251: What if a false allegation stole what you valued most?
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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. I was absolutely broken. It was panic. This is so surreal. Did this just happen? I mean, just over and over, I remember saying to myself, you know, this can't be real. It was really, it was just brokenness. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein.

You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 251. What if a false allegation stole what you valued most?

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My mother was married to a very good man, but she wasn't really in love with him in more than a platonic way. So she met my dad just by chance. You know, my dad is very charming and was good looking. And he gave my mom the attention that she was wanting and they had an affair. And that's how I came into the world was the product of a sinful relationship.

They got married and it was very volatile. I can't remember a single day where there wasn't arguing about something. You know, growing up and seeing that, it really affected my relationships with men and really just people in general, because I didn't know what a healthy dynamic was like. All I knew was fighting and making up and fighting and making up.

It was scary, especially for a young child. It was very awkward for me to go to a friend's home and see a healthy relationship, like seeing two parents that got along. And I just thought, you know, all parents felt like that because that's all that I knew and was familiar with. We moved to the area that I'm in now because there weren't very many job opportunities in the state that I was born in.

My mother placed me in Christian school. It was fundamentalist, free will Baptist Christianity. That whole lifestyle was ingrained with me. I went to the church affiliated with the school. All of my friends were affiliated with the church and the school there. It really was a cult. Women couldn't wear pants. We couldn't go to movie theaters. Boys and girls couldn't swim together. I mean, it was some of the most ridiculous stuff ever.

Being constantly afraid of doing bad things, always feeling like you couldn't be good enough. This fear of God, essentially. He was not this approachable being. He was somebody to be feared. I was told, you know, this is the way it is. This is how you do it. This is the truth. I was always afraid of doing something wrong.

I could never be enough to be in the favor of God. I could never do enough to be in favor of the people around me. To this day, I cannot wear a pair of shorts and not feel uncomfortable in them. In my teen years, I actually ended up asking my parents if I could go to public school because I wanted to see the world through a different lens.

There was a real disconnect between what I had been indoctrinated to believe and what I was now believing on my own accord. I was starting to see God as this more approachable being, not necessarily hellfire, brimstone, damnation being.

It's kind of like I had been sequestered from the world for so long. And then I was finally in an atmosphere where there were so many things presented to me. And after that, it started to go downhill from there. No, like drinking or drugs or anything. But for me, backtalking a teacher or walking out of a classroom or being places I shouldn't have been at night, those were serious offenses. Yeah.

I'd gotten to the point where I couldn't stay in school. And, you know, that was reflected in my grades and my performance. I withdrew and registered with the state as a homeschooler. And I was able to graduate high school when I was 17. And then at that point, I went to technical college and got a degree in nursing when I was 20. The first job that I actually took was at a psychiatric hospital about an hour from my parents' home.

Being this immature 20-year-old taking care of people with very mature adult problems was difficult. That was around the time where I started to exhibit some erratic behaviors. I was doing a lot of risky things, drinking a little bit of promiscuity, quite frankly, things that were absolutely not typical for me. And my interpersonal relationships were horrible.

At first, I just thought, oh, well, you know, it's just typical irritability. But then as time went on and I saw that, you know, everybody around me was kind of distancing themselves from me. I realized, you know, hey, this isn't normal. And it was kind of coincidental that I was working at a psychiatric hospital because I ended up going to see one of the psychiatrists that I worked with.

I remember the psychiatrist telling me that, you know, some people when they're manic, you know, they're very happy, they're very productive. But then with me, it was kind of manifesting as more aggression. And then as time went on, he gave me the official diagnosis of bipolar one disorder.

It's really difficult to describe to somebody that has a healthy brain or doesn't have mental health issues, but it's kind of like you're thinking about a hundred things at the same time, but you're still not getting anything accomplished, like a hamster on a wheel. It all begins there with all that stuff going on in your head, and then it translates to how you're acting.

You know, you can't sleep. My work performance suffered. I was forgetting things. There was a lot of paranoia, lots of preoccupation with what others thought of me, what they could be saying about me, lots of looking too far into subtleties in people's behaviors, how they look at you, inflections in their tone. I mean, it could be really, really, really minor, minute things that the average person would not even think much of.

