279: What if you survived online child exploitation?
44:26 Share

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

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. 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. 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.

Before we begin today's episode, I wanted to update you all on the GoFundMe fundraiser initiated by the show's Facebook group for Jesse Sanders, one of the guests on the show for our Point Blank series in March. We finalized the GoFundMe this past week, and in the end, you all raised over $22,000 for Jesse, his kids, and his family.

I'm just absolutely blown away by all of your generosity, especially since the call for the fundraiser came from listeners within the group. And for someone like Jesse, this kind of gift has literally changed his life. We also collected all of the messages you wrote on the GoFundMe page and sent him those as well as part of the gift. After receiving the funds and your kind words, Jesse wrote this message that he wanted me to share with you all.

Quote, I wanted to say thanks to all the wonderful people who have taken the time to listen to my story and were able to help. God bless you all, and if it matters, your words help me very much. Thank you again, and know that your generosity changed the course of someone's life. It's just so isolating, lonely, and painful. Not being able to access the person that I want to be

From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 279. What if you survived online child exploitation?

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 dad is from Portugal, but he moved to Massachusetts to join the army. Then he moved to Canada, to Ontario.

He worked with a school district in this very small town where my mom just happened to move where they had my oldest brother. Then a few years later, they have the middle child. And then eventually they had me. My parents got divorced when I was really young. And my dad was very unwell. He was very manipulative. He was very controlling. He was a very angry person behind the scenes. But up front, everyone liked him. He was that kind of person. He was a very conniving person.

I was always really close with my mom. I was the mama's boy. I was a very flamboyant kid. I was always very feminine and unapologetically me. I come from a very small town, and it's a very church-oriented town. So everyone knew who we were, every single person. I was definitely what the churches weren't exactly into.

I was a big fan of like pop music. I was a big fan of like the stereotypically girly stuff. And this is a town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in Canada, very stereotypically masculine. But I didn't really think anything of it. Of course, at that age, when you're like seven, eight years old, you don't really think about what being queer or being gay is. You just kind of are who you are.

I remember my grade four teacher. She came from out of town and she loved the same things I did. So when she came in to teach us, it was like this awakening, like, oh my gosh, I want to be here when I want to be here. When I grew up, she put on the music video to single ladies by Beyonce and I knew the entire choreography. So she would invite me up to the front of the class to do the whole thing from start to finish.

Even though I was exhibiting all these behaviors, I was dancing and singing and doing stereotypically weird things. But my family didn't really bat an eye about it. It was more like, oh, this is what he is. A little bit odd, but that's fine. He's happy. They were very accommodating. I don't know if it was because I was too unapologetic or too strictly me. Maybe it was because I was so happy with being me, even at such a young age, that they didn't really care. Even if the town's folk didn't understand it, or I was kind of like the talk of the town for the things I did, the way I acted.

They were still very supportive and loving. But even though it was still happily me, I was still very nervous because I was still scared to show those things. My older brother and I, we definitely had a sibling rivalry. I think he was kind of jealous that I was considered to be more creative. So he used to always belittle me and look down on me for those things.

He used to always try to nitpick every single thing about me and treat me like I was this sissy or this loser. During recess, he would come into my class and he would talk to my friends and they would collectively make fun of me. As I started getting older and as the kids started realizing that, oh, I might be gay or I might be more feminine, that was when the bullying on all accounts started.

Before, I used to have all these friends who used to love my energy. We used to just vibe and we used to always hang out. But as I started dancing and being more myself or exhibiting these stereotypically more feminine traits, my best friend at the time slowly started distancing himself away from me. I guess his dad didn't really like that he was hanging around someone like me. Slowly, I became more ostracized from everyone.

And my older brother would kind of take that opportunity to make himself feel better about himself. I felt really alone and hurt. It was rough. My biological dad was just an awful person. We believed he was paranoid schizophrenic. He wasn't officially diagnosed, but everyone who knew him seemed to have the same conclusion, that he was very paranoid and very delusional. He would tell me,

"Oh, you know, women will always come after you and will know everything about you." "And use that to their advantage." "Women would always try to hurt you." I'm like five, so I'm like, "Okay, that's cool, but can I play with my toys now?" He would have us over weekends. And when it came to him hanging out with me, he used to watch a lot of gore. Like Mexican cartel beheading videos. Really dark stuff like that. He would suggest that there were kind of conspiracies against us.

