240: What if nine bullets shattered your dreams?
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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. Today will be the last new episode of Season 11. Over the next six weeks, we'll be rebroadcasting episodes from the back catalog, some of which we'll be pulling from behind the paywall. We will resume with all new episodes for Season 12 starting August 9th.

I can't thank you all enough for your continued support for this show. It continues to be such an honor to connect with storytellers who have experienced the darkest corners of the human experience and have come back with the vulnerability, wisdom, and bravery to share it with us.

And it's equally humbling to see you all show up every week to listen deeply and engage with them and with each other. As a reminder, you can participate in our community on the This Is Actually Happening discussion group on Facebook, on the show's Instagram page, at Actually Happening. And as always, you can support the show by donating on Patreon at patreon.com.

Thank you all again. And now, the final episode of Season 11, featuring the unbelievable story of Diamond Garrett. I got shot. Well, why did you get shot? I don't know. Well, who shot you? I don't know. These are unanswered questions. These are open-ended wounds. These are open-ended things that you have to patch up, but how do you patch them up? How do you make it okay? From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein.

You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 240. What if nine bullets shattered your dreams?

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To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash ad-free podcasts. That's amazon.com slash ad-free podcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Check out our recently completed six-part series, The 82% Modern Stories of Love and Family, ad-free with your Prime membership. Growing up, my mother was my best friend and she still is.

I have two other siblings, a sister and a brother. Me being the oldest, I was the provider when my mom couldn't. She was either at work or at school. And I would be the one responsible to take care of my younger brother and sister.

I do remember in summer times, like going to New York, I would be able to like play with my aunt, jump double dutch and go to summer camps. But mainly throughout the school year, I was playing a mother role. It gave me a sense of the responsibility early on in life to understand what it is to be responsible for something and understand that there are consequences when you don't do what is asked of you.

I do feel like I sort of missed out on a childhood, but I do know that no matter what, I'm definitely going to ride for my mom and with her. She's been a 911 dispatcher answering 911 emergency calls. It was scary as a child because my mom would have to come home with all of those calls on her mind and then look at her children and be afraid because you know what's out there in the world. You're answering these calls every day.

There would be times that she would come home and be like, this person was just released. They're a sex offender. I remember her always telling me, pay attention to your surroundings. I was constantly made aware of people and the bad things that they do. My father, as far as my memory goes, I always remember my father being in jail from the time I was six years old until 13, turning 14.

I would go to school and I would see friends with their dads. And, you know, I knew that I had a father. I just didn't ideally know him in detail like I knew my mother. I do vividly remember my mom, she would tell me, "Diamond, you have to write him a letter."

But I used to feel like writing him was an assignment and talking to him was like forced because although you're telling me that this is my dad and I talk to him and he tells me he loves me, I don't feel that because I don't really know him. I remember feeling like this feeling in my stomach, like I'm being forced to love somebody that I don't know.

But no matter how many times I didn't write him, no matter how many times I didn't pick up that house phone, he would still call back. He would still send letters, still send cards, even if I didn't respond, which I really do appreciate him not giving up.

Moving forward, when my dad was released out of jail, I was in eighth grade. And I remember seeing him for the first time outside, like in a house without, you know, a jail outfit on. And it was really, really like weird and uncomfortable. But from then on, my father did nothing but try to take time to not only get to know me, but allow me to get to know him and not a forceful way.

So from the age of 13, I have been a daddy's girl. Like, I love him. And I think I love him so much and value him so much because I honor his drive in trying to really be a father, whether behind bars or not. My father went to jail for selling drugs and having a gun. He acknowledged his mistakes. He acknowledged his wrongdoings. And he also acknowledged the acceptance of the consequence of serving eight and a half years in jail.

Not only that, he would assure me that when he got home, he would do all he could to not leave me again. I was a dancer from the age of three. I went to the Middle School of the Arts, Elementary School, and the High School of Arts in West Palm Beach. So I danced my entire time in school. And then after school, I was a ballerina. I did tap, jazz, modern dance.

My favorite was tap. I love tap. And I was a part of Fusion Force Dance Company. So I would do competitions and I was just 100% in the dance world. My father is a rapper. He's rapped since back in the 90s. And when he got home, he continued his music career and he introduced me to the studio recording and writing music.

That was very exciting to go to different events with my dad and be able to perform. I mean, I was in like nightclubs performing at 14, 15 years old, meeting stars like people like Jadakiss and Papoose and Bumby, feeling like a superstar whenever I'm with my dad. Being able to make music with him at that time and perform with him was a bonding experience for us as well.

