316: What if a masked man appeared at the foot of your bed?
56:37 Share

This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. He is in complete control and I have no control. This is real and this is not a dream because I was starting to feel my whole body sweat and shake. It was like a terror that I never knew I was capable of feeling.

From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 316. What if a masked man appeared at the foot of your bed?

Today's episode is brought to you by Audible. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, or expert advice, you can be inspired to new ways of thinking. And there's more to imagine when you listen. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog. Currently, I'm listening to Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, a wonderful audio title that challenges us to imagine a new way to lead a

love, work, parent, and educate through the power of vulnerability. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash happening or text happening to 500-500. That's audible.com slash happening or text happening to 500-500.

This Is Actually Happening is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive.

It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law.

My mom was one of five kids and grew up with a mom who was a nurse and she worked overnights so she could take care of the kids during the day. My mom told me a story of when she was younger that she was duct taped to her kitchen table by her older sisters and that's how they babysat her.

My mom's dad was an alcoholic and both of her parents died young. So I think my mom had to fight really hard to be noticed. My dad's dad died when he was young and his mom got remarried to a man who had three kids and they grew up in a trailer park in Rochester, Minnesota.

My dad was always the cool guy. He was the guy that rode dirt bikes and smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol. As far as I'm aware, he's the guy that all the girls wanted. My parents fell in love pretty quickly from my understanding and got married. But shortly thereafter is when I start picking out how my dad was a narcissist.

They had money to go on a honeymoon and instead of going on the honeymoon, my dad bought an enduro bike. So they never went on a honeymoon. They both had careers. My dad was in construction and he was a very hard worker. My mom got her job at the Mayo Clinic and she worked very hard. When my sister was born, she was a really good baby. And six weeks later, they found out that they were pregnant with me.

My mom tells me, well, your sister was such a good baby that we were like, okay, we're ready for a second baby. But when I came along, I was colicky and I cried all the time and I was very attached to my mom. So I was the challenging baby. I don't remember a lot of happy memories from my childhood. I remember playing catch in the yard with my dad. I remember going to Disney World on a family trip.

But from a pretty young age, I remember them yelling and bickering at each other a lot. And they both grew up with parents who did that. I remember once hiding in a closet with my mom on the floor. And I remember telling my mom, "He can't do this to you. He can't treat you this way." But I never heard them talk about divorce or leaving or moving out, nothing like that. It was normal for them.

I tried to avoid conflict as much as I could. So my sister and I would leave the house, go play with our friends, and we knew to come home when the street lights came on at dark. My sister is the complete opposite of me, but we're close in the sense of protecting each other when we were kids. There was a time when we had three cop cars in front of our house because of a domestic violence situation.

My aunt had called the cops because my mom was talking to her about what my dad was doing. So I had to go to school the next day and explain to my neighbor friends why there were three cop cars in front of our house. It was embarrassing and I just remember trying to be small both at home and at school. I didn't want people to know what was happening at home. I just pretended like everything was okay.

When I was pretty young, my dad was 37. That's when he got sick with a blood disease and he had to stop working shortly thereafter that. So now he wasn't controlling and verbally abusive as a healthy man. Now he was doing it all from a chair. And my mom, I think she's an example of somebody who doesn't leave a narcissistic relationship. She's just conformed her life to try to please him.

She got into drinking, so she was an alcoholic. And my dad grew up like his father, being controlling, telling the woman what to do, sitting in the chair, watching TV while she worked over 40 hours a week, came home, made dinner, cleaned up dinner, and then put the kids to bed. I learned at an early age how to compartmentalize a situation and just simply get through it rather than confronting it head on and trying to fix it or make it better.

I think that's part of the reason why I don't remember a lot of my childhood is because I didn't process it, but rather just put it away and moved past it to the next situation, to the next day. I think I was just slowly transforming myself into becoming a leader and a caregiver.

Seeing a mom in a situation of being a full-time employee and a full-time caregiver all while dealing with the relationship she had at hand, that's when I started learning what appease means. Just kind of putting your emotions aside to get through the situation at hand. I think my mom lost herself completely.

My mom has just kind of shut off her emotions and her opinions and her feelings and put everything that she feels in her heart aside just to avoid conflict. Her life revolves around anything that's going to make him happy and anything that's going to not aggravate him. As a result of my parents being verbally abusive towards each other, my sister and I learned that we didn't want to grow up that way.

We weren't going to be alcoholics. We weren't going to start drinking at a young age. But I was in a relationship when I was about 18 to 20 years old that was very much like my father. The man was very controlling. He was my age and he went to a different school, but he was the cool guy. He was in a punk rock band. Everything that I did for those two years was to try to make him happy.