Like, you know, what's wrong with me? Why do people not like me? And I think that that contributed to a lot of depression, a lot of anger that fed into some of that impatience and irritability that I had with others. It was a lot of interpersonal instability. The bipolar disorder runs in my family. So, of course, there's a genetic component there, but I think that there are circumstances in a person's life that kind of ignite a fire that's dormant there.

Growing up in the particular religion and in the type of church probably did contribute to igniting that fire, that flame. You're insecure in your faith. You're insecure with how God sees you because of the environment that you're in. When you feel like you don't even have assurance of your relationship with God, how else are you supposed to feel secure in anything, whether it's your appearance or your intelligence?

Like if I felt insecure with God, I felt, you know, every other aspect of my life was just unstable. And I think even like, you know, dating or relationships with other people close to me, I think that maybe that contributed to me having an unhealthy attachment to my mother. There were some unhealthy attachments there because I was just, I was so insecure and so afraid of people leaving me. Then, you know, I tried to medicate that issue with alcohol.

You turn to things like alcohol that do help all of that to calm down. But, you know, of course, rebounding from drinking is hard on your body as well as your mind. That was just a Band-Aid. My psychiatrist put me on medication, of course, which helped me enormously. I ended up moving away from that hospital and getting a job at another one closer to my family. So at that point, I was back in my comfort zone.

At this time, I was also very medicated and it's like the storm in my head was quiet. I could concentrate. I could sleep. It was the first time really that I felt like I was a good nurse giving good, competent patient care. I thought that professionally I could advance there and that I would be comfortable there for a very long time. During the time I met this guy,

I knew he wasn't good for me, but there was something about him that was charming, kind of drew me in. I had casual sex with him and got pregnant. I felt like a whore. It was a really shameful feeling. And I remember calling my pastor at the time and I told him, I said, hey, you know, I'm pregnant.

It was a silly thing that I asked him, but I asked, I said, you know, can I still come to church? And he said, yes, you absolutely can. And I will be swift to correct anybody who has anything to say to you about that. I think that I needed to hear that because I needed to know that somebody still loves me and accepted me, even though I had done this thing.

During that pregnancy, as time progressed, my OBGYN told me to quit taking my psychiatric medications. And so all that anger, aggression, irritability reared its ugly head again. And then, you know, you add those pregnancy hormones on top of that. And it was just really, it was a disaster. That relationship just kind of dissolved organically. So she was mine. I was hers. It was just the two of us.

My daughter was born five weeks early. The picture that's painted for most mothers is that they see their child and they're just overwhelmed with joy and they have this immediate connection. And that's not something that happens organically with my daughter and I at first.

It was very scary because I knew what it was supposed to look like. And I felt like a bad person. And I felt like I couldn't talk to anybody about it because I was so ashamed of that. Like, how do you how do you tell somebody that you feel like you don't know your baby?

Pregnant people are emotional anyway, so you subtract the medications, then all of that, all of those racing thoughts and the poor sleep and things, of course, comes back with a vengeance. So that storm, those constant thoughts, it comes back again.

You know, when you have that hamster wheel going on in your head and you're, you know, your mind's constantly raising and you're, you know, you're overthinking things and putting too much thought into those little subtleties and things. It distracts you from those moments that women stereotypically savor during a pregnancy, like feeling your baby kick or being fascinated with an ultrasound or.

I had all these thoughts going on, all this, all these preoccupations in my mind that I couldn't, you know, savor those little things that would have helped me bond with her. That would have helped me feel like I knew her when she came into the world. But, you know, when she was born, I just felt like she was, she was a stranger.

I definitely felt like I had postpartum depression. I had extremes of anxieties and fears, just crazy stuff like being afraid to transport your baby in a car because you're afraid you're going to have a car accident. Even if you're going, you know, two minutes down the road, lots of things just reached an extreme at that point.