That was our way of getting closer with each other and spending time. And I was finally able to see that I'm good at something else besides dancing. All my life, I've just been a dancer. And it wasn't until he introduced me to that world that I realized that I am musically inclined as well. And that I'm a really good artist. My parents, they actually split up before my father went to jail when I was six years old.

My mom was in a relationship with someone who wasn't my biological father, but he was the father of my younger two siblings. And watching him be abusive to my mother, it traumatized me as a child. Me knowing that I was the protector, the caregiver, when an argument would turn into a fight, that I would immediately grab my sister up and go in the room and kind of like sit there and listen through the wall.

My mom would come out. I would see her, you know, kind of bruised up and battered. And she would constantly assure me that she is OK when I know that she wasn't OK. I used to go to school wondering if my mother was going to be dead or alive when I got home. That within itself caused me to not be able to focus. I remember being in class and like things would just fly over my head because my mind was somewhere else.

I have an issue since I was a kid with biting my skin and biting my nails until they bleed. And I do believe that that's because of the trauma that I was experiencing. So I would inflict self-pain and not really like talk about it. So not many people knew what I was going through at home. But I don't think that, you know, it was ever really acknowledged like why this child is biting her hands until they bleed. My mother did leave that relationship.

I do think that she left it way too late, that the damage was already done to me. But I do believe that her leaving is still an acknowledgement of strength because the things that I experienced, my younger brother and sister, they can't recollect the things that I can recollect and I can close my eyes and still vividly see and feel.

Like I mentioned before, my mother was a 911 dispatcher. She worked in the emergency field. And I was always under the impression that I can't call the cops because then, you know, mommy would lose her job. My family would be broken apart, that my brothers and sisters would be taken away. I would never call the cops. I would never call for help.

If it got too crazy to where I can hear my mom screaming for dear life, then I know, okay, I can call my aunt. I can call my uncle. I can call somebody to come over here and help us. But I always knew I can't call the police. I can't put a stop to it. The only thing I can do is escape from it. Instead of me releasing it to others, not knowing if I could trust people, I would always release that on the dance floor, leave everything that I was feeling and everything that I was experiencing right there.

My dance teacher, Miss Andrea, she knew a lot of the trauma that I was going through. And like she could tell that that dance studio was my life. But I felt a feeling inside that I was living a life that my mom wanted me to live and being a dancer. And then I also felt like I was living a life that my father wanted to have for me and be this rapper, artist, star. And being that his vision for me and her vision for me wasn't really the same.

I wanted to create my own vision. And I was so adamant on being, you know, defiant and doing my own thing that I would skip school and I would skip dance class. And I started to like slip into things that, you know, I had really no business doing. I started to go against what I knew was right. And I do believe that that is what started to lead me on a path of destruction, of self-destruction.

I started smoking weed at 14 years old. By the time I was 16 and 17, I had used it as a coping mechanism for the things that I was feeling. So instead of me releasing these feelings as a young child on the dance floor, I started to release them into the streets.

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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. When I graduated high school at 18 years old, I continued to hang out with people in my neighborhood who were selling drugs. They would always have like guns around.

I didn't want to be in the home anymore. I wanted to experience life on my own immediately. So as soon as I turned 18, I moved out and I rented out a room. And my mother told me that I had like a month to get a job. So at the age of 18, I was the only one of my friends that had a car. And I was the one that would like constantly give rides to people.

So I had went to a Halloween party. We were all drinking and we were drunk. And one of the guys that I hung out with in the neighborhood, he was like, Diamond, take me home, please. And I remember telling him, no, I'm not taking anybody anywhere. He was like, if you don't take me, you're going to hate me tonight. And he took a liquor bottle and smashed my windshield. And I remember getting out the car, like trying to fight him. And I was just like, totally crazy. And

The next day, my mom, obviously, I lied to her. And I told her that somebody started fighting and got thrown on my car because my mom worked for the police department. And I knew that if I told her somebody smashed my windshield, that she would call the cops. And I didn't want to be looked at like the girl that called the police. But she did return the car back to me. And when I got the car, I went right back to like doing things that I had no business doing.

This night when I was leaving her house, I got hired at a job. She had took me to Walmart and we got like all the things that I needed and it was in my trunk and I was going to leave her home and go home now.

And she was like, Diamond, I just want to tell you, like, I'm proud of you, but you really need to stop smoking in your car. You need to stop giving people rides and hanging out with the people you're hanging out with. If you can just focus a little bit, I'm happy that you got a job. But, you know, like she's just giving me that that mother talk. OK, I'm like, all right. All right. You know, you know, when you're young, kind of like blow off what your parents are saying. And I was like, all right, well, I got to go. So I left.

This specific night, I was asked to take my friend somewhere. He asked me to take him to an unknown place. He never told me where we were going or what we needed to go there for. He just said, can I get a ride? Immediately, I didn't want to because of the conversation I just had with my mom.