I could only shop at certain stores. I could only have certain friends. You know, he needed to know what I was doing when I was doing it, where I was, what I was wearing. Everything was very controlled by him. I signed up to go to college at a four-year university and the day before I was supposed to go, I didn't go because he didn't want me to.

And I worked the hours that he wanted me to work at, the job that I had. And everything that I was doing was to try to please him and appease him, just like my mom was doing because of my dad. I started college, but I dropped out because he had to come to class with me and he wasn't even in college. So it was hard for me to try to be my own person when somebody was having such control over what I was doing.

We were bickering with each other so much that I knew that I didn't want to be like my parents and I knew our relationship was going to come to an end. But the problem with having to end a relationship is to make somebody unhappy. And me, as a people pleaser, it was really hard for me to end the relationship. So it was around 20 years old that we separated. And that's when I started actually going to college without somebody watching over my shoulder.

It was so free, not living at home, not being controlled in a relationship. So I was really enjoying figuring out who I was and not feeling bad all the time. In my early 20s, I started becoming more serious in my relationships and I started dating Cody.

So when I first met Cody, it was one of those meetings that when you see somebody and you're like, oh shit, that's it. He was funny and he rode a motorcycle and he was kind of the bad boy, but at the same time he was so nice and we got along really well. He wasn't a narcissist like the men that I had previously been dating and it was about...

Two years after we started dating that he proposed to me, I said yes and I cried for like an hour straight because I was so happy. We got married in May of 2013. We had such a great wedding because, you know, all my family was there. My friends were there.

My bridal party was my sister. I had my friend Anna, Cassie, and then my friend Jordan. And then on Cody's side was, he had a best man, Cody Joe. There was Adam, a guy named Ghetto, and then there was Zane. So we had a lot of fun. They drank a bottle of Jack Daniels before the ceremony. So Cody was a little tipsy when he said his vows.

We took our wedding pictures by his motorcycle. I was wearing my cowboy boots. We had a really great time and I remember dancing with the guys on his side, so his groomsmen, and he danced with some of my bridesmaids. There were so many good feelings at the wedding. There was so much happiness, so much joy. There was nothing that I would have changed about that day.

It was just a really happy relationship and so different from what I was growing up around. And I was so happy until alcohol started becoming almost more important than me. And when we had a son, alcohol started becoming more important than our son and our family.

It was almost like PTSD. It was bringing up the fact that my mom was an alcoholic and I just knew that I didn't want to be like my parents. So I started questioning our relationship. And so, you know, after a few years, I decided that it wasn't necessarily what I wanted anymore. So it took a long time for me to get the strength to tell Cody that I wanted to separate.

He was working on the road three weeks out of the month already. I was taking care of the entire house and raising our child and working full time alone anyways. So when we separated, I feel like we were both already checked out.

After I was separated from my husband, I was at a party and one of my friend's husband, he gave us a ride and I was sitting right behind him in his car. His wife was sitting right next to him and he reached behind the seat and he ran his hand up my leg and I tried to move my leg as fast as I could. You know, that was unwanted. It was unwarranted and I was felt up when I didn't ask for it and I didn't want it.

Another time when I started at one of the jobs that I had, I was the new girl and there was an older man and he would come into rooms that I was in and he would just make small talk with me.

but eventually led to him hugging me and then with one of the hugs he tapped me on my backside with his hand. Another time he kissed my forehead. Another time he whistled at me from across the hall.

I felt like I didn't know who I could trust. I was not understanding why all of these men, now that I'm separated, thought I was okay with them coming on to me and touching me and whistling at me and kissing my forehead when they were married simply because I wasn't anymore. And I was so angry and I just, I didn't know who I could trust. So I started getting this rage that was building up inside of me.

I was realizing they respected my ex-husband in the sense that they weren't going to do anything to me when I was married, but now that I wasn't married, that I was free game. I'm this prey that could be hunted because I no longer belong to a man. November 17th of 2018, I was so happy. It was such a great day. It was just my son and I in the house and we drove to Rochester. We went and saw a movie. We went to the store and got Christmas lights for a tree.

That night, I put my son to bed and then I hung out watching Netflix. I had one glass of wine and around the 9:30 hour is when I went to bed too. Before I go to bed, I just make sure the doors are locked. I make sure the lights are off. That's just what I do as a single woman living in a house by myself. So everything was locked, everything was shut off and I went to bed at 9:30.