Me feeling like I was a stranger to my child and my child was a stranger to me was another aspect of that shame. Now I wasn't a good mother and I was ashamed of that. I felt like this was God's way of punishing me or getting back at me for the sin of the situation.

I remember crying and one of the nurses coming into my room and saying, you know, honey, what's wrong? And I said, you know, I feel like I don't know my baby. And I remember she said to me, she said, you don't know her. You just met her. You have to get to know her. It wasn't long after that. I did get to know my daughter. And then I was developing that attachment. You know, I was coming to realize that my daughter was not a sin.

You know, maybe fundamentalist Christians can say that premarital sex is, but my little girl wasn't. She was not the sin. I started to see that lots of the things that I had been raised to see were wrong. My perception of God was different. He was approachable. He was loving. And he had given me this gift of my daughter. When my daughter was about two years old, we met Jason.

When I met him, I left that first date thinking, you know, does this guy like me? Does he not like me? I was just really confused by what his behavior was. And I had never met somebody that I absolutely could not read, which also is kind of why I thought his instant connection with my daughter was unusual. When they met for the first time, it was just immediate love.

My little girl loved him and he always included my little girl. We ended up getting married and he adopted her during our marriage. At first, I thought it was this wonderful thing. And then he and I started having problems. It was really primarily me not feeling like my affection was reciprocated enough.

And then these feelings started to surface like I had given away my most prized possession. And now I was having to share her. During this period, I jumped off the compliance wagon with my medications. And so that, of course, affected my mood and the way that I interacted with him. I started having the volatile behavior again.

There were a lot of behaviors that my daughter was exposed to that children should not be. It wasn't anything, it wasn't abuse, but when you're fighting and yelling and a lot of arguing, heated arguments, nothing that was a safety issue as far as physical safety, but no child really needs to be in an environment where mom and dad are yelling at each other

Children understand a lot more than we give them credit for, even if they're just young children. They pick up on tension and anxiety and with bipolar disorder, with there being a genetic component to that, I certainly didn't want to lay the foundation for her to have all of the genetic makeup of that, the genetic proclivity to have that, plus the instability, yelling and insecurity, anxiety.

You know, you don't want your children to grow up in a broken home. But at the same time, those unhealthy dynamics can be more harmful to children, I think, growing up in unstable environments. Our marriage fell apart. We got a divorce and we came to an agreement that I would be the primary custodian and he would get every other weekend with her. That sense of possessiveness was coming back. And I did regret consenting to that adoption.

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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. During my separation with Jason, I met my son's father. He was very charming. And then as things progressed, he was very narcissistic, physically abusive, unfaithful,

So needless to say, I finally got away from him. He and I had a beautiful son together. So that was one good product of that situation. At that point, I was requiring a lot more help with their supervision. And of course, the first person I leaned on was my mother.

It was bad timing because around that point, she had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. And it was in very, very early stages. And I felt bad about asking her for her help. But at the same time, I didn't know what I was going to do without her. My parents moved in with me. And it was primarily because of the need for supervision for my children. My mother used to never forget anything.

But she got to a point where she was forgetting a lot of things. She would have auditory hallucinations. 50% of Parkinson's patients have hallucinations, delusions, more psychotic symptoms. In addition to all the physical things and the memory issues, she would hear voices in my bedroom at night, get up and ask me to turn my TV down. And I'm like, you know, mom, I don't have a television on.

My mother was a very successful nurse. And I think that ending up with this disease was really humiliating for her in a lot of ways. She knew that her memory was failing. She knew that her body didn't listen to her brain, essentially. And then for me, you know, I'm watching all of this unfold.

Growing up, as I said before, it was a very volatile household. There was fighting every day, making up every day. And then that started to happen again when they moved in with me.

We would fight. We'd make up. And there was that traditional dynamic going on, that familiar dynamic between all of us that had reared its ugly head again. But I knew that I had to keep going because my kids depended on me. I had a job that depended on me. I had patients that depended on me. You just you have to keep going. You have to keep trucking. I wasn't really navigating anything successfully.

