235: What if delusion consumed your family?
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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. A family tree is not permanent. You're allowed to trim some branches. Just because they are blood doesn't give them the right to be in your life if they are taken away from your life. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein.

You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 235. What if delusion consumed your family?

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My mom had a really difficult childhood.

Her mom, she was 15 and got pregnant by my grandfather, who was 21. So they got married in 1960 when she was 15 and he was 21 and gave birth to their first child, who's my mom's older brother. When my grandma was 17, she gave birth to my mom. And by the time my grandma was 21, she had four children.

Shortly after her last child, they divorced. And then shortly after that, my grandma was hospitalized with schizophrenia. The childhood for the four children was really difficult. Their mom was schizophrenic and a drug addict and alcoholic. She also abused the children sexually. My grandma was married eight times to seven different men.

So on top of having a mom who was unstable and abusive, they had men in and out of their homes throughout their childhood. They moved around a lot. You know, stability was not something that they grew up with. My mom was six years older than her younger sister, and she essentially became her sister's mom.

Her mom didn't have a lot of money. There were times that men would come to the home for paid sex. My mom was asked to participate sometimes. That was sort of how their childhood was. After her high school graduation, at a campout that was kind of a celebration of graduating high school, she met my dad. He was six years older than her.

She immediately was, I think, drawn to someone who was very interested in her and seemed like he had a lot of promise to have a life that was different from what she grew up with. My father was the middle child of three kids.

His mom was an RN at the local hospital. And when you hear of someone being a nurse, you think, oh, they must be so nurturing and loving and caring. But she was more the nurse Helga, the nurse that comes over and you're freaking out and don't want a shot. And she holds you down and jabs it into your arm.

Their dad was a traveling salesman, so he was not home a lot. So it was almost like a single mom, but the mom isn't engaged with her kids. She never really bonded with her children. It was apparently bad enough that my father dropped out of high school his senior year and decided to join the army right at the end of the Vietnam War. And then the war ended. He came back home.

In June of 1980 is when he went to the camp out for the local high school's graduation. Coming from the traumatic childhood that my mom had, she saw that my dad was going to college. He seemed to have a plan for his future, a plan for a middle-class life. Her mom was in the process of getting married for the eighth time.

Her husband was in Wyoming, so she had the choice of either going to Wyoming or getting out and moving in with my father after knowing him for six months, maybe. And she chose to get out. You know, that was the beginning of her seeing him maybe as a savior, a way to escape the abuse that she suffered as a child.

They moved in together and then started going to the church down the street. And the church offered hope and some love and kindness. That was really attractive to my mom. And I think to my dad, they taught things like the man is the head of the household. And being the way he was, he very much wanted to be in charge of

They got married really young. She was 18. He was 23. My dad was in college. He was pursuing a degree in chemical engineering. My mom worked three different jobs to help pay for food and housing. When he was in college, he was already showing that he was very controlling over everything. Any money that was spent that was not being used the way he wanted it to be used was a problem.

Once he graduated college, he did start working and she was able to quit working her three jobs and they had decided to go ahead and start trying to make a family. When she was a kid, she didn't want to have kids because she saw what happened to kids in her home.

They were so defenseless, abused, and she was afraid that if she had kids that that cycle would continue. One of the things that really drew her into the church was that the pastor they were seeing was also in school to become a therapist.

So she was able to kind of get her first taste of therapy and talking through the things that she went through as a child and being able to see that she could have a life that did not continue that cycle of abuse. She could rewrite the cycle and she could be born again. She became pregnant with my older brother. They bought their first house together.

My dad never helped with the kids. He made it a point of pride that he never changed a diaper. He basically, he worked, he came home, expected to be waited on. And then on weekends, he would do what he wanted to do. It wasn't family-related.

When he was working, he was a total workaholic, completely focused on work. He always considered himself the most important, the smartest person at whatever job he was at. And so if someone stepped on that ego, that pride, the whole family would have this dark cloud over it.

he needed to constantly be praised for his genius, for his work ethic, for his abilities.