Well, I looked in my gas tank and I was like, hmm, I need the gas money. I told my mom I was going to go to church the next day, which was Sunday. And I knew that I really didn't have the gas to get there. So I thought to myself, as he's saying this, like, these are like fast thoughts. I'm just like, you know what? Take him. You can get the gas money. So I was like, all right, I'm coming. And I went to pick him up. We went to the gas station and he put five dollars in my tank.

What's $5? Where's $5 going to get us? You know, and he was just like, relax, just chill out. I'm going to get you more gas and more money when we get to where we're going. I remember before I pulled off from the pump, I wanted to turn around and take him back to the neighborhood that I picked him up from and tell him this is where your $5 got you.

But in the middle of that thought, I remember being afraid because I know that when I just tried to speak my mind the other day at the party, my window got shattered. And clearly these guys don't respect me and like what I'm saying. So instead of me following that feeling, I said to myself, this is exactly why you need to just stop hanging around them. Like this is like the last time. Like once you drop him off, you're done.

So I continued to proceed to take him. I called one of my friends at the time and just started talking to her to try to like get my mind off of the fact that I was driving somewhere and doing something that I was irritated now by doing and that I wish I just went home. And as I'm talking to her, I'm realizing now that I'm in an area that I don't really recall where I'm at. Like, I can't tell you where I'm at anymore.

So I said to my friend, hey, let me call you back. Let me just finish doing what I'm doing and I'll call you when I get home. And I remember her saying, Diamond, make sure you call me. You never call me. I made a right on F Street. This street looked active. Like people lived on this street. It was lights in the homes. He told me to like pull over. The people he was on the phone with, I still don't know who they are. But he was like, I'm outside.

And they must have said that they are not at the location that we were at because then he proceeded to say, all right, I'm coming. And then he said, no, no, no, I'm by myself. He got in the car and I was like, I'm not a taxi. I don't want to go. And he's like, no, he's like, it's right here. You came all the way this way, like you're tripping. And I'm like, OK, so I just turned around and I was like, where do you want me to turn? And he was like, turn right here. And this street is darker now.

It doesn't have as many street lights on it. There's no real like lights in the house is on. And he's like, pull over right here. I pulled over like the second house from the corner on the stop sign. These individuals that he was meeting, they were on the left hand side of the street into like a driveway. I remember him saying like, click your lights. I turn my lights off, but I never turn the car off. And he's like, I'll be right back.

As he got out the car and I watched him walk in front of my car across the street to where they were. As soon as I saw him shake their hand, like dap them up type of thing. My mom started calling my phone. So I looked down at the phone and I'm like, fuck, do I answer? You know, and I didn't want to answer because I know that she just told me to not be driving people around. And if she hears I'm outside, she's going to want to stay on the phone until I get to my house. I just know my mom.

My spirit told me don't answer. I decided to text her and I said, hey, I just got home. I'm going to hop in the shower, call you when I get out. So I'm texting this lie as I'm texting and I press send and I go to close my phone and put in the cup holder. I see this guy pasting on my right hand side and he kind of looks like he's like on the phone because he has his head tilted like to the right.

So when I saw him and like we kind of like made eye contact, I see my friend walking back to the car and he opened the car. I never forget. I heard the door slam and he said, Diamond, go fast. I looked at him and I said, what? And when I clicked my lights, the same guy that was just standing there to my right stood in front of the car and he just started to shoot.

It wasn't just like a pow, pow type of shooting. It was an AK-47 and an AR-15. So more like...

When I saw the fire come from the gun, I immediately felt it in my chest. I was trying to duck down and not get shot in my head. And as I'm going down toward the right, the seatbelt is holding me. And I look to the left and I see the same guy he was just talking to walking and shooting as he's walking up and just shooting the gun from the left-hand side. I see the other individual hop into the car and drive

drive right into the middle of the road and sit there and wait for these two individuals to finish shooting up the car so they can leave. And as I'm looking at this and they're both shooting, the guy that I gave the ride to, he jumps over my head into the back seat and he is kneeling and crouched behind my seat on the driver's side. And he's screaming, Diamond, go! Diamond, go! And

And as I'm screaming and I hear all the glass, I hear everything. It was a whisper in my right ear. And it said, you can go, you can go, you can go. And when I opened my eyes, I immediately saw the green light on my dashboard that was around the neutral sign. I knew that my car can drive in neutral.

I also couldn't feel my legs anymore. And when I looked down at my lap, I feel like I'm spinning, like I'm looking down at my lap and it looks like it's going in a circle. My left arm blew off my body. I saw the bone from my elbow sticking out and the blood squirting in my face from the left.

