my friends and it was so strange. When I first saw them, it was like they had seen a ghost. Truly, they didn't know what to say to me. I didn't know what to say to them. And in some way, there was a trace of this like, oh, I'm different than you. I'm different than all of you.

I couldn't hide away. I couldn't compartmentalize away. They knew what had happened and now I'm different. The hardest part about transitioning back into my life was the way that Sam looked at me when I came back. She accused me of breaking into her house and stealing something from her

It just so happened that her house had gotten broken into. It was not me, but that was the best explanation that she had for it. And that made me realize that everyone saw me differently as a crazy person who could have done anything differently.

So I tried to stay sober and I tried to just keep going. I made new friends. I tried to make my life better. I vowed to, you know, I'm going to go to college and I'm going to bounce back from this. Unfortunately, everything didn't go as planned. I had a relapse when I was 18. I started drinking and I kind of started the cycle all over again.

Very shortly after that, I again fell into psychosis and it felt so similar to what I had experienced when I was 17. But again, I did not recognize that this was anything other than reality. That same feeling of recognition in the world, the same drawing connections where there were none. So again, I was shocked.

hospitalized. I spent about a month in there, came out. And even after coming out of that second experience, it took me years to realize the impact that it would have on me.

I kind of wanted to hide these psychotic experiences away. I would meet new people and I wouldn't have to tell them about it. And so I kept partying. I continued to do mystery drugs on a regular basis.

I finally realized that this was a problem when I went to Las Vegas with my best friend on my 21st birthday. We drank as much as we possibly could. And on the way home, she said to me, I don't know what's going on with you. You're not the person that I know.

She's known me since I was in middle school. We've known each other. And I felt like I didn't know who I was either. So I got sober when I was 21 and that changed my life.

Doing drugs had been my identity. When I realized that giving those things up would be the only way for me to live a productive life, it was lonely because I didn't know anybody who didn't do drugs, even my dad.

He smoked weed every day of his life since I've known him. Like, I didn't understand what it meant to not have these substances in my life. And I was terrified to try.

And so I got into AA. I did the whole shebang. But what's really important about that is I met other sober people who had lived a crazy ass life. They were able to make it through their life. And they were all these like really cool people. And so I decided to stick with it and just see if I could be a whole person without drugs and alcohol as my main love.

I had to move in with my uncle. He's like one of the people that I really trust and respect. And then I moved into an Oxford house with six other women. I decided to shave my head. That was a really big thing for me. And just realizing that like I have the freedom to do anything I want in this world besides drugs and alcohol.

If I hadn't gotten sober, I wouldn't have met these influential people in my life who are my family now, who are the first people to ever hear my story and say, wow, you've been through so much and it's called trauma. There are coping strategies that we can help you with and therapy that we can get you into that will give you relief.

finally now am able to look back with a clear head and pick out the things that still inflict pain on me because of all of the clever ways my brain has tried to keep me safe. I get to go back and say, that doesn't serve me. That doesn't serve me. And I mean, change my life, change the way that I interact with people in the world.

For me, trauma caused me to be somebody that never trusted other people for help. Because if you trust somebody, they are going to leave you in one way or another. That's what my parents taught me. But the facts of life are we have to trust other people to survive and to have a full life.

Drugs and alcohol were a coping strategy for me. If I didn't have to feel anything, then my life became a lot more simple. But another part of being a human is feeling things, which was kind of foreign to me. I felt very broken from my experience with drugs, alcohol, and psychosis. I would be called crazy by anyone who would listen to me, but I'm not crazy and I'm not broken. I'm just learning.

I often look back on that psychosis and one thing that I have recognized is I have always wanted to feel like I have a place somewhere. Like I'm not alone, like I'm not going to be abandoned. I was trying to take every avenue that I possibly could during that time to try and soothe that pain of not feeling like I fit in anywhere anymore.

Because my reality was so difficult to reconcile, because I was experiencing so much pain, my brain gave me, with the assistance of hallucinogens and marijuana, a place where I felt safe. And of course, the only means that were available at that time for me was a break into fantasy.