I woke up at 127 in the morning. I heard a noise at the end of my bed. I thought it was my cats, so I grabbed my phone and I clicked the side button on my phone and I shined the light at the end of my bed. And that's when a man stood up at the end of my bed and pointed a gun at my head.

Today's episode is brought to you by Quince. It's been a busy season of events and travel, and my wardrobe has taken a beating. A total overhaul isn't in my budget, but I'm replacing some of those worn-out pieces with affordable, high-quality essentials from Quince. By partnering with Top Factories, Quince cuts out the cost to the middleman and passes the savings on to us.

I love the Italian board shorts. They're made from quick-drying material and offer UPF 50 protection for all-day wear, so I can go from hiking to lounging on the beach without a wardrobe change. And compared to other luxury brands, the prices are well within my reach.

Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Go to quince.com slash happening for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash happening to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash happening

Hello Prime members. Have you heard you can listen to your favorite podcasts like this is actually happening ad-free? It's good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime membership.

To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash 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. I couldn't process what was happening.

At first I was like, "Is this a joke? Am I dreaming?" I saw he had gloves on. I saw he had a mask on. I saw what you see in movies. He was fully covered in dark clothes and I saw his gun and it was silver and it was black. It was a two-tone gun and I saw it pointing right at my head. Why do I have a gun pointed at my head? It was just the start of this like deep anger and fear that would brew inside of me.

So he told me to lay down and roll over and I did and he had my wrist zip tied behind my back within seconds and then he just stood there. And I remember exactly how I felt because I was thinking to myself, he has me where he wants me. He is in complete control and I have no control.

This is real and this is not a dream because I was starting to feel my whole body sweat and shake. It was like a terror that I never knew I was capable of feeling. I just felt a sense of, I can't fight. I have nothing. I have a gun pointed at my head. There's this man who's over six feet tall and I'm just this five foot four small girl. There's just nothing I can do.

I have my three-year-old son sleeping in his bedroom right next door to mine. And so I knew that if I screamed or if I yelled or I fought, my three-year-old is gonna wake up and he's gonna come into the bedroom and he's gonna be part of the situation. So what I had to do is what I was doing from my childhood and that was appeasing and being small and just doing whatever the man wanted to make him happy so my son would stay out of the situation.

He stood there for quite a while before he did anything or said anything. One of the first things he did was grabbed a water cup on the side of my bed and he asked me what was in the cup. So I told him it was water. He said, I have to give you something so I can get out of here. And what I was feeling at that time was, but why?

Then I was thinking, he's wanting to drug me so he can do what he wants with me and then make an escape and then I won't cause a scene. But what I told him was, you can't give me drugs because I have to be able to take care of my son. And then I was really kicking myself because if he didn't know there was a child in the house, now he does.

and I was the one to tell him. So I put my son in a vulnerable situation by telling this man that there's a kid in the house. My level of terror that I was feeling jumped. He didn't end up giving me the drugs, which I was really thankful for, but he spent a lot of time pacing around the side of my bed

It was so long, in fact, that I started asking him questions and saying, "Just take my money. Just take anything. Please just don't hurt me. Don't hurt my son." One of the things he said in reply was, "No, you work hard for your money. You keep it." So that got me thinking, he knows I work hard, which I did. So this man must know who I am. He must have known that I was here in my house alone without another man.

But he was disguising his voice and he was doing so well that I thought he had a device that he was wearing that was making his voice sound raspy in disguise. I didn't know who he was because he had a mask on, but I was crying and I was shaking and I was convulsing. He crawled on top of me and he could tell that my wrists were zip-tied so tight that they was hurting. So he did end up cutting off my zip ties.

He crawled back on top of me after he cut off the zip ties. And this was when I was coerced and I was raped. He actually asked me if I wanted him to stop and I said yes. So he did. But then less than a minute later, he raped me for a second time.

I disassociated. I stepped out of my body. I stepped out of Danielle who was being raped by this armed masked man. And I thought to myself, I need to remember everything about him in this situation so I can tell somebody when this is over. So I remember when he lifted up his mask just enough to kiss me on the neck that he had brown beard hair. He had Caucasian skin.

His hands were rough like he worked with his hands. I remember seeing a black sweater and it had an Under Armour logo and it had a white stripe down the side. And I tried to remember everything about this man. So after he was done, he knelt down by the side of my bed and he was almost remorseful. It was so weird. It's either because you know me and you feel bad or you're about to kill me.

And at this time, I didn't have my phone, he had taken that, he still had his gun, and he spent a minute or so by the side of my bed not doing anything. So I tried to take advantage of the situation. I sat up and I'm like thinking to myself, "How am I going to make him not want to kill me?" So I tried to make him see me as a person, that I was a human and a mom and not just an object. So I said, "Are you okay?"