My forearm is in my lap with my fingers stuck in this position where my pointer finger was pointed out and my other fingers were curled. And it's sitting in my lap. And when I saw my limb in my lap, I knew that I was dead. And I look at my other arm on my right side and I noticed I can feel it. I can move it.

And I'm screaming. And in the midst of me screaming again, I hear you can go. Well, I took my right arm and move my foot from the brake to the pedal. And I started to mash my foot in my arm, like on the pedal. And I remember the car like room room. And it had like revs like three, four times before I had no more strength or the breath. I didn't have the breath to keep trying to push the

When I stopped and I let out this long piercing scream because I was on fire, I felt like I was burning, but I was also very cold. Basically, every time a bullet hit my body, where that bullet was at, it was so hot. But everywhere else, I was shivering. And I remember letting out this piercing scream from all of the feelings that I'm feeling and letting go.

And when I let go, I felt it moving. This is how I know these guys were so close because I remember his gun, the tip of his gun hitting through the window like it hit. Boom.

As I'm driving down this road now, my car is like swerving side to side and I'm trying to gain control of the car. They are still shooting from the back and I still hear like this is what I'm hearing the whole time. And I'm driving down the road and my friend is still screaming, Diamond, go Diamond, Diamond. And he's screaming my name.

And as I'm getting closer to the ending of the road and I get shot in my back once, by the time I got that second shot to the back, it took the breath out of my chest. And I felt at that moment that I was either just going to die from getting shot or I was about to kill myself in ongoing traffic. So I took the wheel and I jerked it to the right. And when I jerked my wheel and I fell back, like I let my shoulders fall back onto the chair, I crashed into like a lady's front yard.

And as soon as I crashed, all of the gunshots stopped. Everything came quiet. And I just heard the glass trickling. And the guys in the back saying, me and my friend were shot. Help me. And he's just like screaming still. And I'm looking up at my windshield. And all I remember is crying because I saw the windshield broken the same way it was just broken the weekend before that.

And I remember my mom, like, I remember lying to her and like all these thoughts are going through my brain. I was just in total shock that I got myself here. As I'm like thinking this, the whole windshield like shattered. And this woman runs out and she's like, come bring her a blanket. And I'm screaming, my mom, my mom. And she, I remember her throwing this blue blanket and she threw it on me.

She's like, it's going to be OK. The cops are coming. They're coming. She's like, hold on. And I just know that when the cops got there, they started to cut my clothes off. And as they're cutting my clothes off, he's screaming one to the chest, two to the chest, three to the extremity, four to the leg. And he's screaming all these places that I'm shot. And I just like start hyperventilating again. And I feel like I couldn't breathe.

I hear them say, all right, one, two, three. And then I remember being on the stretcher because I looked up at the sky and I see the sky has no stars this night. It's totally pitch black.

I immediately couldn't hear anymore. There was a ringing in my ear now and I could only hear myself in my head. It's like when you put your fingers in your ear and you can only hear your own voice. That's the type of feeling that I was experiencing. He went to put the breathing air mask on my face and I remember him like hovering over me and he put his finger on his lips like a shush.

During the time period of me getting shot from the time I was in that car until I got into the ambulance, I was in the mind state that I was going to die. I wasn't ready. I knew that I disappointed the people that mattered to me the most, like my mom and my dad in the things that I was doing. And I just wasn't proud. I remember these feelings of sadness, of feeling like this is how I was going to die. And then I wasn't going to be able to tell my mom like what happened next.

It was that ambulance guy standing over me, putting his hand on his mouth. That relaxed my mind to switch now into a mode of survival instead of death. Like they're getting you there, Diamond. You're in the ambulance. Now you're in the helicopter. They're flying you there. When you get there, your mom's going to be there. She already knows what happened. She knows that you got shot. Don't close your eyes. Stay awake.

I remember leaving out the ambulance and getting into a helicopter. I knew I was in a helicopter because it went from bright lights to pitch black. And I knew that they were flying me. I remember getting out of that helicopter and now bright white lights and people running to me in blue. In between those blue hats and those blue faces, I saw my mom's face.

I had a mission in my mind to talk myself through this up until I laid eyes on what was familiar, which was my mother. And when I did see her face running to me in that hospital through the faces of the nurses, I knew that I did my job.

I survived all the way from that car. I made it and I knew that it was okay. At that moment, I had a sense of peace in my heart. I had no fear now, whether it was to die and let go or to hold on and survive. That no longer was a thought anymore. It was more so a feeling of relief. And I let go. I closed my eyes and I went to sleep.

When I woke up from an induced coma, I remembered everything that I went through.