He would tell me that, you know, this is because of the government and the government's always coming after us. Oftentimes he wouldn't say anything. He would have it in the background or he would have me sit on his lap and he would watch it together. And of course I'm like four or five years old. I don't completely understand what I'm looking at, but it was always as if he was trying to like, tell me something with these videos as a way of like warning me about the evils of the world. He would show me, um,

a lot of suicide videos. He would show me a lot of terrorist videos. I remember there was one video where these extremists had kidnapped an American soldier and they had him read warnings that they would have this terrorist read and they would behead him in the video. He would show me really horrible things and then he would show me porn and he would do these acts with me and then he would film it.

The sex abuse started as early as I remember, but it didn't start off as sex abuse. It kind of started off as when I was in the tub, he would also be naked. It was stuff like that, that it would kind of normalize the human body to me in a way that was starting to groom me. He would be naked around me all the time. I didn't really fully understand what was going on with me because I didn't fully understand what was happening to me was wrong. I mean, this was just my childhood.

This was just something that I did with my dad. I've been doing with my dad for years. Most kids play video games, color and coloring books. I performed these acts with my dad. The online stuff started happening by the time I was seven. And I don't really remember fully understanding that I was being filmed. Like I didn't really fully understand that what was happening was going to be watched by other people. It's weird. I don't really remember thinking anything of it really.

This was something that was happening to me, and I had just been so normalized from sex abuse that I didn't really think anything of it. My mom, she didn't know that I was being abused. If she had known that there were signs of abuse, of course she would have stepped in. The reason why the abuse continued was because when my mom and my biological dad got divorced and separated, we had to spend a lot of time at my dad's during the weekends, which is where most of the abuse of mine happened. My mom...

fought against the courts. She even risked jail time because she kept us for a ton of weekends. She did a lot to save us from the horrors that she had known. But by the time I was seven years old, the sex abuse and the psychological abuse had hit its peak. The psychological abuse felt like it started to become a way of overstimulating me.

He would show me really horrible things and then he would show me all this porn. And I guess he would overstimulate me so that I didn't really know how to manage my emotions. I was always very anxious. I remember I used to tell my mom the stories about how my brother was bullying me or how the kids were bullying me. I felt like I was doing it in such a way that it was like extreme. It was kind of too much for my mom.

I guess my dad knew exactly what he was doing in that sense by overstimulating me. If I did tell someone about the sex abuse, they would kind of, oh my God, he's being so sensitive. He's being too emotional. I guess that was what he was trying to show me. Hey, if you say anything, I mean, no one's going to believe you. No one's going to listen to you because you're already really emotional. That's okay because I understand you. I understand what kind of stuff you're going through.

He would kind of weaponize his compassion and he would kind of acknowledge my concerns, but then he would kind of also take advantage and weaponize those concerns. I didn't really think anything of the sex abuse. I wasn't really too concerned about that. I was more concerned about the psychological abuse. I was more worried about people being able to read my mind and take advantage of me. The online sex abuse stopped when I was 10 or 11 years old.

It does only because I didn't really see him anymore. He ran off back to Ontario. We believe he's in Ontario now. I'm not really sure. I don't really care that much. People ask, where's your dad? I usually say, oh, he's dead. He died. He's not dead, though. He ran away.

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

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair? Done well. Kitchen sink install? Done well. Deck upgrades? Done well. Electrical upgrade? Done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high-quality, certified pros at Angie.com.

When I was 11 years old, I had moved to the city and back in the town that I lived in, back in my hometown, I had been so bullied and been so hurt and abused. So when we moved to the city, I remember thinking, oh my gosh, this is my start. And I kind of felt like I had something to prove.