And then my mother, she fell and broke her foot. Then she fell and broke her arm. And then she's taking pain medication, which can affect your cognition. And then she's forgetting to take her insulin. So her insulin's five or 600. So there is just this enormous culmination of factors that led up to what would happen next.

And this one morning, my daughter and I, we were running late for school. I had overslept. And so, of course, she was late because I overslept. I was helping her get ready. And I asked my dad, you know, will you warm up some French toast sticks for her? So she and I are ready. We go downstairs. There are no French toast sticks. So he and I are going at it about these French toast sticks.

Apparently, it really upset my mother, but I didn't really know the extent of how much it had upset her. And then all of a sudden, my daughter starts puking. So at that point, being late for school is moot. And I asked my parents, I said, you know, hey, would you like me to stay home with her? And my dad said, no, go to work. It'll be okay.

So I go to work as usual and I'm seeing my patients. I get my visits done and then I'm headed back to my home. I called my mother and really the primary reason I called her was because I have gotten a job offer that day and it would really just complement our atypical lifestyle so well. And I called her to tell her about that and she was hysterical on the phone.

At that point, she says that she took my little girl to Jason. And I was confused. And I remember saying to my mother, you know, you didn't have to do that. I was going to be home in 15 minutes. Are you okay? She proceeded to say that they were going to go back to her house that evening so that they could just have a night to themselves. At this point, I'm not really understanding exactly what it means that she took my daughter to Jason.

So I texted him, didn't receive a response. I called him, no response. My mother has taken my little girl to Jason and there's crickets on his end. Finally, I get a response from him that says something to the effect of, your mother has made some allegations against you. Essentially that you're abusing your daughter physically, psychologically, and it would be better for her to be in his care at that time.

I'm so confused. I have no idea what's happened. And he just won't talk to me. And then I asked if I could talk to my daughter. He said at that time that it wasn't a good time to talk.

At this point, my mother's not speaking to me at all. She won't elaborate on what happened. My dad's not answering the phone. So the next day I went to the clerk of court in our county and I asked if there was any paperwork that had been filed against me.

I got this affidavit from Jason talking about all the things that my mother had said about me. And it just portrayed this maniacal psycho person that was a danger to herself and others. Anybody who read that would think, oh my gosh, you know, this lady is crazy. She's dangerous. And I read that and I was absolutely horrified at the things that were in it.

She essentially was saying that I physically and psychologically abused my daughter, that I slapped her. It was almost like she had opened up the DSM and just went down the list. And that's what she said in her affidavit, her sworn statement. I have to be somewhat sympathetic of Jason because if somebody had come to me with the information that my mother had said, I would have been just as concerned for the safety of my child.

He knew that I had a mental illness. He knew the problems I had had with it before. Now he's having a very intimate person in my life come and allege these things about me. So from his perspective, all of it probably made sense. Immediately after it had happened, I went to her house, directly to her house so that I could speak to her in person. Up to that point, she would not speak to me.

I'm really just trying to elicit what happened that day, and she couldn't recall very much of it. I was trying to communicate to her that what she had done could not be easily revoked. I'm explaining to her that I have no money. We need to call family to try to raise money for legal fees.

She just constantly said, you know, I didn't mean for you to lose custody of your daughter. I don't remember much of what happened that day. I just remember feeling very overwhelmed. I think she honestly thought that it was just a temporary thing, that he was just going to help her for the weekend. It was overwhelming and confusing because the person that arguably loved me the most, my own mother, had done that to me.

I was absolutely broken. It was panic. This is so surreal. Did this just happen? I mean, just over and over, I remember saying to myself, you know, this can't be real. It was really, it was just brokenness. I was physically sick. And that's what reminded me that things really were what they were.

I just was so confused because I didn't know what had happened that day, and I wasn't being given answers. I felt really alienated from my mother, but also just brokenness at not having my daughter near me, not being able to hold her, kiss her, tuck her in bed, take her to school, all of those mundane things that I realized that I had taken for granted.

Since my divorce from Jason, I had been religiously compliant with medications. In that moment, I felt so defeated because I had done everything I was supposed to do. And I just wanted to scream, you know, what else do I need to do? I'm willing to do it. Let me know what I need to do. Obviously, what I thought I needed to do isn't enough.