I wanted so bad to be able to talk and tell my family what happened because I know the way that my mother looked at me every time I did open my eyes and she was right there by my bed. It was a look of confusion and hurt and pain of seeing me this way and not knowing what happened and not being able to hear it from me. And I just wanted to tell somebody what happened and that I didn't have anything to do with it.

I couldn't speak. I had tubes in my mouth. I had tubes in my nose. I had breathing tubes in my chest, up under each underarm. I had draining tubes in my stomach and there were tubes everywhere. And I just remember that being my life for about two and a half weeks. I was in an induced coma for almost a week and I was on life support. I lived in ICU for over a month.

I got shot three times in my chest, two times in my back, once in my left arm, once in my thigh, and once in each knee. They said because of the high-powered machinery guns that I got shot with, the bullet hole was so big you could see through my knee. When I woke up from an induced coma, I did not have my left arm. My left arm was wrapped up, and I had it from the shoulder to the elbow. They held my arm in a freezer.

They wanted to stabilize me before they worried about giving me my arm again. Maybe three weeks after getting shot, I went under surgery again, and they reconnected my arm with a metal rod and screws. I went to sleep with no arm, and I woke up with an arm. Detectives came into the room to speak to me. This is when I was finally able to really communicate comfortably. I'll never forget these two women detectives.

They listened to me. And by the time I was done with everything that I had to say, this woman got red in the face and she started to cry. And she said, I'm never supposed to tell you or anyone in this type of situation when anybody else testifies to what they make a statement on. But young lady, you were lied on. She said, this man said that you took him somewhere, that you asked him to ride with you.

And that he didn't know where you guys were going. I realized that I got shot and I got hurt behind people that I considered to be my friend that really didn't give a shit about me. My life could have been taken and your life could have been taken. And you can lie on me. That really hurt me. I couldn't sleep. And I never watched TV my whole entire time of being in the hospitals and rehabilitation sessions.

I would stare at the ceiling and race and I'm an overthinker. And my mind would just constantly think about everything that I just put myself through. The nurse came in there and she was like, baby, you never sleep. And I'm like, I know I can't. It's just, I don't know if it's this room or if it's just the hospital. And she's like, well, I don't know, but I don't know if they told you, but I took care of your little friend that you got shot with in the car. He was in the same room. Why did she tell me that?

I had created such a deep feeling of anger for him because of the fact that he lied on me. And for her to tell me that he was in that same room, it totally disturbed my spirit and my energy that was already disturbed. Every two hours, I had one Oxycodone and every four hours I had two Oxycontins and I had a Dilatant button in my arm for pain.

I went through times of trying to, like, kill myself, like, saving the medicine. I would be administered the drugs, and I wouldn't really, like, take them. I would, like, keep it under my tongue and then, like, add it up. Like, I had this plan in my mind. I'd rather just leave dead. To be told by detectives that I was lied on, to know that he got out the hospital and he walked away on his two feet three days later.

And to not really know anything. I'm still thinking that I'm in the hospital to be taken care of so that I can walk out, so that I can be the same Diamond that I was before. But every day seemed to be a drag on that. And I couldn't live. I felt like I couldn't live. There was a doctor that came in and they were there to do a test on my buttocks. My mom and my stepdad and the nurses, they came in to turn me over on my side.

I remember the doctor saying, do you feel this? And I'm like, no. And he's like, okay, L1, L2. Like he's saying all these doctor things and he's like, do you feel this? And I'm like, no. And then he's like, oh, yep. Well, she's paralyzed. And then he walks out. And I remember my stepdad storming out of the room. And he later on told me that you'll never see that doctor again.

I still didn't even understand what paralysis was. I don't know if it was sheltered or what, but I never knew people in wheelchairs. I never knew what paralysis was. I didn't know what the hell the name even meant. So I got turned on my back and then like they left and things kind of got quiet for a little bit. And then I said to my mom, I'm like, mom, I really have to pee. Can you help me get to the bathroom? She put her hands on my legs and she said, no, baby, you can't walk right now.

And I said, what? I can't dance? And immediately I just started to cry. It wasn't about walking for me. It was about dancing. And I said to her, I said, I said, no, I know I can't do it by myself, but you can help me. And she said, no, Diamond, you can't pee by yourself. You can't walk right now. They have to help you. But God is good. And you're still here with us.

And she tried to bring me back to an understanding of my life, but I couldn't grasp not moving my legs. And then it made sense as to why all these days my legs feel numb. You know, I didn't understand why they felt so numb.

When I found out that I was paralyzed, the wish of death for me, it only increased because I didn't see a life that was worth living. I didn't think that I could live in a wheelchair. I didn't see how I was going to do this. And the one greatest thing that I ever turned to whenever I had pain, dancing, I physically can't move. In my eyes, I had no worth in my life and I didn't want to live it.