After I said that, he said, don't tell me you're getting Stockholm Syndrome. And so I just kept playing the game. I kept playing his game and trying to make him feel like I actually care about him. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. And he said, well, Stockholm Syndrome is when the person being kidnapped falls in love with a kidnapper. And I said, oh, no, I didn't know what that was. You're smart. But it was an admission from him that he just kidnapped me in my own home.

He had me zip tied. He had all this power and control. So his phone was on the bed and I saw his phone blinking. And I thought to myself, okay, well, I have an iPhone. My iPhone doesn't blink. So he's got a phone and it's not an iPhone. That's something that I can tell somebody when this is all over. So I told him, I'm like, hey, your phone's blinking. Because still I was trying to like level with him. I was trying to be cool and like medium chill.

And he grabbed his phone with his right hand and he put it in his right pocket and he said, you gotta quit noticing shit. So I knew then he's right-handed. After a while, he was still by the side of my bed and he was digging through my drawers now. And that's when he found a gun clip and his attitude instantly changed. And he became frantic. He started looking under my pillow and under my mattress. And he said, where is it? Where's the gun? Where's the gun?

My ex-husband Cody had left two guns with me for my protection just in case I ever needed to use them, which obviously did not come in handy. So I told him the guns were in the closet at the end of my bed. So he told me to lay down on my stomach again and not look at him. He went in my closet and now he has three guns and I have nothing.

One of the things that he said to me when he found my guns was, so if I kill you with this gun, they're going to think it was your ex-husband that killed you. And I became quietly hysterical. I was shaking and I was sobbing and I was like, no, no, no. And my mind was thinking so fast, like, how do I get myself out of this? So I made something up. I said, my ex-husband's fingerprints aren't on those guns. I use those guns less. It's my fingerprints.

And then I said things that were true. That Cody was working in Pennsylvania. He's got his flight tickets. There's proof he's not even in this state. So if you kill me, they're going to know it wasn't him because he's not even in the state. I was begging and pleading with this unknown masked man. I honestly thought it was going to be the end of my life right then and there. I thought I was about to die, but he thought it was funny.

Because what he said was, oh, I must be scaring the shit out of you. I'm just unloading the clip. And that's when he threw the guns in my laundry basket. And then he left my room and he said, don't go anywhere. Don't move. Don't do anything. And when he was leaving my bedroom, I said, please just leave my son alone. He looked at me and he said, I'm a rapist, not a monster.

He made so many threats against me. He would say things like, I obviously know how to get into your house. You can't tell anyone I was here. I'll come back and kill you. I'll find you. And he spent a lot of time not in my bedroom as well. So when he would be gone from my room, I would just lay there thinking about what am I going to do? What's going to happen? And I was shaking and sweating and I had just this fear and dread.

The man came back to my room one time and he dragged his gun across my door so I could hear the metal dragging across the wood of my door. And he was just taunting me, just silently threatening me and mentally torturing me to just stay put, to keep doing what he wanted me to do. I played his game and I did everything he wanted me to do.

There was one point that he thought I recognized his voice and he became so angry. He's like, tell me you know who I am. And I had to beg with this man and say, I don't know who you are. That's why I keep calling you sir. One of the hardest things was the fear of the unknown.

So I didn't know at what point I was going to die. I didn't know at what point my son was going to die. I didn't know if he was going to keep raping me, if he was going to keep me kidnapped all day long. But his mood kept changing too. And it was so scary because from one moment to the next, I didn't know if he was going to be angry or remorseful or understanding. He just went through so many phases of emotions. I couldn't keep up.

And I was trying to figure out what I needed to do to keep him calm. During all the times that he was not in my bedroom and then he would come back and talk to me and then leave and come back, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I was going to live my life differently.

And I would tell the man too, like, please just don't hurt me. Please don't hurt my son because I want to watch my son grow up and play basketball. And I want to make hot chocolate with him and put marshmallows in it. And I want to make snow angels with him in the snow. And I kept painting this picture for not only the man to see me as a human, but also for myself. I was envisioning what my future was going to look like making it out alive from the situation.

And I knew that my life before this situation was content. I was doing what I was supposed to do. I was working full time as a nurse. I was being a great mom. I was being, you know, a friend and a leader in my job. But I had this feeling that if I was going to make it out alive, things were going to look a little bit different. And I just was cherishing everything about my son and everything I knew my son was capable of.