My mom knew that she could not leave either of us with him. But when I was around nine months old, there came a time when she had to go to an appointment that she was not able to find a babysitter for. So there was a two-hour chunk of time where she needed him to be home and watch us.

because he prided himself in never changing a diaper at nine months old. Instead of changing me, he decided to just put me into an empty bathtub. And when my mom came home two hours later, she walked into the house and heard me crying and screaming. And I was just sitting there in the bathtub with shit. And that was the first and last time that she ever left us with my dad.

My happiest times were when it was just my mom, my brother, and I. My dad traveled a lot for work. So when he was gone, we had free reign. When he was home, there was always this sense of just anxiety. He kind of set the tone for the house. I wanted attention from my dad. The times that I knew that I would get accolades from him were grades and church activities.

The church that I grew up going to, purity culture was a big piece. They pushed the traditional family values and that was culminated in receiving a purity ring from my parents on my 13th birthday. I was pretty much all in. You know, that was one of the ways that I got attention from my dad was to be this good Christian girl.

So this was the culture that my mom was in. Marriage is for life. Divorce is horrible. It's a woman's job to make sure that her husband is sexually satisfied. If he was to stray, that's kind of your fault because you didn't give him what he needed. It was more like a servant. We did have a boat growing up because, again, that was something that he enjoyed. Speed boats, water skiing. One day the river was really choppy.

My dad's just driving the boat over the waves and being the typical, like he knows everything. He was like, oh, it's not a problem. Like, yeah, the waves are pretty high, but I know what I'm doing. I was freaking out because I was, you know, maybe seven or eight. And he looked at me and that just made him angry. So he would just push it faster and faster and faster until the point where we almost flipped the boat.

And that was sort of the first time that I realized that when I was around my father, I had to hide my fear because he would use that against me. I developed a pretty severe anxiety disorder and started getting panic attacks right around maybe 11 or 12. I would have, you know, a panic attack, stomach ache, heavy breathing, really freaking out and panic.

He was embarrassed by that. He didn't understand it. And my mom was doing everything she could to try and get me help. Started some medications and he would never get the kind of attention, affection, love that I craved from my dad. No matter what I did, it was never good enough.

He was never taught proper social skills. So if he thought something, he would just say it. As a teenager, I would have a zit on my face and he'd be like, Laura, what is that? Oh my gosh, what's on your face? And I'm like, thanks. Just no social skills, which we now realize after the fact was Asperger's. But instead of being really sad and wanting his attention,

It became just, oh my gosh, like, don't ever introduce him to people. Please don't come to any of my basketball games. It turned into this just like embarrassment of this person that I just didn't really want a relationship with anymore. I graduated high school, decided just to go to community college for a few years to get my associate's degree in

I worked, I went to school. I didn't see my dad a whole lot and kind of on purpose. I drifted away from, I guess, desiring that relationship. I eventually met my husband from a mutual friend and started dating him and wanted to get married because that's kind of what you're set up for. I was 21 and got married. We waited about five years and then had our first child.

We drove down for Christmas, and this was when my oldest was two, and I had a second son in 2016. So he was only about six months old. My two-year-old was having trouble getting to sleep like they do. They're terrible too for a reason.

So after about 15 minutes of kind of going back and forth trying to get the toddler to sleep, we're starting this Christmas movie in the living room. And my dad stands up from his chair and has this look on his face and yells, I'll get him to shut up. I'll shut him up and starts marching to the room that my son was in with his hand raised. He was prepared to do something physical to my son.

So I got in front of him and I said, like hell you will. And I said, get away from my son. Do not touch my son. I told my dad, you leave this house or I call the police. He gets his stuff and gets into his truck and leaves. I'm crying. My mom's crying. It came out of nowhere. We were not expecting that. It was just this bizarre reaction.

My dad took his truck and went up to the mountain and he had texted my mom and said, if you don't come up to the mountain tonight, it's over between us. So she's stuck in this place of, do I stay here or do I drive in the black ice that I'm not comfortable driving in to save my marriage? In the end, she decided to go ahead and drive up to the mountain and

He called me the next morning and I just let him have it. I said, I don't know if I can have you around my kids again. You are not well. You need to get some help. My mom had mentioned that his behavior had gotten more erratic and

He had retired. And once he retired, he went head on into climate change. And he made it his mission to sort of prove that it wasn't as bad as the news makes it out to be. So he created a nonprofit around climate change.