They told me that it was too early for me for rehabilitation. I still needed to heal. And they proceeded to put me, an 18-year-old, in a nursing home. This was like a place where now I felt totally out of place. I'm around 80, 90-year-olds playing bingo. And I'm 18 years old in this nursing home. This is when my father really came into the picture because this was when my mom had to start going back to work.

He blew up an air mattress. He stayed with me in the room. I had so much darkness that I could have made that darkness of death reality. I couldn't see my life past those four walls, past those white walls, past hearing those beeping sounds of the machines in the hospital and constantly having my sleep interrupted when I finally could fall asleep out of the immense pain that I was feeling. And I just wanted to be gone forever.

And in between that moment and those daily dark thoughts, my father was able to show up for me and be that person that was there 24-7. He would take me outside and he would talk to me and he would push me and he would stay up with me. And instead of me being up all night alone, I was up all night with him. And I just had a sense of feeling not alone. My father gave me the light and the love of knowing that I can make this something.

He told me, he said, fucked up things happen to a lot of people, but it's about what you do with that fucked up ass situation. That's what makes you you. And are you going to let this fucked up situation make you a fucked up person? Are you going to be miserable or are you going to be stronger and find a way to make it work for you, Diamond? I can't watch you be weak. I can't watch you let something take over you.

I want to see you just show that you're trying. Don't tell these people you don't want to get up. They here to do a job. And although they probably do think you're a beautiful young girl, they don't care about you in the way to tell you get up for real. They're going to let you lay here and they're going to go out the room and they're going to write on their little chart. She refused care. That's when I realized like either I can just be a statistic or I can really just try my best to be different.

That's when I got the fight to get up and go to therapy to get out the bed. 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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I weighed 63 pounds. The bones in my chest and my face looked so malnourished and so pale. And I just didn't look the same. It hurt me because I was trying so hard to feel normal and get myself up out the bed every day. And then when I saw myself, I didn't even recognize myself. So I went through another spiral of depression and not wanting to get up.

Instead of me being alone and allowed to sit in those depressing thoughts of those setbacks, my dad and my family would rebuttal it and keep me going with that mindset of, I thought we were working towards something. I thought you were trying to eat more. You know, I thought you were trying to get up. You know, let's do it. Once I got hold of Diamond and my true divine strength inside of me, I found a fight within me to be better and to get better. Not for me, but my mom and my dad and my brother and my sister.

The things that I was trying to do, I didn't believe inside that I could do, but I kept trying. And then when I showed myself I can do it, it's a rewarding feeling because I know I make them proud, but I'm also showing myself something that I didn't believe. That's the fight that I had. And I also swallowed the pill of knowing that I'm not walking out the hospital. These people are teaching me how to live in a wheelchair.

So when I proceeded to go on that path of strength and I went through rehab and I healed and my arm healed, my leg healed, and I was able to start seeing myself as an active wheelchair user. I was released home, but I didn't realize that I had learned to live in a hospital. I was used to the hospital.

I thought I wanted to go home, but home was not what I left it to be. My mother had moved. It was a wheelchair accessible home now. I had a hospital bed at home and I couldn't do anything. Now I'm here and it seems so foreign. I don't even know what to do with myself. And I sat in my room for days. My mom used to have to come in there. She was by my bedside for everything I needed. And she once again had to go back to work.

From the time in November 3rd, since I got shot, all the way until I got home in April of 2013, this is the first time that I really saw my mother break down. And she came in the room and she said, Diamond, you've got to get up. You've got to show mommy that you can do it. I can't leave this house and know you cannot get up. You have to get up. She said, I'm not helping you. I need you to get in this chair by yourself and I need you to get up.

I looked at her and I said, I can't. She said, you can, you can. You have to tell yourself you can. You cannot keep sitting here telling yourself you can't because you won't. She's like, and I can't keep letting you tell me you can't because I'm hindering you. She said, you've got to get up. She said, I'm going to stand right here and I'm not going to let you fall because I was so scared to fall. And I said, but mommy, I said, mommy, I'm going to fall out the bed. She said, no, you're not. She said, mommy's not going to let you fall, Diamond. I'm not going to let you fall.

It took me like an hour to move myself and to actually get into the chair. But when I did it and I showed myself that my legs weren't too heavy, I was afraid of my legs. You know, they didn't move. I couldn't feel them. They were like foreign to me. They were no longer a part of my body, but they were there. And when I did it, I felt good because I showed myself that I could do it.

My mom was like, I'm going to leave everything you need on the counter. Here goes all the seasonings. You can cook. She got me a reacher. We're doing all the things necessary to make my area equipped for me and accessible. As that happened and I started to realize that I can live my life is when I told my mom I wanted to go to school. I wanted to leave and I wanted to go to school.