So I spent a lot of time just thinking about all that I had to live for and all that I was going to see. After a while, he came back to my bedroom and he said, what are you going to do when I leave? And I said, I'm going to go to the bathroom, then I'm going to lay in bed with my son. So he convinced me to just go to the bathroom. Now, the man let me shut the door and I saw his flashlight shining under the door and

So when I was done going to the bathroom, I opened the door and I looked towards him. And all I saw was his flashlight shining straight in my eyes. And I asked him, should I go back to my room? And he said, go, go. So I did. I went back to my bedroom and I covered myself up with my comforter. And he followed me in and he ripped the comforters off of me. And he grabbed my hips and he lifted my hips up and he raped me for a third time.

And this was the most violent rape because there were a lot of threats. I remember being shoved on the bed and my right cheek was on my pillow and I saw his two-tone gun out the side of my left eye. And he was threatening me saying things like, don't make me come to your son's school. I will find you. I will come back.

And I just remember all the terror that I had before was magnified. Now I knew what he was capable of. He was angry. He was threatening me. His gun was literally at my head. After that, he did let me go in my son's room and I laid in my son's bed with him. He was sleeping, but I was trembling so much that my three-year-old son woke up

And by this time, it was probably in the 5 o'clock hour in the morning. And my son was awake and heard me talking to this man. And my son said, I want to go to Daddy's house. And I had to explain to him, like, no, honey, that voice isn't Daddy.

I actually had to tell my son that it was a worker man because we heard the tub in my bathroom running and the man was putting all my bedding in the tub and covering it with soaps and lotions and stuff and I had to just say, "You hear the tub running? He's just fixing our bathroom." After a while, the man came back and he said, "I have a timer set and when the timer goes off, I'll be out of your house."

And sure enough, a little bit later, the timer did go off. Then I heard the man run down my steps. I heard him open my garage door, the car door, and then I didn't hear anything after that.

So the timer was going off and the man left my house and I opened my son's door and on the floor there was an iPad and my phone laying there and a timer was going off. So I grabbed my iPad. I didn't touch my phone because I was worried he bugged it. I had no plans to call 911 because he threatened me over the last several hours not to call 911.

So I turned off the timer and I stayed in my son's room with him as long as we could before eventually my three-year-old son was like, you know, it's time for breakfast. What are we doing in here? Let's go. Let's get the day started. So I saw the time on my son's tablet and it was 6.15 in the morning. And the last time I looked at the clock, it was 1.27. So he had been in my house for the last almost five hours.

So I did let my son leave his bedroom. I, of course, went out first. I put a robe on. I made sure I didn't see the man anywhere. And when I was done checking to make sure the man wasn't out there, I let my son come out. We noticed that there was a white powder spread all over the floor. When I looked right, I saw all of my bedding in the tub. And the tub was full of water and soaps and shampoos.

But my son, he just went about what was important to him and that was getting breakfast. So he went into the kitchen and I went with him and he crawled up on the counter and got himself a snack while I was discreetly putting a steak knife up the sleeve of my robe. And I determined that the top level of our house was all clear. So I told my son to just stay in the kitchen and I went down to my basement just to make sure, you know, no one else was down there or the man hadn't come back.

Then when I looked in my family room downstairs, I saw that the screen was off of my window and it was just laying on the floor. So that was obviously how he got into my house was through a basement window.

So I went back upstairs and it was within the first 15 minutes that we were out there that I was trying to figure out a plan of what are we going to do. I need to call my mom and I'm afraid to use my phone. So I got this idea of going to the local grocery store in St. Charles and all the while I was putting on an act.

So I was dying inside. I had just been raped three times. I had been threatened that I will die if I call the police. My son will die if I call the police.

So I was putting on this calm, cool, collected persona for my son so he didn't get worried. And I'm like, "Oh honey, we should go to the grocery store. Mommy wants some coffee." So I threw my phone charger, my birth control in my purse. I checked to make sure no one was in my car. And that's when I noticed that the garage door was still open and there was a light dusting of snow on the ground. And I saw his footprints go right down my driveway.

Like he wasn't trying to be conspicuous or anything. He must have fully believed that I wasn't going to tell. And I wasn't. My idea was, was use a phone at the grocery store and call my mom and then ask my mom, what should we do?

So we got to the store and my son was pushing around this little toddler shopping cart. And we ran into this lady and I asked this lady if I could use her phone. So I called my mom and I said, Mom, it's me. Get your gun, get dad and meet me at the grocery store in St. Charles. And she's like, oh, honey, I can't do that. Do I need to call the cops? And I said, no, no, please just trust me, please. And I was begging her, please just trust me.

