231: What if they all betrayed you?
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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. And I was just terrified, just not knowing what was happening or why he was doing it or what was even going on in my own body. I didn't know why it hurt. I didn't know why I was bleeding. And I was so confused and hurt and scared. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein.

You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 231. What if they all betrayed you?

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My dad was a used car salesman, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom with four kids. So it was kind of a handful for my mom. My family life was pretty good. My siblings and I, we all got along pretty well, but my parents ended up getting a divorce. All I knew is one day my dad moved out, and we just kind of dealt with it. She really tried really hard to make sure that we were a priority, but she also had to work pretty long hours supporting four kids on her own.

And that could not have been easy on her. I mean, we were little monsters. She had the child support from our dad, but he wasn't very good with money. And we only got to see him every other weekend, so that was really the only break she ever got was twice a month. She told me later on in life that she used to pay our electric bill by putting loose change in the envelope and a note saying, you know, I've got young kids, please don't turn the electricity off.

It was just the little things. It was all hand-me-downs from my cousins, food from food banks. My mom didn't have a car. There wasn't a lot of toys or snacks or treats or anything like that. I didn't really think anything of it. I was just a young kid. I didn't know how poor we were. She never really let us know. We just didn't have those things. I thought it was normal.

I have a twin sister and she was always much more outgoing than me. Bubbly personality. She has this ability to make better friendships. She was always more invested with how other people were doing and what was going on.

Mostly I love being a twin. We're fraternal twins, but our mom, growing up, she always liked to put us in matching outfits, even though she was this little tan blonde-haired girl and I was this little pale brown-haired girl. She always thought it was so cute if we were in matching outfits. It got really annoying, actually. When I was turning 11, my dad would be living with his cousin a little bit up north. We had school and he had work, and it was a long drive, so we didn't really get to see him after that.

Until one night, we got the call that his cousin found him unresponsive in his room, and he'd ended up having a massive stroke. So we ended up going to the hospital, and by the time we got there, it was probably midnight, one in the morning. He was hooked up to all these machines and non-responsive. So we're sitting in this family waiting room, the four of my dad's kids and my mom waiting

and the doctor came in explained that our dad had a stroke and he was practically brain dead and they could keep him alive on machines or we could just let him go and turn the machines off i remember my mom just looking overwhelmed and looking at us kids and my mom just said he's not my husband this is your father this is your call

and it was tough. It took us probably a good hour of just sitting in the room in silence before we finally spoke up and said, "We got to do the right thing. We've got to turn these machines off." So we all went around his hospital bed when they turned the machines off and stood there with him as he passed away. I remember the nurse at the hospital, the one that ultimately ended up being in the room with the doctor turning the machines off. She was younger and she was so pretty and she had this gorgeous rose tattoo on her neck.

And I remember that almost as much as I remember squeezing my dad's hand as he was passing. Being so young, it was an insane moment. I was just in disbelief. Like, at one point, everything was fine. Life was going on as normal. And the next moment, I didn't have a dad anymore. And we'd made that choice. Ultimately, I think we made the right choice. But who knows? I mean, who knows? There's no way we could know.

I remember not going to school for a little while, just trying to process everything that had happened, withdrawing a lot and feeling depressed. I didn't know it was depression at the time. Nobody I knew, aside from my siblings, was going through the same thing. Nobody in my class had ever lost a parent. Even my twin sister and I started to drift apart at this point. Just her going out with her friends and being outgoing and popular and happy and bubbly all the time, and I was definitely not that.

It really stung a lot. I felt really alone. I felt nothing really mattered. Like if you could die so instantly and so young, I mean, he was 40 years old when he died. If you could die so young and with no notice, what was the point of anything? And I mean, I'm an 11 year old going through this. So I just started being a little bit more reckless, getting in a little bit more trouble, but also being more withdrawn. I only really had one good friend at this point.

She was my best friend in the world, the only person I really felt comfortable spending time with. Her parents were still together and still alive and her family was still together, but she grew up poor like I did. And she was also quiet and shy and withdrawn and doing things like recklessly.

When we finally finished sixth grade, the first day of summer break, my twin sister and my older brother were going to go hang out with a friend and they asked if I wanted to come with. So we ended up rollerblading to a friend's house a few blocks away. And, you know, his mom was at work. He's like, hey, my mom left the brandy out. You guys want to have a drink? And I was like, yeah, why not?