Everybody was like, OK, you're tripping. You've only been home for like three months now. You know, what are you doing? I was like, no, I want to go to school. That didn't really happen because I still needed health things. And Florida was expensive. So I moved to New York and I received physical therapy in New York because the Medicaid is better in New York.

That's when I got really intense therapy and I was being stood up and I was walking on treadmills. And my therapist, she was more than a therapist to me. That lady gave me life. She showed me a lot of things and she got a lot of fear out of me. And I saw a life for myself. And that is when I flourished. All of the fears and all of the trauma that I let hold me back no longer held me back.

Anytime that I did go through moments of anxiety and thoughts of the trauma, I always try to back it up with something that motivated me to keep going and to keep trying. After going through intense therapy for maybe eight to nine months in New York City, I started to feel like my life was revolving around November 3rd, 2012. Every day of my life, I was figuring out therapy or I was talking to insurance companies or all these medical things. That's not what I had envisioned for myself.

When I was in New York, there was physical therapy, occupational and speech therapy offered in that office. There was a woman that constantly would walk by me and have little children. And she seemed so happy all the time. And one day I just asked her, hey, what are you doing back there? And she's like, I'm a speech therapist. And I'm like, really? Well, what is that? And she's like, I help children talk and I go fly overseas and I work with children in China. And she's like, I really love it. You should look into it.

And I thought about it. I'm like, I really love to communicate. I really love to help people. And now that I'm in this situation, I value the nurses, the physical therapists that actually cared about Diamond enough to learn Diamond more than what your plan of care says and your evaluation on a piece of paper says.

I wanted to become that to someone else, give that back. And that's in that moment where I realized you're not only good at dancing, Diamond, you're good at something else. You're good at communicating. You're good at talking to people. I know what it is to live with something that makes you different. I want to give back to people that have a different ability, especially children.

So I went to school, to the University of Central Florida, and I got my bachelor's in science and communication sciences and speech disorders. Throughout my healing process, I've actually gained a lot of feeling so I can move my left leg on my own. I have been able to urinate on my own without having to catheterize three, four times a day. Throughout my therapy, I had learned how to walk with leg braces. They're called CAFOs, knee, ankle, and foot orthosis.

So my family decorated a walker for me and I walk across the stage for my associate's degree. And then I walked across the stage again for my bachelor's degree. Usually they continuously call names back to back. They didn't do that. They called my name and they allowed me to make it from one end to the other, which truly is one of my many prideful moments in my recovery since the day I got shot.

Now moving into therapy and being able to watch these things and my therapist seeing my strength, they got me an orthopedic and they created leg braces for me. And I'm able to walk with my own strength and my own movement. I'm going to get lightheaded for walking after like 10 to 15 minutes. I need to take a break because my body's over exhausting itself. It's so used to being in a chair. Also equilibrium balance happens.

So I'm mostly wheelchair because it's still not a safe thing. In therapy, we're working on independency. I live alone. I live in my own apartment. I drive my own car. So right now we're working on endurance, being able to walk for longer periods. One day being able to be in my home, walking around with my leg braces and able to let go with one hand and open the cabinet, grab a cup, put it on the counter, walk to the refrigerator, open it with one hand,

It was very hard for me to move forward psychologically in my mind and not be bitter, not be angry, not walk around here with a shitty attitude every day because I feel so empty inside, not knowing why I really got shot. Why did you really hurt me? Or who are you even?

It was scary for a while until I let it go because I wouldn't want to go in public places. I feel like I could be in the same restaurant with the person that shot me. You know, so going back home to my hometown is very traumatic to me because I could be in the same vicinity as the person that hurt me and changed my life.

I will never know and I have never known who really shot me and why I got shot. Sometimes we have a better time accepting things and swallowing the pill if we can just know why. Because in the trauma, in the moment, it is way easier to accept a traumatic event when you have an answer as to why. I got shot. Well, why did you get shot? I don't know. Well, who shot you? I don't know.

These are unanswered questions. These are open-ended wounds. These are open-ended things that you have to patch up, but how do you patch them up? How do you make it okay? And how I made it okay is understanding that I need to let go of wondering why. I'm going to waste the rest of my life holding on to why versus letting go why and figuring out, okay, what is my life? I have had family members who are dead and gone right now due to a gun incident.

And here I am. I still have my life. So why do I waste it needing to know why? You know, what is my purpose? Because I didn't get a second chance at life for no reason. But it took time to get there. In 2016, my father was killed in a federal penitentiary. When he died, there was no answers as to why.