So she loaded up my dad who was disabled in the car and drove to the St. Charles grocery store and we met in the bathroom. And so that's when I finally told my mom there was a man in our house and he raped me and he threatened to kill us. I had all these emotions built up so tightly inside of me that they were finally starting to come out and I was hysterical and I was crying and I was loud.

My mom, she just hugged me so tight and she said, oh honey, oh honey. And she got out her phone and she called 911. And of course, I was the girl in the background of that 911 call. No, no, he's going to kill us. Don't call the cops. And my mom was just calm, cool, and collected during that whole phone call because she knew information needed to be relayed.

I knew I wasn't in a state of mind to make good choices, so I fully trusted my mom. So I let her take the reins on the situation. So a police officer came to the grocery store, then we needed to go to the police station in the small town of St. Charles.

My mom told the police officer, "We don't need to go to the police station. We need to go to the emergency room and she needs to have a rape kit done. She needs to be evaluated." So my mom was dictating what to do to this police officer. My mom was driving, my dad was in the passenger seat, and then my three-year-old was in the back of my mom's car with me. And I remember laying my head in my son's lap and I just felt like I was done.

I was just letting all of my muscles go. All this tension and shaking I had over the last however many hours, I just let it all go because I was now safe. My mom called my aunt on the way to the emergency room and asked my aunt to watch my son so I could get a rape kit done. So my aunt met us at the emergency room. And I remember my aunt crawling in the backseat of the car. And she just grabbed my hair.

She just kissed me and she said, oh honey. I just felt so much relief that my aunt believed me and my mom believed me. We went into the ER and I had a rape kit done. The sexual assault nurse examiner was the first person that whole night to ask for my consent.

And that gave me so much of my power back because there was this woman doing her job, what she needed to do regardless. And she was asking for my permission and my consent. And it made me feel so much power and control back in my life because I spent the last five hours in the dark with no power, in no control. But this sane nurse was trying to make me so big. My mom stepped out to call my ex-husband and tell him what happened.

He spent like $800 on a plane ticket to come back home that same day. My mom called my boss, who was one of my best friends at the time, and told her that I wouldn't be coming to work tomorrow. My house was now a crime scene. So after the rape kit, after the emergency room, we went to my aunt's house and I took a bath and I scrubbed off all of the rapist. I scrubbed off everything that I could.

My aunt and my uncle, they were just so level-headed and my mom was being so level-headed. And you know, my dad, he went home. So we took the narcissist out of the situation because he would have made the situation about him. So the night was about me and what we were going to do going forward. My ex-husband showed up and he took our son up to his mom's house just so I could have some time to heal and process for a couple of days. I remember going through the motions and talking about things.

I was dead inside. I felt like all the tension that I had in my muscles was just all gone and now my muscles just felt completely depleted and my soul felt depleted and everything was just numb.

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.

This season, Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites, like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies, like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow.

Let's face it, we were all that kid. So first call your parents to say I'm sorry, and then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply. My son and I ended up moving back and forth between my mom's house and my aunt's house while my house was being crime-seen.

I eventually had to go back to work and I worked with security at my work and they had a security guard walk me to my job and back to my car after work because we didn't know who the man was. There were all these things that gave the rapist really good reason to act out on his threats. And that's what I had to live with. I had to send my son to daycare knowing that this rapist with a handgun knew where my son went to daycare.

Because it was an active investigation, I also couldn't talk about it. So when I went back to work being a charge nurse of 55 nurses, they were just like, how was your three-week vacation? Nice to have you back. Must have been nice to have three weeks off. I was dying inside. I'm like, no, you don't understand. I didn't want three weeks off of work. I almost died.

I was afraid of everything. I was afraid to go to the grocery store. I was afraid to go outside. I was afraid to go to bed because when I was going to bed, I was vulnerable. I would be wide awake at 1.30 in the morning until like 4 in the morning and I would have to sleep with the light on.

But I tried to sleep because I had to, because I had to be a mom and I had to be an employee. I had to be a nurse. I mean, I had PTSD. I had panic attacks. I had anxiety. It was awful. I had nightmares. They started almost from the beginning and they were vivid nightmares about either being in a house where there was a bad guy or, you know, being held down by a bad guy.

I felt like I was trying to be small again because law enforcement was like, you can't talk to anybody about this because, you know, what if it gets out? And so I didn't. But inside, I wanted to climb Mount Everest and just scream to the whole world about what happened to me.