And then it became scientists, like the climate scientists around the world are all in this conspiracy of misinformation, that he was the only one who knew the truth. He thinks that because he took a really hard statistics class when he was in college in like 1980, that that makes him qualified to now be a climate change scientist and decided that he saw correlations that other people didn't.

I didn't notice it until what happened with my son, but my mom had mentioned he was obsessed about climate change and he just wanted to talk about it all the time.

He started making press releases from his nonprofit about climate change. So he would tell my mom like, oh, I'm going to do this press release on Friday. Like we need to leave town because this is big stuff. And like my life could be in danger because I'm, you know, messing with the status quo around climate change. And of course, like he would send out a press release to the local whatever news stations and like nobody cared.

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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. After he basically attacked my child, I told him I didn't want him around my kids anymore and that he needed to see someone. He needed to get examined and see what is going on.

And my mom was just distraught because she was having to choose really between spending time with me and with her grandkids, which she had always wanted, and was able to get him to go to an appointment at the VA to see a psychiatrist.

And that was the beginning of him being diagnosed eventually with delusional disorder and specifically delusions of grandeur and narcissistic personality disorder. Delusions of grandeur is when someone thinks that they hold the key to something that no one else understands. They're like a world asset.

Someone who is diagnosed with this type of delusion, the chances of them coming out of the delusion is very, very minimal. He went to a few sessions of counseling, but refused medication. And when I spoke with his psychiatrist, the psychiatrist was like, you know, I'm just going to be frank with you. Like, it will not get better.

At this point, he was spending eight to 10 hours a day doing climate change work, I guess, for his nonprofit that he created. I knew that he was also abusive to my mom financially and also sexually, not really caring about her desire or consent whatsoever.

So my brother and I, I mean, when we got the information, we're kind of like, you know, mom, you should just, you should get a divorce. We would support you. He is not well, and this is not going to go well. Financially, they didn't have a lot of savings in retirement. They had their house paid off, but really he should not have retired as early as he did.

He was wanting to spend their money going to climate change conferences and doing this and that for his website. We were nervous that he would make choices that caused them to lose everything that they had. With the culture that they were in, marriage is for life. Divorce is like the worst thing ever. Once you're divorced, you're worthless or like this bad person.

I feel like she did feel really stuck. My mom was planning to drive the three and a half hours to spend my birthday with me in January. It was COVID and she hadn't seen the grandkids for a while. And we decided that she could come up and stay a week. But before she drove up, my dad mentioned to her and he goes, hey, I got this opportunity to go on a missions trip to the African country of Ghana. I'm going to evangelize. And, you know, I really want to do this.

And the first thing she said was, are you out of your mind? We're in the middle of COVID. You're going to travel internationally. You don't know the culture. Like what prep work have you done? You're leaving next week. Do you have a plan? Like, what is your plan? And he said, well, I'm going to stay with an old army buddy, just going to go evangelize and go turn people towards Jesus, I guess.

She also had noticed a few weeks before he left that they had basically a home equity line of credit. He had taken $10,000 out of the home equity line. When she asked him about it, he said, oh, yeah, don't worry about it. I basically just took out the money to cover the property taxes. She was stuck in this place of the wife's job is to support her husband.

She made her concerns known, but he was going to do what he was going to do.

My mom was up visiting me for my birthday and she left actually on my birthday on the 26th to drive back down. And I was kind of getting the kids ready for bed and then just kind of chilling out and had my phone on me. I was looking through Facebook and enjoying just, you know, the messages you get like, oh, happy birthday. Haven't seen you in a while. Getting some phone calls from like my brother and just wishing me happy birthday and just kind of enjoying that.

And so all of a sudden I get this message request from someone who I don't recognize the name. So I click on the message. The message basically said, you don't know me, but I know your father and I feel like he he's in danger. Can you please call me? Oh, shit. What is going on?

call the number and immediately the guy's like, hey, I know this is really weird. And he said, hey, I'm concerned because I just got a text message from your father asking me to wire him some money, like send a wire transfer to Africa. And then he would like double my money with this gold that he has. And I'm like, wait, what? And then the guy says, I know your dad's there visiting his girlfriend. And I said, what? What?