They said that my father overdosed on synthetic marijuana. This was all in the papers that he killed himself on synthetic marijuana. And that is absolutely untrue. That's something that brought me back to that pain of understanding, like, you don't know why your dad died. You weren't there. You didn't speak to him. You know, there's no closure in these pains that I experienced.

And I do believe that that first experience of not being able to be okay because I didn't know who shot me, it prepared me for what I was going to be going through at 22 years old and not knowing why I lost my father. I've still been fighting, obviously, and having lawyers and things. So I haven't been able to really take that time to even really grasp the fact that he's gone because I've been fighting for his life since he lost his life. I didn't like my legs.

I grew muscle atrophy. My legs became skinny from not using them. I would cut my legs out of photos. You would only see diamond from hips up. I wouldn't wear shorts. I would stay away from a lot of things because of my own self-esteem issues that came about when I got into a wheelchair.

When I started to go to events for disabled women and individuals in general, I started to realize, holy shit, this is a world. And there are so many successful people in this world. We have to tap into each other. We are a community. We have to stick together and empower each other so that we can empower the world. That is where my fire came in and understanding that I have a purpose here.

Being around other people who are like me and seeing how they embrace themselves and love themselves helped me embrace myself and love myself and be able to roll around with my head held high and not feel like I'm less of a person.

So when I started to actually live my life, like I was a 19, 20, 21 year old gal and go out with my friends and go to clubs and see that I can just let go and dance and being around other women who were dancers and just seeing these things. I learned to love the chair more. And when I learned to love my chair more, my chair works more for me. So when I dance, you don't even see the chair. You see me. And that's because I don't see the chair anymore. Right.

When I did see the chair and I allowed the chair to be something that was an object in front of me that could hinder me from dance, you could see it. You know, I didn't look comfortable to my own self, which means that I didn't want to post myself doing these things. Well, you know, going out and loving myself more, loving my chair more showed me that I could still dance.

And then when I let go of those things and I just said, fuck it, I'm going to show myself dancing. And I posted a video. The outpour of love from the world was totally unexpected. I just started to gain followers and gain love and gain people all over the world that supported me. And I realized that not only do people support me, but I'm also inspiring people that don't see people like them, you know.

It's not about race all the time, but for me, honestly, I feel like there are so many influencers in wheelchairs. But I didn't see a Black girl online in a wheelchair doing her damn thing. In life, it's good when you're able to identify in something and see you in something. I just shot for it, and I haven't stopped since.

So on social media, on TikTok, I have almost 300,000 followers. And on Instagram, I have almost 70,000 followers. And I enjoy dancing. So when I'm doing what I enjoy, it makes me happy to see others enjoy what I'm doing. I'm 27 years old and I now work in my career field. I am a speech therapist for pediatrics.

I really love what I do outside of being a social media influencer and a wheelchair dancer. I've started my own company. It's called Roll With It LLC. I always refer to my business as my baby. It's being birthed right now. This social media thing that I've been doing has been such a positive reflection on my life because sometimes I'm just too hard on myself. And I've been enjoying just sharing myself and being vulnerable and just being diamond in

It's healing for me, seeing people love me for me and say, hey, girl, you're killing that dance. Or I wish I can do that like you. You know, like it made me feel like, oh, shit, you're so hard on yourself. I mean, like, this is amazing what you're doing. And you think that you need legs to dance. You don't need legs to dance. Dance is in your heart. Dance lives within me.

Today's episode featured Diamond Garrett. Diamond is currently starting a small business to provide products, services, and resources for disabled individuals to make their lives easier as wheelchair users. If you'd like to donate to support her vision and her small business, go to gofund.me slash 444-F5605.

You can also find out more about Diamond by following her on Instagram at DiamondSG underscore and on TikTok at PrincessDIMO. You can find all of her links on linktr.ee slash DiamondGarrett. That's Diamond G-A-R-R-E-T-T. Again, this is the last new episode of Season 11.

Over the next six weeks, we'll be rebroadcasting episodes from the back catalog, including some we're pulling from behind the paywall. I want to thank you all again for an incredible season, and I look forward to resuming in six weeks with brand new episodes for Season 12 starting August 9th.

In the meantime, you can stay engaged with the community on Instagram at ActuallyHappening or on the This Is Actually Happening discussion group on Facebook. And as always, you can donate to help support the show on patreon.com slash happening. Enjoy the rebroadcast episodes over the next six weeks. Stay tuned and have a brilliant summer. ♪

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, Amazon Music, or on the Wondery app to listen ad-free and get access to the entire back catalog. In the episode notes, you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors. By supporting them, you help us bring you our show for free.

I'm your host, Witt Misseldein. Today's episode was co-produced by me and Jason Blaylock, 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 community on the This Is Actually Happening discussion group on Facebook, or follow us on Instagram at actuallyhappening.

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

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

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