I had such a strong desire of talking about it and telling other people. And, you know, I think some of that is because I wanted to be validated. But I just also had so much of this like rage and anger and emotion. It almost felt like the inside of my body was buzzing and I just needed to rip open my body. So all this buzzing could just come flushing out. But I couldn't.

Some days I wanted to hide and I wanted to lay in bed and watch Netflix and eat hot tamales. And then some days I just wanted to live and just get by. And other days I wanted to thrive, go to support group and talk about it with my family and get help. And there's just the spectrum of hiding, surviving and thriving that I would go back and forth on.

I got my son therapy because my son had to be taken from his home that he was growing up in and we could never go back to that house. I was just worried about him and the therapist is like, well, what about you? Are you seeing a therapist? I was trying to be tough. You know, I was trying to be like my mom and put my feelings aside, make sure that my son was taken care of.

And the therapist said, well, we need to get you talking to someone too. So taking my son to therapy is when I first started my therapy journey. The rage is just so much. Like, I feel like a bad guy. Like, the amount of rage that I have, I could be a criminal.

You know, they say hurt people hurt people, right? Well, I feel like I have so much anger from that situation that I could do something really bad. And so I was almost afraid for myself and afraid for what I could do. And unfortunately, I took that level of rage and anger out on my family and my friends and

I lost touch with my mom and my dad during months of this because I was so angry and my mom was grieving too that we clashed. My sister was mad at me at one point. She was in Kuwait in the military. So our relationship was really challenging because she's one of the few people I wanted here with me. My ex-husband, I pushed him away.

I tried to push some friends away. Of course, you know, the good ones didn't let me push them away. I had started drinking every day just to kind of take the edge off. And that's not a life I wanted to live. I didn't have the skills to control all of these feelings. So I did what I felt like I had to do. It was a really uncomfortable feeling having all of these strong feelings of wanting to, you know, hop on the news and tell the world what happened to me and being told, no, you can't do that.

All of these feelings of suppression from my childhood and all of these times of having to suppress my feelings and minimize what happened to me, I just felt like it was all built up. So I just did a lot of things that I could feel tough and big. I bought a big black truck. I bought a German Shepherd. I did a lot of kickboxing and running. I bought a motorcycle. This gave me back so much power because I was in control.

I just did all these things to make myself finally become big and seen. A lot of times people don't talk about being raped because they don't want to be treated differently. Well, I wanted to talk about it because I wanted to be treated differently. I wanted to be big and bad and tough. I was done.

So I feel brave. I feel strong. I feel like if you're going to catcall me, I'm going to tell you to F off. Or if you're going to grab my ass in a bar, I'm either going to make you bleed or I'm going to yell at you. It was about three and a half months of an active investigation of an unknown man. During that time, there were a few suspects involved.

But three and a half months later, the investigators text me while I was at work and they said, can you meet us at the safe house? And I'm like, sure. So I left work. I went and met the investigators and they're like, we arrested Zane Peterson. And I looked at them and I was like, what?

Zane Peterson was a groomsman at my wedding. I had known him for about eight years. He was friends with my ex-husband. We actually were considering him to be a godfather to our son. I didn't believe it. I put my face in my hands and I bent over and I became hysterical and I was crying and I was sobbing. And it wasn't a relief. I felt better with it being an unknown person.

than knowing the identity of the person that it was because I was already afraid of Zane. I knew that he was a narcissist. Now I know that all those threats that he made, he was serious. I knew this man. I was already afraid of him. And now to find out that this was the man that raped me, I was even more afraid.

So I had law enforcement call my mom and let them know I had them call Cody and Cody met me at the safe house. They told Cody that it was Zane Peterson. They grew up together and when Cody found out that it was Zane, I saw the rage in his eyes too. And he said, I should have listened to you sooner because I did suspect that it might have been Zane.

My family and Cody was like, no, it wouldn't have been Zane that drove down here and raped you. He lives three and a half hours away. But it was. So what happened was Zane worked at a group home with residents. And he was accused of sexually assaulting one of his male residents. And that resident went and got a rape kit. And the results from that rape kit matched the results from my rape kit. And that's when they made the arrest possible.

And that's the only reason we found Zane is because our rape kits matched. I later found out that Zane was on meth when he was in my house. Not only that, he was not only in my house on Saturday night, he was in my house Friday night too.

He told law enforcement that he was too afraid to go upstairs. So he went to a truck stop in town, smoked a bunch of meth, and then came back to my house Saturday night and that's the night that he raped me.

Then I learned he was in a jail close to where I was staying and I was so afraid. He was behind bars so a part of me knew I was safe but knowing I was going to have to go through the whole trial and all that jazz, it was a new kind of terror.