I had this big chip on my shoulder in the sense that I wanted to help others. I didn't want anybody else to feel the way that I felt. So I kind of felt like I had this responsibility to not only defend myself, but like defend other people who are also vulnerable. People who are considered, you know, weird or off-putting or, you know, the underdogs. I always felt like I needed to pick up for those types of people.

So when people used to try to start things with me, I would match their energy. I would throw the bullying and the aggression right back at them. Because you can't reason with these people. Especially when you yourself are this weird, delusional, alternative, scrawny queer kid. The more I picked up for myself and the more I picked up for others, the more I tried to stop the bullying, I felt like the more off-putting I became.

I lashed out a lot. I was nervous and temperamental. I was so paranoid and I had all these delusions. I kind of believed that other people were trying to come after me. I remember thinking that one of my friends had all these minions and to my face, they were friendly and they were my friends. But behind the scenes, they were kind of plotting some big vicious attack against me to kind of ruin my life and kind of ruin my reputation. The same things that my dad had told me that people were going to do to me.

I'm like 12 or 13 years old at this point. So at this age, with the way I acted, of course, a lot of kids rightfully would be turned off from me. Like they would be like, oh my God, this guy's crazy. This guy's a psycho. He's very weird. And that would only pile on the paranoia because people would like distance themselves away from me. They don't want to be associated with someone because I was just so unstable. And when people would distance themselves away from me, I would think, oh my God, it would just prove that people were coming after me. It was like a snowballing effect.

I remember hearing all these auditory hallucinations by the time I was 12 years old. These voices would tell me, "Everyone's coming after you. Everyone knows something about you. Everyone knows what you did." I didn't fully understand what those voices were talking about, but it was always a constant, especially around this age. I used to go for a lot of walks. I used to listen to music. I used to walk around the block like three times a day. I used to annoy all of my neighbors. I used to go for walks in the industrial park in the middle of the night just to quiet these voices.

The hallucinations were always kind of there, and it's just a jumble of different voices telling you different things all at once. Even though I was still experiencing all these hallucinations, I could still understand that I was being bullied. I still had a normal grasp of reality in that sense, but because I had gained a little bit of confidence or gained a little bit of understanding of what bullying was, I always matched the bully's energy and

Sometimes that would get me into a lot of trouble because I had this reputation of being this crazy person. I guess during this phase back when I was like 12, 13, 14 years old, I kind of had a lot to prove. Like I wasn't a bad person. I wasn't what these hallucinations or these voices were saying about me. So the more the bullying happened, the more I went to psychosis and the more I went to like these delusions. And of course, the teachers didn't really help.

Whenever I used to talk to the guidance counselor, they didn't really hear what I was saying. They didn't really put the pieces together that I was a very troubled teen. They would just see this kid with high emotions and that I was just being dramatic. After junior high, we moved to another town. I think my entire family kind of got sick of the city life, so we moved to a nearby town. My stepdad had a new job, so we bought a house.

When I got to high school, I didn't feel like I was in survival mode anymore. I felt like I definitely chilled out and I had found my personality more. I understood myself more. So it was like a brand new me going to this high school. It was like a fresh new start.

I wanted to meet everyone. I wanted to be an entertainer. I didn't care what it was. I just wanted to be an entertainer. I felt like I needed to give people the escapism, no matter what it was. If it was me making fun of myself or me telling jokes, I just felt like if I could help someone escape from this cruel world or get out of their own head, then I'm doing something good. So when I went to high school, I was the stereotypical, like, oh, everyone knows him because he has this big charismatic personality and he's friends with everyone.

I started a job at a grocery store. I met pretty much everyone in the first four months. I was very friendly with everyone. I was about 15 years old. I had done so well for myself that I became the youngest person in my province to win employee of the year at the grocery store. I had things going for me. So I didn't feel like I had to survive anymore. I felt like I could relax. I could live my life. I could do the things I wanted to do. Around this time, the hallucinations and delusions started going away as well. So I felt a normal sense of reality around this time, around 15, 16, 17 years old.