Let's see what this is all about. I've never tried it before. I just turned 12. So we each took a swig from the bottle and it was so gross. It was absolutely disgusting. But as the day went on, we kept passing the bottle around and I started feeling a little bit warmer and a little bit more numb and a little bit like everything was going to be okay. I hadn't felt like that in a while.

After a couple of hours, my brother ended up having to carry me home on his rollerblades up and down these hills and putting me in bed. And I remember waking up at the hospital. Apparently my mom had come home from work, found me passed out in my bed, and she took me to the hospital where they pumped my stomach. And they actually told me that with my blood alcohol level, it was pretty likely that I would have died had I not gone to the hospital and gotten my stomach pumped.

I think it was just kind of the beginning of a series of events that happened that was just kind of swept under the rug. It became a little bit of a joke. We didn't really talk about it like it was a big deal. It was just, oh, she got drunk that one time. We had to take her to the hospital. Ha ha, funny. So it was a week before seventh grade started, and I was hanging out with my best friend. We were helping her mom at the laundromat. She would give us a couple cigarettes for helping out.

My friend noticed this guy walking down the sidewalk outside the laundromat and she was like, "Oh hey, I know this guy." So she went out there and I didn't want to hang out with her mom so I followed her and we started talking to him and he was like, "Hey, what are you guys up to?" "I'm just meeting up with a couple friends down at the park a couple blocks away. I don't know if you want to come hang out with us?"

So we walked a couple blocks down to the park with this guy and he was sharing his cigarettes and he seemed all right. He was older than us. And that was very obvious. I mean, he looked at least like he was halfway through high school. And I was like, why is he paying attention to us?

He was an attractive guy. Like, why is he offering to hang out with us? This is kind of weird. But we ended up going down to the park and meeting up with a couple girls. And they were around our age too, which was kind of weird. And my friend ended up knowing them.

We hung out just shooting the shit for a bit, getting to know each other. I was kind of quiet and reserved, just kind of in the background hanging out. And this guy was apparently getting bored being around the park and said, "Hey, let's go check out that chapel over there across the street. There's something I want to show you in there if it's unlocked." And it was just a small building. There was a couple of pews, like maybe four or six pews in there with an altar and then the cross on the wall behind the altar.

So we went in there and he reached his hand in the cavity of the altar and kind of down below and he pulled out this knife and it was like a hunting knife. And we were like, what the hell? And he's like, yeah, I keep this stash in here, you know, in case I'm in the neighborhood and I need a weapon. You know, I've always got this by me. It's like, well, that's kind of weird. So we asked him for a couple more cigarettes and he said, you know, I don't have that many left. I'm going to have to go buy some more since we're all smoking my cigarettes.

And that's when I found out he was 18 because he was able to go get us all cigarettes. And he looked at me and he's like, you can come with. So I was like, holy shit, this good looking guy out of all these girls, like I'm standing here and hand me down jeans and like a South Park T-shirt. And these girls are wearing tight clothes and their hair is done. They're wearing makeup and he wants me to go like that's crazy. So, of course, I say, yeah, yeah, I'll help you.

So we walked out of the chapel and we were walking past this tiny little four-plex apartment building. And he's like, oh, real quick, a buddy of mine lives in here. I want to say hi to him while we're walking past. So we go and he knocks on this door and there was no answer. He's like, oh, he might be doing his laundry downstairs. We should go check this out. It's kind of weird, but all right. So we go down the basement into this room and there were washers and dryers in there, but nobody was in there.

and he pushed me up against a wash machine and kissed me really hard. I was like, holy shit, what is this? Like, where is this coming from? It was the first time I'd ever been kissed. I didn't know what was going on. He started grabbing himself, and he's like, do you want me to take him off or should I? And I was like, um...

I guess you and he started unbuttoning my pants and pulling him down and he pointed at this floor mat in front of a washing machine. He's like, you can lay there. And I laid down and he put himself inside really forcefully. I mean, it hurt so bad. I didn't know what was going on, but I know it hurt. And I just laid there tense with tears going down my face. And he seemed oblivious to all that. He didn't care. And I was just stiff.

I didn't want to be there. I didn't want that to be happening at all. Within a matter, I think maybe 15, 20 seconds, maybe 30 seconds, he stood up. I stood up real fast and I grabbed my clothes and I put my clothes on so fast and I dried my eyes and he's like, let's go get those cigarettes. It was just done. When we were in the chapel earlier, he was looking at me and, you know, I liked the way he was looking at me and I don't know how it looked like I was reacting to him.