My brain did a very good job of protecting me from my hallucinations in the sense that I didn't know when I was in them and when I was not.

And often, if something happened in front of me that did not align with my narrative in my head, my brain would find a way to explain it to maintain that cognitive dissonance.

Oftentimes, folks who have experienced consistent trauma throughout their life have this wild ability to accept whatever is in front of them. I had this keen ability to adapt my internal experience to reflect whatever was presented as reality from my external experience.

So my dad saying, you're okay without your mom. Internally, I know that's not true, but there's no other option. I mean, I guess I'll just have to adapt to that reality. That muscle was strong in my brain. And so that's why it was so easy for me to be completely in another world and not even recognize it.

I think in a lot of ways, the things that my parents couldn't do for me, the things like comforting me and making me important and making me heard and understood, in a way, to me, the psychosis felt like all those things. Finally, I was important to the world.

Everyone trusted me. Everyone saw me as something so, so important. That's what we all want, right?

It's really unfortunate that I had to break my brain to feel seen. But I do think that somehow that effect has stuck around. And the things that we go through can shape us, but we don't have to be a prisoner to them for the rest of our lives.

Today, I have two best friends who I met in sobriety who are absolutely my family.

Of course, this deep need to be seen and heard and this deep fear of abandonment is something that I'm working through. Therapy is so important to me. And to have the support of these wonderful women who I look up to in my life, I

I'm able to tell them the truth about what I'm feeling and I rely on them as my support system to see me and hear me. And for the first time in my life with my friends, I feel like somebody out there gets it.

Getting into sobriety made me understand that my parents do not have the capacity to help me become a better person. They just don't. And that's something that I've had to accept.

So I haven't had contact with my parents. It's probably been about three years. And because I'm sober and they are not, that plays a pretty big role in us not keeping contact. It's not easy, but I have been able to choose my family. I have been able to create a life for myself that I really enjoy and I value.

I don't feel orphaned. I feel like I've created a beautiful life, a life that that girl before psychosis would have really dreamed of. Today's guest prefers to remain anonymous, but if you'd like to reach out to them, you can email at artichoke.heart456 at gmail.com. That's artichoke.heart456 at gmail.com. ♪

From Wondery, you're listening to This Is Actually Happening. If you love what we do, please rate and review the show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Wondery app, or wherever you're listening right now. You can also join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app to listen ad-free. In the episode notes, you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors. By supporting them, you help us bring you our shows for free.

I'm your host, Witt Misseldein. Today's episode was co-produced by me and Andrew Waits, with special thanks to the This Is Actually Happening team, including Ellen Westberg. The intro music features the song "Illabi" by Tipper. You can join the This Is Actually Happening community on the discussion group on Facebook or at Actually Happening on Instagram.

On the show's website, thisisactuallyhappening.com, you can find out more about the podcast, contact us with any questions, submit your own story, or visit the store, where you can find This Is Actually Happening designs on stickers, t-shirts, wall art, hoodies, and more. That's thisisactuallyhappening.com.

And finally, if you'd like to become an ongoing supporter of what we do, go to patreon.com slash happening. Even $2 to $5 a month goes a long way to support our vision. Thank you for listening. Wanderer.

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.

Hey, it's Guy Raz here, host of How I Built This, a podcast that gives you a front row seat to how some of the best known companies in the world were built.

In a new weekly series we've launched called Advice Line, I'm joined by some legendary founders and together we talk to entrepreneurs in every industry to help tackle their roadblocks in real time. Everybody buys on feeling, Guy, like everybody. So if you don't give them the feeling that they're looking for, they're not going to buy. A lot of times founders will go outside of themselves to build a story.

And you can't replicate heart. You know, I think we all have a little bit of imposter syndrome, which isn't the worst thing in the world because it doesn't allow you to get overconfident and think that you're invincible. Check out the advice line by following How I Built This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to How I Built This early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.