When I graduated high school, I started working at a motel. It was my first office job and I felt brain dead for like two and a half years. I just knew I had to get an education. I had to get out of this town. I really felt like I could do more. So I applied for college. I went to college for precaution designing. I moved to the city to attend the school. I lived in on-campus residence and I felt like, oh my gosh, this is going to be the beginning of my new life. My life is finally going to start.

In college, I met a lot of people. I was in these clubs. I was making a lot of friends. But I just felt like I didn't really belong there in the sense that there were the party kids who were just there to have a good time while also studying. I didn't really feel like I fully belonged there until I met this guy from Florida. He was this totally sweet person. He was such a sweetheart. We were both into crafts. We really hit it off when we started talking about drag. I felt like, wow, he's such a cool person. I feel like I'm really connecting with him.

Eventually, we started hitting it off. After a while, we started having sex. It might have been the second time after I had sex that something didn't feel right. It was my first time having consensual sex, so something just felt off. That was when all those memories started coming back. Even though these memories started coming back, I didn't really internalize those feelings. I didn't feel those feelings of guilt or shame until about six months later.

I didn't really put the pieces like, oh my gosh, this is what happened to me. I was abused. I just remembered that, oh, this happened to me as a kid. The third time I had sex, the puzzle pieces were starting to be put together. I just remember feeling like, oh my gosh, I feel so gross. I feel disgusted with myself. I just felt this shame with myself. And my partner is very accepting. He's very understanding. Even though we cared about each other, we couldn't continue having sex because it kept triggering something.

When I told him that I didn't really want to continue having sex, I felt like I was disappointing him. I felt like if I'm not being used for my body, then what's the point of me? While I was still in college, I started to become self-aware enough to know that what had happened to me was the reason why I was the way I was. And I just knew that I had to start making my own memories, but...

I just couldn't get that headspace. I felt I was so depressed. My entire sense of reality was completely torn apart. I finally understood why I was the way I was. And it was like, it just put me into a whirlwind. Even though I didn't fully understand what was happening to me, I still felt a lot of depression and I couldn't continue my course. So unfortunately, I had to drop out of college. I rented a room into this house in the city. I had gotten a job at a hotel, a beautiful hotel. I really enjoyed the job, but I got laid off because COVID started.

I always had a great relationship with my mom, but when I was in college, I kind of isolated myself from everyone because of depression. This is the first time in my life that I did talk to my mom for such a long period of time because me and mom were very close. You know, she was always a very young person. She always understood what I was going through and she used to always make things better. So when I isolated myself from her, it kind of broke her heart. Adding that on top of dropping out of college, she was so angry at me. I couldn't tell her at the time why I dropped out because I didn't fully understand it myself.

But when COVID started, I got laid off. We went through our first lockdown. We didn't really fully understand what was going on. I had gained a ton of weight. I was at 300 pounds at one point and I knew that I had to change something. So I started exercising. I picked up running. I started learning how to cook. I made healthy meals for myself. I really took advantage of that lockdown experience. And before you knew it, I lost 50 pounds in three months.

Around April of 2020, I had posted that I'd lost 50 pounds on social media. I got all this love and validation from everyone saying like, oh my God, look at you. I'm so proud of you. Everyone kind of knew that I was going into depression and I dropped out. So it was like, oh my gosh, he's back again. Like he's himself again. He feels like himself. And that was when I got a message from my aunt. She had seen my story about how I had lost 50 pounds. And she had told me, she was really proud of me. I didn't have a great relationship with my family other than my mom. So when my aunt...

messaged me out of nowhere, I felt like, oh my gosh, she was like, I'm so proud of you. That's so impressive. And she told me she had a business opportunity for me. She was working with this company that had produced weight loss pills. And she thought that I was going to be a perfect fit for the company because I'd lost so much weight that she wanted me to use my story. And she said that she wanted me to work with her. So I asked her more about it. She had said, it's a multi-level media marketing program.