I was probably smiling and blushing because I was getting this attention from this older guy that I thought was cute. But once we got into that laundry room, I realized why his eyes were so dark and they were just predatory. And there was nothing I could do. I was so small and so scared and I had no idea what was about to happen. I couldn't leave. I couldn't fight it. I didn't feel like I could say, "No, don't do this. It's not right."

It was just so demanding and cold, like I didn't want to find out what would have happened if I tried to run out of there or if I tried to say no. It was terrifying. I got dressed really fast. I don't think I've ever gotten dressed so fast in my life. And I remember feeling so embarrassed because my clothes were all hand-me-downs and they were all two sizes too big. Like I was ashamed that I wasn't pleasing to him after the fact, which is ridiculous.

So we left the apartment building and walking was kind of painful at that point because I mean what I just been through it was so short but it was so painful that walking was just not something I wanted to do. So I waited outside for him at the gas station and he came out and he gave me my own pack of cigarettes which was I mean it was like gold to me then.

We walked across the street back to the park to meet up with the three other girls. And they were like, hey, that took longer than we expected. What's going on? And a couple of tears streamed down my face and I just hitched my breath a little bit and just walked really quickly away from them to the pavilion where the bathrooms were. Something just wasn't right.

So I go into one of the stalls and I pull my pants down and there's blood. And I'd never even had a period at this point there. I'd never seen blood there before. I didn't know what was going on. I just knew that it hurt and I was bleeding. So I was trying to clean it up with toilet paper and my best friend walks in and she's like, hey, what's going on with you? Are you okay? Like, what the hell happened? You just went to get cigarettes. And I was like, no, I'm fine. I'm just not feeling that great. You know, it's just a bad day.

Don't worry about it. I'll be out in a second." I cried in there for a second and dried my eyes and I walked out. He was maybe 15 feet away from them sitting on this ledge, just looking really like sad. And I don't know why. I felt like it was my fault. So I walked up to him and I said, "Hey, you know, are you okay? Did I do something wrong?" And he's like, "No, I'm fine. Just go away. Just get away from me." I did. I just walked away.

I was so confused. I had no idea what had just happened. He had just done this thing to me that I didn't want, made me completely uncomfortable. He hurt me. And here I was trying to figure out why I was wrong. I remember thinking, I don't understand why this happened to me. Like, I don't understand why he picked me. I spent most of my life growing up with a boy haircut. I didn't wear makeup. I had hand-me-down clothes. I wasn't even developing as a woman yet.

The fact that he chose me confused me. I mean, I was flattered when he was just making eyes at me. I really enjoyed that feeling, but I really didn't think I was giving off any kind of vibes that I wanted anything physical from him. But apparently he took it as green light. Let's do this. And I'm going to get this done and get what I want from her.

I thought a long time about what I could have done differently to make him not feel that way, but at the same time, how could I have possibly known that that was going through his head? Like, did I look at him a certain way that he took that as permission? As far as I knew, no. And I was just terrified. Just the not knowing what was happening or why he was doing it or what was even going on in my own body. I didn't know why it hurt. I didn't know why I was bleeding.

And I was so confused and hurt and scared. So after I talked to him, I walked back over to my friend and the other two girls. I told my friend, not feeling that great. I'm just going to go home. I got to get out of here. And she was like, all right, whatever. Bye. So I walked about a mile and a half, maybe two miles home from that park, hurting the whole way and the whole time just thinking about what had happened and trying to wrap my mind around it.

I knew that what had happened was sex. I'd seen it on TV and I'd heard people talk about it. I knew that what he did was sex, but I had no idea that there was any kind of world that existed where it could be as uncomfortable or involuntary as that.

I didn't know at all that rape was a thing. I didn't know that it could be between two people that didn't love each other. I had no idea it could just be some guy that you met two hours before who just made this decision that this is what was happening. That was not at all in my reality. I got home and I took my clothes off and I saw the blood in my underwear and I was so disgusted I just threw them in the back of my closet and I took such a long hot shower and just cried.

It was probably 45 minutes long and I was cleaning the whole day and everything that had happened off. Just the feeling of him on me and in me. I was just getting it off with this hot water and soap. I wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to know why I was bleeding, but I didn't feel like I could tell anybody. Like this crazy, dirty, secret thing happened and I couldn't tell anybody ever. How do I go on from here? Like, can I tell my sister?