So the court process was long. It was about a two-year court process because of COVID, because Zane ended up finding an error in one of the search warrants. Some evidence was thrown out because of that. It was a really challenging time for me because I had a falling out with my parents. I didn't have consistent support with victim advocates.

But I still couldn't talk about it. And I wanted everyone to know that I'm a changed human. But I can't tell you why I changed. We ended up doing our sentencing hearing and my victim impact statement in person. When I read my victim impact statement, I was loud and he felt my presence in that room. I made damn sure of it.

I was now the one with all the power and all the control. And I needed him to know that, that now I'm big and he's small. In that courtroom, it was only me and my mom and the necessary people because of COVID. Everyone else was watching on Zoom. But there were so many police officers in there and I knew they were all on my side. And it was so empowering for me.

And one of them told me, "All of the law enforcement officers in this town that are not in this room with you here today are next door at the jail watching on Zoom. We're all rooting for you." Pete said in the courtroom that my victim impact statement was all total bullshit.

Over the whole two years, he was leading investigators to believe that it was consensual and that I invited him down, which law enforcement obviously saw was not true because Zane had actually video recorded himself raping me. They found the zip ties in my room. So I had all this evidence. He also said she doesn't need to be afraid of me and I'm so sorry for whatever I did.

We didn't do a jury trial. We just did a plea deal. But I got to hear him say, yes, I raped her. Yes, I tied her up. Yes, I did this. Yes, her son was there. I am guilty. It was a lot of closure for me that I needed. He was finally sentenced and charged. He'll have to serve almost 21 years in prison.

I am so thankful of all the evidence in my case because he is so manipulative and he can convince anybody of anything. People like that don't change being behind bars. Sometimes I do feel like he is convincing somebody in prison to find me and kill me when they get out. Or he is communicating with somebody on the outside and trying to convince them to come find us and kill us.

But I know that I can't live in fear. Because if I live in fear, that's giving him control back. And I feel like life is an opportunity now. I was so content and I was being the nurse and the mom and the good girl. But now I feel like a lioness. I feel like survival totally changed me as a person and I have a voice and I have a roar. And I'm going to use it and nobody can stop me. I'm just done.

One thing I've learned in going to support groups is that in my moments of darkness, it's okay to not be okay. And I just like to remind people that a lot of people don't get justice. A lot of people will not find a silver lining. A lot of people will not find any good in their trauma or being raped, and that's okay. So instead of trying to change somebody's pain, just be there for them, with them.

You know, that's what I wanted most when I was hurt. I didn't want to hear anybody tell me how to change my pain. The lack of empowerment I had for all those years of my life, I not only am taking back, but want to inspire other people and empower other people to take back their voice and take back their power too. If I could go back and take back what happened, if I could undo it, I wouldn't.

Because I don't want to be who I was before. The only thing I would do different would be take my son out of the situation. Going through such a traumatic event and the worst day of your life is so freeing. It's like, "Ahh, now I can finally live. Now I can finally live the way I want to." Just having all of these experiences led me to my breaking point and now it's like a glow stick.

How do you make a glow stick glow? You break it and then they glow. And I feel like that's exactly what happened to me. I had to be broken to glow, but now I feel like I'm finally glowing and I'm finally myself without any reins because I finally saw how short life can be and how fragile it is. I saw that some guy can drive three and a half hours, hunt me down and rape me and get his power and control fix and

Now I get that. It's my turn. It is my turn to get my power and control. But I'm going to do it in the right way. And I'm going to use it for good. Today's episode featured Danielle Lycum. You can learn more about Danielle on her website, daniellelycum.com. That's danielle, L-E-U-K-A-M dot com. And you can find her on Instagram at daniellelycum, as well as Twitter and Facebook.

You can also learn more about her story in her two memoirs, Four Pounds of Pressure, a memoir of rape, survival, and taking back my power. And another Four Pounds of Pressure, Case Files, Statements, and a Survivor's Redemption. And lastly, you can check out her novella, The First Sister, A Dangerous Bloodline. Danielle now works full-time at the Mayo Clinic. She

She's passionate about public speaking, writing, and advocating against sexual violence. And she is also the president and founder of a nonprofit organization called WISH. We Inspire Survivor Healing. Learn more about WISH on their website, weinspiresurvivorhealing.com. ♪

From Wondery, you're listening to This Is Actually Happening. If you love what we do, please rate and review the show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, 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, Andrew Waits, and Aviva Lipkowitz, 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.

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

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

If you like This Is Actually Happening, you can listen to every episode ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

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.