I thought, oh my God, here we go. It's a pyramid scheme, but it's nice to hear your voice trying to connect with me. I'll hear you out. I couldn't say no to her flat out because I knew that she would get upset with me and she would have gone to my mom and said, oh, you know, he's just being an asshole. So I went to her house and she sat me down. She said, I really want you to think about this. You don't have a job right now. You have the term. This is a great way for you to make money. I'm making thousands of dollars off of this. I really want you to think about this.

I told her, like, I've already lost all this weight. I don't really need to buy these products. I lost weight because of dieting. I lost weight because of exercising. I lost weight because of discipline. I don't need these weight loss pills. She had said, well, no, you can say that you use these weight loss pills. People will see that you've lost a ton of weight and will buy these products off of you. And I was like, that's super manipulative of me. I don't want to do that. This whole time, it felt like this was an opportunity to reconnect with her and my family. In the back of my head, I always knew it was kind of a scheme.

But I was just happy that I had my family. I was connecting with someone who I really respected. I didn't really have much going for me at this time when I was like 20 years old because, again, I had to drop out of college. I had lost all my friends from my depression. So it was nice to have someone talk to even though she had something up her sleeve. She was very stubborn and she took my credit card and she had charged a $600 bundle of products under my name that I didn't approve of. So I called my bank. I started a fraud claim.

I told my mom and she just lost her mind. It was like all that anger that she had built up from me dropping out of college had built up. She had just blew up at me. She was just, it just felt like she was so disappointed in me, even though I was the one who was taken advantage of. No matter how much I described to her that my vulnerability was used, she just didn't want to listen. I just remember within like that day, the anger and the shame, the guilt, it just hit me like a train wreck.

That day, not only did I fully understand what had happened to me with my aunt, it felt like everything leading up to that point

had finally resonated with me. Like the sexual abuse that I experienced, the psychological abuse that I experienced, the hallucinations, the reason why I was so troubled as a kid, dropping out of college, all the trauma that I experienced, the stuff with my mom, stuff with my aunt, everything that I'd experienced, all the vulnerability and all the abuse that I suffered finally hit me.

I felt like I was stuck. It hurt so much realizing that I was stupid enough to be taken advantage of time and time again. I wanted to tell other people, but I felt like if I did tell other people, people were going to look at me and say, why would you put yourself in this situation? So I felt so alone. But that was when the hallucinations and delusions started happening again. It hit me like a snap of the finger.

All these delusions felt like a different type of delusion. Back in my early teens, it felt like the voices were kind of laughing at me. The voices in my head kind of told me like, why didn't you listen? In the first place, we told you everyone was coming after you. Why didn't you listen to us? It was really frustrating. And it felt like I was just really stuck, you know?

Being in psychosis, it kind of felt like everyone knew what was wrong with you. It felt like you knew you were crazy, but you couldn't explain yourself because if you explain yourself to people about what's happening to you, you say, oh yeah, no, I was abused as a kid. I was taken advantage of by my aunt. I have schizophrenia and I have all these delusions. If you tell that to someone just off the cuff, you're going to be perceived as crazy. So, you know, you can't really do that. It's just, it's so frustrating, but you really want to tell your story, but you also don't want to be weird.

Looking back now, I realize how off-putting it was, like the actions I did. Like people would like look at me a certain way or people look at each other a certain way. And I would think, oh my gosh, they're communicating in secret language about me. And I got so paranoid.

I remember going into work. I worked at a recycling depot at one point, and I was sorting through the recyclables. These group of young people had come in with the recyclables, and I remember looking up, and they were all just staring at me in a way that I was a vile person in their eyes.

For some reason, my brain told me that they were filming me. They were jotting down every single thing that I was doing, like every movement that I was making. It felt like they were telling me like, oh, you're a shell of yourself. They're not doing anything. They're just standing there. But to me, it was like everyone knew that I was like this no good piece of shit. I couldn't escape it. I couldn't run from it. And I couldn't complain to anyone because I knew that there was something wrong with this way of thinking. But if I kept complaining to people, people would get sick of me and they would like run away from me.