It's really hard to keep a secret from a twin because every night before bed we'd tell each other minute for minute what had happened during our day. So it was really, really hard keeping that from her.

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A friend of mine from grade school, she told me that her mom was going out of town for a weekend and she was having some people over for a party. So she was inviting a few people over and she told me I could bring my twin sister. So my twin sister and I and a friend from another school ended up getting together that night and walking down to this friend's house. Some people were drinking and I wasn't. I still wasn't ready to drink after the alcohol poisoning incident.

And at one point he came in, he was invited to this party through some of the other girls and he brought a few other guys with him. I remember getting really uncomfortable, but I didn't say a word. I just kind of tried to stay to myself and make myself as small as possible. I went into the kitchen to grab a soda and he ended up coming in there and he was pretty drunk. He just started screaming at me.

If you ever tell anybody what happened, I'm going to fucking kill you. I will fucking kill you. You don't tell a soul. Do you understand me? I just looked at him, chacked and in horror. I ran out of the kitchen and out of the house, just crying, bawling. And I was shaking so hard. I was so scared. I thought he was going to kill me right there because I didn't know. I mean, he was drunk. And my sister and my friend that we came with came outside looking for me. And I was already starting to walk in the direction of home.

My chest hurt because I was crying so hard. I don't think I'd ever cried so hard in my life, just from the terror of the whole situation. And trying to calm down, I was basically hyperventilating at this point, trying to get away from that house where the party was as fast as possible. And I think we walked maybe three blocks before I could catch my breath.

My sister kept saying, "I know something's wrong. I know something's going on. You need to tell me." And she's like, "Who the hell was that guy and why was he yelling at you? Like, how do you know that guy? Why the hell was he threatening you? Like, what did you do?" And I just let the whole story out. The look in her face, she looked so heartbroken for me. And it just made me cry a little harder. Like, I didn't want her to go through the pain that I was feeling because I knew she would take that pain on herself.

I remember it was conflicting telling them because on one hand it felt so amazing to get this secret off my chest but this guy had just told me if I told anybody he was gonna fucking kill me

We were almost home by the time I finished the story, and I remember stopping a few houses away from our house and just trying to catch my breath because our mom was home, and I didn't want her to see me coming home all teary-eyed and red-faced. And she'd want to know what was going on, and my sister looked at me and she said, "No, you need to tell her what happened. Otherwise, I will. She needs to know."

I was like, okay, stay outside with our friend. I'll go in and tell her. And I remember telling my sister so vividly, but I can't for the life of me remember telling my mom. I don't know if it was because it was hurting her so much that I blocked it from memory, but I do remember this look of horror and sadness on her face. Like no mother should ever have to look at her daughter like that.

And I felt so guilty because, you know, there were five of us kids at home and she was working 12 to 16 hour days with me and my siblings losing our dad, my mom having a child with someone that wasn't with her anymore. Nobody else needed anything else to worry about. And I definitely felt such huge guilt for other people knowing what had happened and knowing how bad they felt.

As soon as I was done telling my mom and, you know, we cried together a little bit and she asked if I was okay. She said, okay, we need to tell the police. He's 18. You are 12 years old. What he did is not right. And we are calling the police and filing a police report. He threatened your life.

So the police came a little bit later and there were two cops and they sat in our living room. I was, I mean, I was exhausted at telling the story. I'd kept it in for a few weeks to myself feeling like I shouldn't tell anybody. And then in one night I had to tell it over and over again. And I was exhausted and I didn't want to, but I knew if I didn't tell the police exactly what I told them, they were going to fill in the blank. So I just, I told them everything.

Now that I knew law enforcement was involved, that honestly scared the shit out of me. I was terrified. And I knew his name because my friend had talked about him since that day. And apparently he had a record for some other stuff. They told me that a detective would look into it. They gave me a card and got up and left. And my mom gave me this hug.

I could feel her chest like she wanted to sob, but that she wanted to be strong for me too. And that was really hard. I wanted to comfort her, but I was hurting and scared, so scared. I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life. It was at that point where I would go to school afraid because word got out. People knew that I was at this party and that I left like that. And they knew that this guy was yelling at me.

I ended up telling my best friend. I let her know what was going on. She was at the party. Word got out about what happened, and everybody decided that I was a liar. Nobody believed my story was true. They all thought I was doing it for attention. There's no way that this guy that was so much older and handsome and could get girls his own age would want anything to do with me like that.