I had worked so hard to take care of my problems, to take care of that issue. And I had been doing well for so long and I still didn't measure up. And that was kind of like it was growing up in my church. It didn't matter. I still wasn't good enough. Mothers don't get their kids taken away. You hear about fathers doing that and, you know, mothers automatically getting custody of their children. Like that's the stereotype. But it was very humiliating.

I was sitting here thinking, you know, if I cry the way I want to cry, if I mourn the way I want to mourn, people are just, that's just going to reinforce this picture of a crazy woman. What helped me get through it the most was the fact that I still had my son. She didn't take my son to his father, which was another element of confusion there. So that was one thing that kept me going. And then two, I just kind of immersed myself in my work.

I just tried to be the best nurse that I could be. That was kind of like my escape from all of this reality. We were given a hearing. They did it on an expedited basis. So what that meant was that we presented before a judge, but we only had 15 minutes to make our case, which is not a time for any judge to really review anything well. With an expedited hearing in my state, people are not allowed to testify.

Jason and I were present in the courtroom. We just couldn't speak. Our attorneys presented packets of evidence, sworn statements, text messages, things of that nature to make the case for us or against us. I had sent Jason a somewhat inflammatory text message probably within two weeks prior to this event. It was over needing more assistance with my daughter in the context that my mother is becoming more feeble.

It was nothing that a typical person wouldn't say to another person. In my opinion, it was not. But he used that to paint this picture of, okay, well, here's evidence that she is, you know, not in a good place right now mentally. And I just remember sitting there and, you know, he slammed the gavel and said, the judgment is for the plaintiff's father. And then, you know, there was a restraining order against me because I'm this crazy person.

That was real. That just happened. It was horrible because that was my little girl. I gave birth to her. And what really just blows my mind to this day is the fact that I still had custody of my son. I was safe with one child, but not another. Until that point, it was still surreal. But once I was at that hearing and the judge delivered his judgment, it was like everything was cemented. It was all real.

That was the moment where I had to accept that a court of law is telling me I can't be around her. It was devastating. It was almost like she had died. I really mourned for her. It was pain that severe.

But at the same time, it was knowing that she was just within reach, that I could be there easily to get a hug from her, a kiss from her. But I've been told that I can't. That was the most powerless feeling. And then there's the element, too, of still not really understanding what happened that day, what led to my mother being so overwhelmed and making that statement and

Patients with Parkinson's disease, up to 50% of them can have psychotic symptoms, hallucinations, delusions. There may have been an element of that. I think that there was probably an element of confusion, pain medication, physical pain. I will never know exactly what happened.

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At this point, I'm not able to talk to Jason because I had been presented as this psycho, this crazy person, and he felt like I could potentially be a danger to him. And that was why the restraining order was set in place. So I couldn't really speak to him about anything that didn't involve my daughter. And that included details of what had happened that day, things like that.

That's an avenue that I wanted to walk down because I felt like that is my best way to get answers. But that was another sense of powerlessness because I couldn't speak to him. And it was so bizarre to me because during all of this, I maintained primary custody of my son.

I had lost custody of my daughter and the court order said that I couldn't be alone with her. I had to be supervised. And she came to me when this had first started and she said, Mommy, why do you keep my brother but not me? And I didn't know what to say to her.

I considered going to see my doctor and possibly increasing the dosage of my medication. But I ultimately decided against that because there wasn't a pill that could fix my circumstances. I couldn't sleep because my mind would not shut off. I could not stop thinking about this. It was just this constant hang up. Navigating the legal system is very challenging, family court especially.

Our mediation was not going well, but things started to turn for my favor. Jason, he asked for some time alone and then he came back and presented the 50-50 agreement with me. And I was very thankful for that. Didn't see that coming. She'll be a week with me and then a week with him.

I had to concede to let him be the primary decision maker. And honestly, that was going to be a much simpler and less traumatic route than going through an actual trial hearing and not necessarily being sure of the outcome considering what had happened during the expedited hearing.