So I just kept it to myself. It was like everyone knew this idea of me, but they didn't really know me as a person. They didn't know my thoughts, my feelings, my morals. They didn't really get a chance to know me because, of course, they heard stuff about me or they were just put off by me. I felt like everyone could do whatever they wanted to me, but because I was this crazy individual, nobody would really care about me as a person.

It's just so isolating, lonely, and painful. Not being able to access the person that I want to be, it's a complete hell in a way that you know there's something wrong with you, and you're trying your best to figure out what is wrong with you. But not being able to explain myself, because your entire life, you've been a subject to this extreme abuse that for a long time, you didn't even see this extreme abuse. It was just your lifestyle.

It's weird because, of course, if I heard something similar that happened to me happen to someone else or happen to another kid, of course, I'd be disgusted or I'd be appalled. But when I think of it happening to me, like, that's just my reality.

Most Americans think they spend about $62 per month on subscriptions. But get this, the real number is closer to $300. That is literally thousands of dollars a year, half of which you've probably forgotten about. Thankfully, Rocket Money can find a bunch of subscriptions you've forgotten all about and then help you cancel the ones you don't want anymore. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions,

monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features.

Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash wondery. That's rocketmoney.com slash wondery. rocketmoney.com slash wondery. Getting the smile and confidence you've been dreaming about all from the comfort of your home isn't a total mystery with Bite Clear Aligners. Just don't be surprised if all your friends start asking, what's your secret?

Begin by ordering your at-home impression kit today for only $14.95. Bite Clear Aligners are doctor-directed and delivered to your door. Treatment costs thousands less than braces, plus they offer flexible financing, accept eligible insurance, and you can pay with your HSA FSA. Get 80% off your impression kit when you use code WONDERY at bite.com. That's B-Y-T-E dot com. Start your confidence journey today with Bite.

The severity of the psychosis happened at the end of 2020. I was 21 years old. I had worked about five different jobs. Couldn't keep a job because I was so depressed. I just could not get out of bed. I had no source of income. There were times when I went three, sometimes even four days without eating. The only thing that would keep me going was a food bank across the city.

Eventually I was evicted from my house. I was homeless for a little bit. Being homeless, knowing that I was going down this route, I was so disappointed in myself and so angry at myself. This guy who was known for being so intelligent, so smart, and so charismatic, and so charming, and so friendly. People would come up to me and tell me, oh my God, I've heard my friend talk about you. You're so sweet. This once gifted kid

had become this basket case of an individual. I was homeless. I couldn't keep a job. I was like, this can't be my life. I am so pathetic right now, but this literally cannot be my life. I went to the homeless shelter at the food bank to take some showers there, and then I would stay overnight at Tim's for a local restaurant that was open 24 hours a day. I was so disappointed with myself. I knew that I could have been so much more. I had to be better. I had so much more to give.

Right before I was evicted, I just got signed on to a federal government job with the government of Canada. It was a work-from-home job. It was a call center job that I had to kind of figure out because I didn't have a home at the time. I didn't have a home at the time, so you can't really work from home when you don't have a home. But luckily, I found a place that brought me in. Knowing that I had a regular source of income, having so much money, it definitely helped with food, with living expenses. But I'd say the thing that really started to get the ball rolling with my recovery, so July 1st of 2022, I was in a hospital.

Me and three of my friends had gone rafting to celebrate Canada Day with one of my friends who had just moved to Canada. Her name was Natasha. She was from South Africa, originally from Qatar, but she had lived in South Africa for most of her life. She had actually moved to Canada to move in with a good friend of mine. She was moving in for school, and Mason, out of hundreds of people, chose Natasha without even meeting her. That's how lovely she was. That's how good of an energy she brought.

So Mason, Natasha, my other friend, Emil, and I, we went to a lake to celebrate her first Canada Day. We had a picnic. We had a little bit of snack foods. The plan was to eat and to go out rafting. So Emil and Natasha were cleaning up. Me and Mason decided to go rafting. We all had our individual little tubes, and we headed out. When we were out in the lake, Mason had tipped over in the raft.