And I understood what they were talking about because, I mean, I knew what I looked like. I knew how I presented myself. It was unbelievable, but it absolutely happened. And in the few weeks after that party and after the police got involved, I started really withdrawing. I would skip school because I didn't want to be there. I was getting harassed and picked on and sneered at and just, it was torture.

I had just no respect from anybody. I was so alone. My sister was at the same school, but we were in different sections of the school. So she wasn't around me. She wasn't able to do anything about it or comfort me. So I just stopped going to school a lot. I would spend most of my time in our basement on a computer that we had.

The internet was starting to come around, AOL was becoming a thing, and I would just sit online and go into these chat rooms of, it was basically Dungeons and Dragons for the early days of AOL. And I would play these role-playing games and just escape into these fantasy characters, becoming another person, more confident person, more likable person.

I didn't have to think about things that were going on in the real world. I didn't have to think about people being jerks. I didn't have to think about this guy and what happened. It was just this whole other world that I could escape to, and it was amazing. There would be times during school where I would just be walking down the hallway, and I would just hear people walking past me and just say "slut," and they would say "liar," and I would just get these looks.

Like I said, most of my clothes were hand-me-downs and too big. One day I was wearing these pants that used to be my brother's and they were a little bit too long and there was a frayed end on the bottom of my pants. And I was leaving a class and as I'm walking, one of the guys behind me stepped on the back of my pants and they ripped up until my knee. He was teasing me, making fun of me.

The teacher ended up calling my name and I went to her and I told her what happened and she said, "I saw what happened. You're dressed inappropriately. You need to go to the principal's office right now." I couldn't win. There was nothing I could do right and I just felt so worthless. The only person I had on my side during that time that I went to school with was my twin sister. You know, she wasn't in any of the same classes, so I was on my own.

She would let me know, these are just people being assholes. Don't pay attention to them. Like, you know what happened. I know what happened. I know you wouldn't lie about that. You know, we just got to get through this. And for a while, I actually even thought about just not going to school anymore, just dropping out. And I was in seventh grade, like dropping out because people were assholes. It's crazy.

The main group of girls that was spreading the rumors and the lies that I'd made it all up, they knew him. They were friends with him, and I think he was staying at one of the girls' houses.

Like her mom took him in and that's why she was like, no, he said that she's lying. I believe him. I've known him longer. He wouldn't lie to me. She's full of shit. Of course, I'm going to take his side. And that's how it all kind of got started with people believing those girls and him over me. It was a whole group of people against just one person. It was maybe two weeks after the party at my friend's house.

I was upstairs in my room listening to music and reading a book, just being by myself. And my best friend came up to my room and I was like, "Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. What's going on?" And she's like, "Hey, I just wanted to see how you're doing. Make sure everything's okay. You know, maybe see if you wanted to come outside and have a cigarette." My older sister comes up while my best friend is standing in my room trying to get me to come outside. And she's like, "Hey, what the hell are all those people doing outside?"

I was like, "What are you talking about?" And my sister's like, "No, there is a huge group of people outside. What are they doing here? They don't look nice." And my friend's like, "Well, we just wanted to talk to you. We wanted to see what was going on. We want to hear your side of the story." I was like, "Who's 'we'?" I went halfway down the stairs and I'm looking out our big front window and there's this group of like 10 or 15 people standing out there and some people have like bats. I'm like, "What the fuck?"

And they all look super pissed off, like they're all pumped for something. My older sister's like, "Dude, you need to get the fuck out of our house, I'm calling the cops." I mean, this was my best friend, and she's just looking at me like, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" And she leaves, and she tells everybody outside that the cops are getting called and they need to go, so they all kind of scatter.

It was terrifying. One of the people in the group was that guy, and there were a couple other guys around his age, and girls that I went to school with, and my best friend, all trying to get me outside so that they could kill me. They were going to beat me to death because this guy said that what I said wasn't true. He looked like he wanted to kill me. He was staring in my window like a predator, like he wanted his prey to come out so that he could attack it.

I've never seen that look in someone's eyes before, and I haven't seen it since. Just that look of "You are going to die if I get my hands on you." It was so scary, and my friend was trying so hard to get me to go outside. And I'm looking at my friend like, "Who the fuck are you?" Like, who is this person that I trusted, who's trying to get me outside, trying to get me hurt, for this guy that she's known for, what, maybe a month at this point? And I've known her for years?