The hardest thing has just been the inconclusiveness of all of this. The whole aspect of not having answers, not knowing certain things that occurred that day. It's been really powerless because I know where to get answers, but my mother herself can't even tell me. I have to be tactful with the way I talk to Jason. There are so many things I'd like to ask him, but I can't.

We've come to, I think, a cordial arrangement. I almost believe that Jason is kind of seeing that maybe what my mother said isn't necessarily true. But at this point, I think the issue has resolved in my favor. Whenever you have a mental health diagnosis, people automatically make an assumption about you, pass a judgment, etc.

But my life since I began taking medications, I'm the person that I am with medications. I don't like people to say, oh, you're a different person on medications because that's not what it is. I am myself when I take these medicines. There's a lot of me still that questions why did this happen to me? What was the purpose? Because I don't understand why it happened, what I did to deserve that treatment.

I get mad at God sometimes. It's an anger. It's a confusion. You know, what was the purpose in all this? You know, God, what was the purpose? What were you trying to teach me? Yes, I have a mental illness. I had been managing it well and successfully. But it's difficult to accept that no matter how much good you do, things like this can happen to you.

Even the people closest to you are capable of hurting you more than anybody else. When nobody else on the planet loves you, typically your mother always does. And if my own mother didn't love me, then who else on the planet could or would? I was also really angry because as time goes on and she becomes more ill and she requires more physical assistance, more help, more supervision, it would be me that was doing all that.

When all is said and done, as things progress, as you get sicker, as you need more help, it'll be me that's doing all that. Like, how could you do that when you know that in the future it's going to be me that you have to rely on? Like, the roles are going to be reversed there. And it has been me. As time's gone on, it's been me.

me that lots of times, you know, she'll be crying. She'll be very, you know, inconsolable about things. She's very, very preoccupied with what could happen, what her death might look like. With me being a hospice nurse, I know what it's going to look like. I have patients with Parkinson's disease. I watch these people progress through all of those stages on a daily basis. I'm just always constantly the one that's consoling her.

Because she's so preoccupied with what's going to happen that she cannot appreciate anything in the moment. It's not self-pity. It's just she wallows in the inevitable. It's made me think a lot about my relationship with my children. It's made me think about what I would do in a situation like this.

I'm resolving in myself to, quote, never do something like this to my kids. But at the same time, it's kind of scary to think that, oh, well, what if I were to get Parkinson's disease? And what if something like that were to happen to me where I would be constantly angry at the world with that rub off on my children? How do I prevent that from happening?

I think having bipolar disorder in some ways helps me be somewhat more understanding and sympathetic because I have an illness that when not medicated could potentially make me hurt people in much the same way that she hurt me.

Struggling with all of those types of things, those behavioral health issues that I struggled with previously that I strongly, strongly believe that I have under control now with medication, it does help you to feel compassionate for others. People with substance misuse issues and people with schizophrenia, people with personality disorders, it really makes you see those people as people and not behaviors.

I have a compassion for my mom because I don't know if she has a storm in her head like I did when I would have manic episodes. But even though I can't know her experience and I can't know every thought that's running through her mind, I'm sympathetic of that and compassionate of it because I know what that felt like to me.

I think I'll be working on this forgiveness for the rest of my life, probably. I think that there will be times where it really rears its ugly head and inevitably there will be something that comes up that probably triggers all of those feelings again. I love my mother and I still love her dearly. But then at the same time, she's been the person on this planet that has caused me more hurt than anyone. It's really hard for me to reconcile the two. I almost don't think I can.

My mother since has said that she was very remorseful for what she had said. Choosing to forgive her, I believe, has made me, it's kind of made me take control of the situation again. It's made me be able to dictate my own emotions. It was embarrassing. It was, it made me feel ashamed. But at the same time, you know, it's strengthened my identity. I believe that I am a good mother.

I think forgiveness isn't always a passive process. I think that sometimes it's very active and I've chosen to forgive her. From Wondery, you're listening to This Is Actually Happening.

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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.

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