He had a binder on. What binders do? They constrict your chest. So he was very limited in his cardio and his breath. So I brought him back to the side of the beach. This was when Emil and Natasha were coming out. They were individual rafts. While I was almost at the shore bringing Mason back, I could see in the distance Natasha had fallen in because the current had taken Natasha's raft and flipped her over. Emil jumped in after her. I swam out to the middle of the lake to save Natasha and Emil.

But by the time I got to Natasha, you could just see it in her eyes. She was already gone. She had swallowed a bunch of water. Emile was starting to drown. While I tried to lift her up so she could get some air, I would go down and she would kick me in the face by accident. I would swallow a bunch of water. I had to let her go. I was starting to drown myself. I was running out of air. So I had to let her go. I had to push her off of me. I had to swim back to shore. And unfortunately, she didn't make it.

When I pushed her off, I just remember screaming no, because I knew what that meant. You think about it all the time. If you're in a situation, this is what you're going to do. This is how you're going to save someone, and you're going to be a hero. But when you're actually in a situation, it's so much different. Knowing that you were the last person to talk to your friend, or to hold your friend's hand, or to hold your friend and look at your friend while she was still alive. It was a horrible feeling that nobody should have to experience. Knowing that you can't save someone.

When she had passed, we had posted a GoFundMe for her funeral to send her body back to South Africa. Both mine and Mason's Facebook posts went completely viral. Thousands of shares, tens of thousands of reactions. It was like the whole world was sending their condolences to us. And even though people were sending their condolences to me, in my head it felt like, why do I still feel paranoid? Why do I still feel like something's wrong? How can I have this experience of...

So many people saying nice things, genuine nice things, and I'm still mistrusting them. I had this realization that maybe there's something wrong with me. About a month after that, I listened to an episode of this podcast, and it was like an out-of-body experience. It was a woman who had talked about having paranoid schizophrenia, and it was the first time I'd ever had someone truly explain what I was going through. It was euphoria. I felt like, oh my God, someone understands me.

Not only does someone understand me, but she was talking about how she had experienced all these things and she recovered. So I kind of felt to myself like, oh my gosh, there is hope for me. I haven't been weird all this time. I can get help. So I went to counseling. I went to therapy. I started talking to my family about what I was experiencing and what I was like. I started putting the dots together that I was very sick and I needed help.

We all believed that I had schizophrenia at first, but I was admitted to the hospital and I was talking to the psychiatrist and they said that actually no, what you'd have is actually PTSD. And I mean, it might not be what I expected diagnosis to be, but of course I'm not like a licensed professional. It's not, it's not my job. I just, the main thing of course with getting a diagnosis is so that you can be directed into getting the actual help that you are required to get. I,

I have been getting a lot of help when it comes to PTSD. I've been put in support groups, I've been put on different medication, I've been researching a lot of PTSD-like stories and what they're experiencing. And about a month after that, every time I woke up, it was like a little bit of fogginess that would disappear. The delusions were easier to control, the hallucinations weren't as prominent, and I felt like I was getting my reality back.

I still have that feeling of frustration trying to communicate what is wrong with me and what is right about me. I know what happened to me. I don't have any proof because there's never been any justice for me. But I know what happened to me all those years. I don't feel as much shame or guilt about what happened to me sexually. I think that just comes from not fully understanding it really.

I think the connections between my psychosis, my hallucinations, my delusions, and being abused, I think basically it just stems from being warned of those hallucinations and delusions. Of course, I was told my entire childhood when I was with this person that everyone's coming after me, everyone knows something about me, and that I'm a bad person in a way. You internalize what is said to you as a kid, what is said to you as a teenager, and

And you start to notice things that just aren't true because that's what you were told. But change started happening. It definitely had a change in how I viewed all my relationships, my friendships, my family, everything, my work relationships. I didn't have to be so paranoid. I didn't have to be so cautious of everything. And quite frankly, I'm still trying to figure out this new reality, not having to be on edge all the time.