It hurt so bad. I felt so betrayed. On top of everything, now I was losing my best friend. Who could I trust? Who could I go to? 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.

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A couple of days later, a detective shows up at my house and he wanted to review some of the statements that I'd given the police. I told him the story again and he said, you know, they couldn't prosecute, they couldn't arrest him, they couldn't put any charges on him because there was no proof that this had happened. It was just he said, she said. And I'm thinking to myself, my life is at stake and all these people think I'm a liar and I know I'm not a liar. I know this happened.

And then it dawned on me that, "Holy shit, it's disgusting, but those underwear are still in my closet." So I grabbed a paper bag and I went upstairs and I got the underwear, put them in there, and I gave them to the detective. And I said, "These are the underwear I was wearing that day." A couple days later, I get a phone call from the detective. They ended up going through the evidence they collected from where I said it happened.

And there was a little mat on the ground. And I remember this mat, it was so dingy. It was like a little welcome mat type thing. And they collected that up from the scene because they remembered me saying that I was down on a mat. And they took DNA from that and from my underwear. And the DNA matched his and mine, both from the mat and my underwear.

I was honestly in a little bit of disbelief, which sounds crazy, but I was in disbelief because I knew they'd find my DNA, but what he did was so fast, I didn't think there would be any of his DNA to be found. I thought I was such a disappointment to him that he just stopped in the middle, but no, his DNA was there, and I was like, holy shit.

It was validating for sure because now people would know that he was the liar. I was telling the truth. I was the victim, not him. So he was arrested now that they had evidence and there was a trial. My mom decided to keep me out of it. She didn't want me to have to go to court and testify. They had my statement. They had the evidence. I never wanted to see that guy again.

It turned out that there were several other girls that he'd done this to, and they did not have evidence. But once he was arrested, these other girls ended up coming forward, and these girls ended up testifying in court against him, with their parents' permission, because they were all around my age. I think the oldest one was 14.

The trial took quite a while. I remember it was actually a couple months before I knew what had happened, but I knew he was in custody for the trial. So I felt a little bit of relief. I felt kind of safe. My best friend tried reaching out to me a couple of times, and at one point I wanted to hear her out and see what she had to say just because she was my best friend, and I just, I missed her. So I went to hang out with her one day, and this guy had a brother who looked almost just like him.

And he was there with her. And I was like, "What the fuck is this?" And she's like, "Oh, don't worry about it. It's just, it's his brother. It's no big deal. Just don't worry about it." And I was like, "No, I'm getting the fuck out of here." And I turned around and walked away because I was like, "This guy's brother! I just put his brother in jail! He's gonna fucking kill me. What are you doing?" I mean, that was another level of betrayal by the same girl. My best friend. Twice. That was hard to swallow.

We get the verdict that he's going to jail. I think he was convicted when I was 13. He was convicted of first-degree and second-degree sexual assault and statutory rape of a minor under the age of 13. I still have the paperwork in a filing cabinet to this day of what he was convicted of and when he went to jail.

I just remember getting this letter saying that he was convicted and he had so many counts of statutory rape and sexual assault and that I'd be getting restitution. And I was like, "What is restitution?" And my mom had to explain to me that he had to pay me money for what he did to me. I was like, "What? No, no, he just needs to sit in jail forever. He just needs to never do this to another person again." I don't understand why they would think restitution was gonna fix anything.

Two years after it happened, I got my first check in the mail for like $150. You know, he had jobs to do while he was in jail and you would get paid for him and he'd save it up and send it to all these girls that he had to pay restitution to. So every couple of years I'd get a check, like a small check for like $100, $150 here and there.

When I was in my early to mid-20s, I decided I was going to move to another state to go to college. And it was about a week before I was leaving that I got my final restitution check in the mail with a letter saying that he was being released from prison.

I think he was in for about 10 years. He was a registered sex offender, but he was being released from prison. And I was like, well, shit, thank God I'm leaving the state. I didn't want him to be released. I didn't know why he was being released. Why is he getting out of jail? It blew my mind.

When I found out he was being released, at first I was terrified. I didn't know if he was going to look for me or come after me or try to find me. I knew I needed to get the hell out of there. I needed to escape just to not have him on my mind. I didn't want to look over my back like I did when I was in middle school. I didn't want to have that terror like, is he going to be around this next corner that I go around? Is he going to be at the gas station I go to? Is he going to be in this grocery store? I never want to feel that again.