He mentioned over a year ago that your parents were getting divorced. And then he mentioned that he had this girlfriend who works as a nurse in Africa. I was sobbing. So the first thing I did was I called my brother. My brother luckily lives about 45 minutes away from my mom's house. And so I said, we can't tell her this over the phone. I need you to drive to her house. And after she gets home, call me when you get there and we'll tell her together.

He drove over to her house, put me on speakerphone, and he said, Mom, Dad's not in Africa for the reasons you think he is. He has been having an online affair with who he thinks is a 30-year-old woman.

The money that you saw missing, he's been sending money to Africa for over two months. And he's there thinking that he is going to bring home this case of gold. I just remember hearing her say, no, no, no, that's not true. No. But then as we started telling her more details, she just broke down.

The worst moment of my life. My mom has done everything she can to be the perfect wife. Her husband of almost 40 years was in Africa having an affair. Having to break that news to basically my only parent. The sound of her voice when she was questioning this, no, that's not true.

And then finally the realization of what happened and just the sobbing. This information that I had to tell my mom was so damaging and I knew it would just break her heart. My brother immediately contacted the police and, you know, had to go into work mode of like, what do we do with this? You know, your marriage is over, but he's still in Africa and he's in danger.

So we learned more or less the entire story, which was that he developed an online relationship with someone who he believed was a 30-year-old nurse from Oklahoma, had graduated college and went to Ghana and was living there for a time in order to pay for her schooling and to gain nursing experience.

She sent some photos and basically just played into his need for someone to listen. Like, wow, you're so smart. Tell me more. And he was hooked. He fell in love with this person. Well, it turns out it's not actually a person. It was a sweetheart scam.

local people set up these operations of trying to hook vulnerable Americans into online relationships. Tell them everything they want to know, like, oh, you're so smart. You're so handsome. Like, oh, yeah, geez, my phone bill is coming up, so I can't pay it right now, so I can't talk to you.

I just need like $200. If you can send me about $200 and help me pay for my phone bill, then we can keep talking and keep emailing back and forth. And then pretty soon it's, oh my gosh, I can't pay for my apartment. I need more money. Can you just float me $1,000? So he gave her a debit card to his account and she was able to take money out of the ATM in Ghana.

I'm sorry, I say she, there's not an actual woman involved. It's these men that are impersonating a woman. Once my brother was at my mom's house, he started getting more information and looking into the accounts that she was on, calling credit cards, calling online savings accounts, and basically putting a fraud alert and having them shut down because he could be taken for everything.

My dad got an alert on his cell phone that whatever banking account was frozen. And so he called my brother and said, did you shut down my accounts? My brother basically just said, dad, assume I know everything. Assume I know about the woman. I know about the gold that you're apparently trying to get from Africa to the US. I know everything. And your life is in danger.

This is not real. This is a scam. His girlfriend, her name was apparently Jennifer, had to leave town suddenly when he landed. The story was that, oh, oh, darn, like, I really want to see you. But I had to leave town really suddenly. And my friend has this apartment that you can stay in. And then I'll be back in a few days. They had my dad in an apartment with the person who was scamming him.

They took him to a warehouse and showed him what appeared to be a pallet of $100 bills and gold bars.

The text messages that he sent to his friend were if this friend would just wire transfer $75,000 in order to get this gold through customs and into the United States. And then once he was back with all this gold, like he was set, like he had however many millions of dollars worth of gold.

My brother had to talk him through like they showed you something, but it was not gold and the gold isn't real. And this woman is not real. And this is all a scam. He said, you need to leave this apartment. You need to get your stuff, get your backpack, your suitcase, and you need to get into a taxi and get to the embassy. They could have easily either killed him. I mean, who knows? When he arrived at the embassy, he couldn't find his passport.

My dad had no money because everything was shut off. So my brother then put him up at a hotel, got him food, took care of everything while he tried to sort out his flight back home.

I think it took a while for him to realize what was happening and that it was a scam. But my brother was able to get my dad to believe that this was not real. And when my brother said, look, your life is in danger. You need to leave. My dad then said, oh, don't worry. My life's not in danger. I have my Glock in my backpack. So he traveled from the United States to Africa with a handgun in his luggage and

The next day after having called my mom and told her what happened, it seemed like about $13,000 to $14,000 of their money was gone. There's not too much that can be done when something like this happens. When you send money to a scam like this, like if you get caught up in a scam like this, it's fraud in the sense that they are impersonating a romantic interest, but you are sending the money of your own accord.