My relationship with my mom has drastically improved. I mean, we're like the mother-son duo that we used to always be. Reconnecting with my mom has been the best feeling. At the end of last year, me and my mom had talked for like about six or seven hours, just me and her, about everything that had happened. She had mentioned that she was also going through a rough time because she didn't know what was wrong with me. She didn't know why I dropped out. She didn't know the situation.

I felt a lot of sadness in that, but we're still friends and we're going to continue healing from this. I have a great relationship with my oldest brother. We're family again. We're talking, we're communicating. We have suppers every now and then because I had this realization. My family wasn't afraid to approach me anymore. So we're slowly building back our relationship.

I do go to multiple different support groups. I find that community aspect definitely helps me instead of like a one-on-one type of thing. But that's just my own personal experience. I now realize that I was the problem in many of the situations. My paranoia had gotten in the way of so many of my relationships. I had to find a way to accept that I was a shitty person in my past and how to grow from that.

My counselors and my therapists have tried to tell me like, guilt is such a pointless emotion. You know, there's nothing that we can do to change it. All we can do is just grow from there. I'm only 23 years old now, and there's so much more life to live. When Natasha had passed away and all those posts had gone viral, a ton of drag performers had actually messaged us and said their condolences. I've always been a big fan of drag. I've always loved the RuPaul's Drag Race shows. I've always loved the Drag Race shows. I've always went to local shows.

We knew all the performers, but there was one performer, and she's a big queen on the scene. She had messaged me when she read it. She sent her condolences, and she offered to have me at one of her shows in honor of Natasha. Of course, I said yes, absolutely. I didn't have a costume. I didn't have a drag name. I didn't have anything. I didn't even know how to drag performance worked. But I said yes, and at the end of July, I had my drag debut.

I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know half the fucking words, but it was so much fun. So much fun. I didn't have my next show until November, but that show in November of 2022, it just sparked the passion and my love for drag and my appreciation for drag. And from there, I've gotten tons of bookings. I'm now a part of a house of drag. I'm the first child of a certain house in my province.

In a few months, I have my first booking into another city in my province. I like to think that's a testament to how far I've come in Dragon in a short period of time. That's really exciting. I've also started like a little side hobby of creating costumes for other drag performers as just an extra source of income. I dropped out of college for fashion designing and all these years later, I get to be an actual fashion designer for drag performers. So that's also a really cool experience.

So ever since I joined the drag community, I became a lot more confident in myself. So I started to seek out more ways that I can grow as a person. I found an organization called ASCA, which is Adult Survivors of Child Abuse. And what they do is they take adult survivors of child trauma, whether that be sexual, whether that be emotional, psychological, physical, any type of trauma, we take people who experience those things, turn them from victims to survivors to thrivers.

And this support group is filled with the most genuine, amazing, understanding, patient people I've ever met. It's an incredible organization. And I'm actually in the process of becoming a moderator in different support groups myself. And my goal is to take these support groups and bring it to other communities so that people from other communities can have a support group for themselves.

Multiple moderators in my support group are actually pushing legislation to the Newfoundland government that'll see every single classroom in the province have this kind of presentation where it teaches kids how to spot predators, how to report them, and how to protect yourself from predators. And it could potentially change lives and save lives. So, you know, I'm really excited to be a part of something that's actually making a difference in the world. I don't think that I'm like the personification of like, oh, you know, if I can do it, everyone can do it. If I can go through stuff, then anyone can go through stuff. I don't think I'm that personified.

I just know that you can go through really hard things. You can come out from them. You just got to be kind to yourself. You got to be patient. We all experience pain, no matter how difficult it is. And we all experience things that change us. You can go through the absolute worst of humanity. You can come out on top. You can achieve so many things if you actually just speak up and just take back your life. What you experience is not okay. And what you experience is not your fault. I know how lonely it is, but it gets so much better.

And I'm very much looking forward to my second chance in a way, my new life. Today's episode featured Alex. You can connect with Alex and find out more about him and his drag performances on Instagram at E-L-L-U-M underscore A-Y-O. That's at E-L-L-U-M underscore A-Y-O. ♪

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, Sarah Marinelli, and Andrew Waits, 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.