So I went to college and I ended up dropping out about six months later and coming back home. Fortunately, I moved a few towns away, so I didn't really have to worry about it. He had a PO that he had to report to. He was living in this registered house. He was being monitored. I was just out of sight, out of mind. I wasn't going to try to worry about it. But a couple of years after that, I ended up moving back to that town.

I was afraid for the first little bit. And then, you know, as I got a little bit older, I was putting it out of my mind, not thinking about it until one day I was looking him up just out of curiosity. I just told somebody about what had happened and I was like, I wonder where this guy's at. And it turned out the house that he was registered to be living at was literally four blocks down the same road that I was living on at the time.

And I'd been living there for about a year and a half, never seen him. I'd never saw him once. Like, what are the odds? And that was around an elementary school. I couldn't believe he was registered to that house. It was like a block away from an elementary school. How could the sex offender be living there? I ended up moving to the next town over again. I couldn't be that close to him. I hope I never see him again. I don't know how I would react if I ever saw him again.

After my best friend betrayed me like she did, I ended up trying not to be around her and I kind of befriended virtual people rather than real people.

And slowly, as time went by, I got different friends in middle school that didn't know anything about what had happened. They were kind of the losers that weren't really in the loop. They just knew that I was another loner loser, and I ended up getting a couple of friends. But after a couple of years, those friendships fizzled out, and...

Ever since my best friend did that to me when I was so young, I have a really hard time making and keeping friendships. To this day, it's been over 20 years, I still don't have any close friends, any lasting friendships. I've got my siblings, and I've got my husband, and then I've got their friends that I'll hang out with. But I don't have any friends of my own.

I can't bring myself to make those close friendships because they always end in hurt and betrayal. For a long time, I'd say at least a decade after that happened, I didn't really know how to interact with men. My first interaction with men really sculpted how I thought interactions with men should be. I didn't know what a healthy relationship would be like.

I had a lot of relationships and they were unhealthy because I didn't realize that I could want things for myself. I guess I didn't feel that my thoughts and my feelings and what I wanted should come into play. It was about keeping them happy and maintaining their happiness because clearly that's how the world works. That was my first experience. That's what I knew. It really messed me up for a long time in those situations.

I was institutionalized twice in high school for depression and what they thought was bipolar. It wasn't. It was just going through shit. And when I was 19 years old, I was engaged to a 40-year-old man, to going through abusive relationships with heroin addicts, to being addicted to drugs, to going through a lot of alcohol.

Over the years, I have gotten back into drinking. There's definitely been some substance abuse throughout the years. Drinking a lot of smoke and weed, you know, a lot of little heavier drugs, just to escape, just to feel like I didn't have to worry about what was going on in the world, and I didn't have to be in the real world. That was kind of an ongoing trend for a really long time.

I have a bit more control over it now and honestly it's because of my family members and my husband. They've really helped me keep it in check. Because left to my own devices I'm sure I would have died of alcohol poisoning at some point. It's really hard to leave that escape. It's hard to come back and face reality. My husband now is probably the first guy that I'd ever been with who I could be myself with no excuses.

He knew my story. We knew each other for years before we ended up together. He knew parts of my past that if he hadn't been there for them, I would not have shared with them. He just, he accepted it all and he doesn't judge. And he's so sweet and patient. He is so patient with me. And it's such a good feeling. Something I've never gotten from anybody else before.

The person I became when I was with him was more authentic than I'd ever been. I didn't need a security blanket. I didn't need to hide anything. I could be who I was, and he loved me for that. The hardest part about the whole situation was having literally no life experience and then just being alone for the hardest thing I'd ever go through, not knowing what to do or how to handle it.

And once I told people and more and more people found out, I was more alone than I'd ever been. Having gone through this, I learned that no matter what is thrown at you, like no matter what you're going to be going through in your life, you can get through it. You can.

If someone told me that I was going to go through this, I would have been like, no, nobody can go through that. Nobody's going to go through this and be okay. Nobody's going to go through this and later on in life be happily married and have a good life and be comfortable and happy. That just doesn't happen. But you can go through so much horrific shit and still be able to come out on the other side and still be a good, happy person.

I kind of had to go inside myself and find that strength because there was no other option. I didn't have a choice. And I think the ability to go into yourself and really reflect on who you are and, you know, being true to yourself, even when the whole world is against you, that's it.

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Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away.

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To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.