I've learned that, you know, this happens to a lot of Americans, but a lot of times they either get taken for everything or a lot of money. And then the person who is trying to be the love interest is like, well, we got, you know, our twenty five thousand out of this guy. Like he's all dried up. Let's move on to someone else. Then that's it.

We're both so angry at what happened and what our father did, but also scared because he could be killed. So my brother paid for him to be put up in the Marriott Hotel. He made it so that my dad could order room service and get all his meals and everything taken care of. So here we are, stressed out.

The person that just blew up our family was just basically hanging out at this, you know, Marriott hotel and he's eating better than we are at this point. Well, we're freaking out and trying to figure out how to get him back home safe. He did find his passport. They were able to change his flight to the next day. And then when they landed at JFK, he went through customs and they found the gun.

So they called my brother and, you know, why is why does your dad have a gun? Why is he flagged as a missing person? And so my brother had to explain. So they confiscated the gun at that point. My brother also called the VA mental health services. And basically they said that we would need to take him from the airport to the VA hospital immediately.

We took him into the hospital, but unfortunately, the way mental health care is, I guess he wasn't an immediate physical risk to himself or others. So they would not really keep him longer than overnight.

My brother managed to get him set up with his truck and camper and basically told him, mom doesn't want you home. So he stayed in a truck and camper in a RV lot, basically, for a while before getting served with divorce papers.

My brother just saved his life and got him home from Africa without also losing the rest of all of his money and paid to have him stay in the hotel and feed him while we're all going through this trauma and crisis. To immediately then not really get any sense that he was sorry for what he had just put us through.

Then he immediately went to, well, mom told me that she didn't love me anymore. And that's why, that's why this happened. He even went on to write letters basically saying, I'm sorry, but you had shoulder surgery and we hadn't had sex in two months. And also, you know, you love your grandkids too much. You don't love me at all. What was I to do?

I wasn't getting what I needed from you. That's why this happened. And also just the victim card of, yeah, poor me. They took my money. Can you believe it? He never admitted that there was actually more women. Before this scam, there was another woman that he invited to go up skiing with him. So he would be gone for a week at a time up at the mountain.

My mom had no idea that he was up there forming relationships with other women on the internet. So when I was nine or 10, my aunt Karen, my dad's older sister, had an affair, divorced her husband, and married her husband's friend.

When this came out, my dad was livid. Even though this has nothing to do with him and it's his sister, we weren't allowed to go to the wedding and basically that she was dead to him. She was not welcome in our home and he never wanted to see her again. He traveled a lot for work and there were instances that we have now become aware of that he was engaging in sexual activities.

He also paid for oral sex through a wall, then later on came home and bragged about it to his brother-in-law on a hunting trip. It just seemed so interesting that he would have such a strong reaction to his sister cheating on her husband and getting a divorce. But when he behaved badly, obviously somehow in his mind, it wasn't the same.

And I don't know if that goes back to sort of this misogynist, narcissist behavior that he showed or if it's deeper than that and part of the delusion that he lives in. 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.

Coming from the childhood where

I was really taught, you know, save sex until you're married, divorce affairs. Those are horrible people. Stay pure until you're married. And then when you're married, like, you know, it's only for your spouse. The clear violation of everything that he taught.

And just kind of looking back on this really strict Christian life that he wanted us to live and that he made others believe that he was living. He was a Bible study leader. My parents had Bible study at their house for years. After the divorce began, things got pretty bad as well where, you know, the narcissist behavior comes out.

At the very first hearing, my dad told the judge that his wife doesn't need any money and that he should get the house and the 401k and the vehicles. Currently, my father is working at an online Christian school as a science teacher.

And I found that out and I was very concerned because, of course, he's not allowed around any of his grandchildren because of his mental illness and past behaviors that are unsafe to have around kids. I contacted the owner of the school to let them know that, hey, like one of your teachers is not a good person. Like this is not a good job for him. On the website, he called himself doctor. He does not have a doctorate.

And, you know, just the fact that he's not well and also just not safe to have around children. The owner of the school didn't really want to hear what I had to say. My dad is still out there, you know, in the world. And there's always that concern of the mental illness and what he could do. When he was gone in Africa, he brought a gun in his backpack.

He still has firearms. While he was gone, we found a loaded handgun in his office. I lost it when we found that because my kids, I had brought them by against my better judgment because I really wanted boundaries and I really didn't want him in my life at that point. But it was Christmas and I felt pressure to be that good daughter and allow him to see his grandchildren again.

Knowing that in all likelihood that gun was loaded and, you know, feet away from where my children were unwrapping presents just really makes me angry and just thankful that nothing happened. I mean, kids are so, they're kids. Like if they saw a gun, what would they do? Through this experience, my mom and brother and I are so much closer. Like I call my brother, he calls me. My mom has been living with us.

Once, you know, the divorce started, she had zero dollars to her name and she would have been homeless, basically. It really affected me in a deep level, a huge sense of betrayal,

I've always been a pretty maybe positive person and wanted to see the best in people. And I feel like now I've grown a lot more skeptical, especially of someone who puts themselves in maybe a place of leadership. What demons do you have in your closet? How have you treated your family?

This has brought out a pretty major shift, I would say, in my relationship to God and or church. I have been in a questioning moment. I definitely still have faith. I just don't have faith in the Christian church anymore.

I've been hurt by it. You know, it was a big piece of why my mom put up with abuse, really financial abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse. That needs to change.

That church culture, I feel like more and more people are seeing it for what it is now. And if it doesn't change, I feel like, you know, Christianity in the U.S. is on the decline. And that's unfortunate because I think there's a lot of good things there, but churches are ruining it. I'm still trying to figure out where I fit into that. I don't want to throw it all away.

It's definitely brought up anxiety. I have an anxiety disorder, and so I can't sleep sometimes when I think about what if he isn't happy with the way the divorce happens? And what if he comes after us? It is scary. But then it really turned into this intense anger thing.

I was so angry. If you're not happy with your marriage, like just get a divorce like a normal person. The anger continued because after he got back from Africa, like, you know, he started writing letters and mailing them to me for my mom. The letters were basically like, I'm so sorry, but I'm the victim. I was scammed. They took my money.

He said in the letters, like when I admitted what I did to his Bible study, you know, they forgave me right away. So why are you guys not forgiving me? You know, I was scammed. This isn't my fault. And that just pissed me off even more. Own what the F you just did.

You just dropped this bomb that really deeply wounded your family. And he just did not accept any responsibility for it. And then he started blaming my mom.

He still thinks of himself as this good Christian man, this good person, you know, and we're the ones like my brother. He really went after my brother, you know, threatening him. He called, he emailed my, my brother's like bosses and tried to get him fired from his job because it was my brother's fault that my mom was so, you know, was so angry and wouldn't forgive him.

At one point when they were separated, my dad stalked my mom. He was sitting in his car around the corner and watched her leave the driveway and started chasing her in his car, like running red lights to try and catch up with her going 80 miles an hour on the highway. And she called the police and she was just like, oh my gosh, like my ex-husband is chasing me. And they pulled him over, but they told her like, we can't do anything. Like he has...

a right to be in the house because his name is on the deed. So we can hold him back for a little bit, but you should probably go. You probably need to be somewhere else. So there's so much anger, so much anger around just how someone can behave this way.

As things kept happening throughout the separation and divorce, he was told by the judge, you need to start giving spousal support to my mom because you have the money. He was like, no, I'm not going to do that. He's in the house now and has a lot of her belongings. So seeing just the failure of our justice system to really keep my mom safe, there's just no accountability there.

And he has rights to have guns, even though he's mentally unwell and a dangerous person. I have three children who are seven, five, and two. There were days where I just had to lean on my husband and just had trouble sleeping and felt so overwhelmed at times.

My husband was so supportive and just said, you're still experiencing this trauma. This has not stopped. There are still things that he's doing that are hurting you and your mom, and it's okay to feel that. I really don't consider my dad my dad anymore. I mean, he never really was, to be honest. To me, the word father or dad conveys a bond and a relationship.

My mom is going through the legal process and getting legally divorced, but in a way, I'm divorcing him at the same time. Really taking back that word father has been empowering because I get to choose who I allow into my life. I've learned that a family tree is not permanent. You're allowed to trim some branches.

Just because they are blood doesn't give them the right to be in your life if they are taken away from your life. Just being around him would send me into anxiety.

Now being able to have boundaries that I am standing by, like my boundaries are not being pushed anymore. There is a freedom to that. And it feels like I was stuck in this space that I had to have this person in my life who was actively toxic to me. And I could not say no. I don't have a father now.

So there's a relief there, but it is a grieving process. And I say that not that I'm grieving him. I think I'm grieving that little girl who wanted her father's love and attention so badly and would do whatever it took to try and get it and then just never got it.

Those hopes and dreams of like having a grandfather that loved my children. I'm grieving my mom and what she's been through. And I know that in a way this really had to happen. She did not believe in divorce. Like she would have cared for him to his dying day.

On the one-year anniversary of when the bomb dropped, I didn't want to have to revisit the pain of that day the year before. That was the worst day of my life. I don't wish that to happen to anyone. But when I told my mom that, she goes, it was a gift. I would have stayed with him till he died and continued to be in this dominated relationship forever.

It was the key that she needed for her freedom to hear her just one year after this happened, have that point of view already. It just reminded me of like, you know what? That was a horrible thing to have happened, but it needed to happen in order to free my mom.

She has such a bright future ahead of her. She is 60. Like she has a life that she can live now for herself and really be on her own and be her own woman for the first time in her life. Going from living in such an abusive house throughout her childhood and then escaping that to another abuser. She now has the freedom to do what she wants to do.

Once the dust kind of settled, she looked at me one day and she goes, let's get a tattoo. My dad was very anti-tattoo. So we went out and we got different bird tattoos and she got the word free because even though this has been such a high price to pay, she has earned her freedom and we all have.

They say the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. And I'm still working to get there. When does this anger just turn into apathy? Like I really desperately want to not hate my dad. Like I want to just not care. But I hope someday that this hate that I feel, this anger that I feel for my father can fade away into indifference.

It's such a relief to know that no one is going to try and force me to have a relationship with him again. That's what it really felt like. I was stuck in this space that I had to have this person in my life who was actively toxic to me. I could not say no. I just didn't have the permission from myself to, I guess, put myself first.

A good person should be able to just get over the hurt from the past, should treat their father with respect. You know, family is everything. All those things like you go to like Hobby Lobby and they've got these signs that's like, you know, family is forever. And so there's this pressure to live up to this expectation of this good daughter that he always praised me for.

You are allowed to not have someone in your life. You are allowed to not give them your time. But I still didn't feel like I had the right to just say, no, I don't want you in my life before Ghana.

I used to, if someone was like, oh, hey, can you come volunteer for this? Like we could really use your help. I would feel immediately like, of course I have to, like I don't have the mental or emotional scope to give, you know, six hours of my time to do this. But sure, of course I have to, like that's what a good person does. And now I have the freedom to say, sorry, I can't help this time.

I'm allowed to be safe. Like I'm allowed to make a choice for my safety, even though it's going to hurt someone else. And that was so foreign to me. I don't want to be that gentle, feminine pushover anymore. I am allowed to have feelings about something and just be able to say no. And I don't have guilt over that anymore.

Today's guest requested to remain anonymous, but if you'd like to reach out to her, you can email at thisisactuallyhappening235 at gmail.com. From Wondery, you're listening to This Is Actually Happening.

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Welcome to the Offensive Line. You guys, on this podcast, we're going to make some picks, talk some s**t, and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Agar.

So here's how this show's going to work, okay? We're going to run through the weekly slate of NFL and college football matchups, breaking them down into very serious categories like No offense. No offense, Travis Kelsey, but you've got to step up your game if Pat Mahomes is saying the Chiefs need to have more fun this year. We're also handing out a series of awards and making picks for the top storylines surrounding the world of football. Awards like the He May Have a Point Award for the wide receiver that's most justifiably bitter.

Is it Brandon Ayuk, Tee Higgins, or Devontae Adams? Plus, on Thursdays, we're doing an exclusive bonus episode on Wondery Plus, where I share my fantasy football picks ahead of Thursday night football and the weekend's matchups. Your fantasy league is as good as locked in. Follow the offensive line on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can access bonus episodes and listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.