282: What if you believed you were unlovable?
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The world feels confusing. Like everybody else has a handbook and they know how to navigate healthy relationships and they know how to navigate boundaries. It's like everybody on this planet has a secret language and it's like, I don't get it. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 282.

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My parents were high school sweethearts. My dad was kind of the bad boy, wrote a Harley, tattooed. And my mom has always been really brilliant when it comes to words. And she loves to read. She loves to tell stories. And she could read to him, and he really loved it.

And that was wonderful for her. So she got this attention and this prestige almost from being with this kind of bad guy. And he got somebody to almost parent him. So they both got things that they needed and wanted.

She had me when she was 19 or 18. She was a senior in high school. So was my dad. And then my dad joined the Marines trying to provide for his family. But Marines are notoriously have some of the worst accommodations, which is really unfortunate. We lived in a trailer on the base. And my mom, she got very sick and had to get a full hysterectomy.

Because of the hysterectomy, she couldn't nurse and she also couldn't hold me. And I would say for my mom, that's when things probably went sideways for her. I can't imagine being a teenager with a brand new baby, a husband that's somewhere, and going through menopause. I just couldn't fathom the emotional damage that that did. She just became extremely depressed and

It was just devastating for her to not be able to do these things that she thought she was going to get to do and feel very bonded to me. And that was all taken away. So she just was really very emotional and pretty heartbroken. The second that she could get better, she divorced my dad and we moved to Delaware. And I didn't see him again until I was 10 years old.

I would say one of the most amazing things about my mom was her dedication to learning. She was in college most of my elementary school life, and she was in a Shakespeare class. She was reading Macbeth, and she really wanted me to feel just excited about Shakespeare and

And so my mom would just bring home play after play. And when I was seven, she took me to see Ionesco's Rhinoceros. Oh my God, the play is just remarkable. And she would ask me my opinion and she really was curious. And she wanted to talk about like, what did I see? What did I feel? And she always truly wanted to know my thoughts. She wanted to know why I thought that and what did I see? And then she would tell me her thoughts and

She took me to all these things because, you know, she was a single mom and it was so cool. And then when there was a man in her life, then it was a totally different relationship. I don't think I ever have seen her without bright red lipstick and was so hypersexual. Every comment, every joke was sexual. She just notoriously had obscenely loud sex. There was also a lot of her having sex in the living room.

You know, I can remember like being in elementary school and just being so angry, like I have to get up for school. Could you stop? You know, I can hear you and just being totally ignored.

As a kid, with my mom being so sexual, it felt that that was also what I was indoctrinated into. I felt that a lot of my value and worth was also about my looks and appearance and being sexual.

I was in second grade and she had this particular guy and the night that he came to the apartment we lived in, she had like dressed me up, which was really common for her to do when a man was coming over. She would work really hard to make me like very pretty, always in a dress, little patent leather shoes, little frilly socks. You know, my hair had to be just right. And then she would always inevitably leave us alone.

I don't know why this was something that she did, but for that particular instance with this gentleman, he placed me on his lap and placed his fingers inside of me.

I didn't cry and I didn't say no and I didn't respond other than to know that, okay, this is what I'm supposed to do. You know, this is what is expected of me. This is what men want and this is how we survive.

That night, he had sex with my mom. And it was one of the worst feelings because it felt unfair that he got to do this to both of us. And so like my body never felt like my own. Girls are supposed to have sex. We're supposed to let men touch us. And if you speak against that, then you're going to be the one in trouble.

My mom was sober until I was in about second grade. And I can remember the first time she bought alcohol. And that was the first time I remember her being drunk and just not taking care of me. She just was absolutely hammered. And then my whole life from that point on, my mom was an alcoholic and a Coke user. I don't think I've ever seen her sober since. For me, when my mom became an addict...

She became more a child. I felt like I couldn't trust her to parent me, that I had to also take care of her. And I felt a lot of shame. I mostly just was embarrassed because I didn't want anyone to know that she was an alcoholic. I couldn't count on her for anything. Who could I go to if I was hurt because she was drunk and nothing ever felt safe?

In the apartment complex we lived in, there was like a little girl and she became my best friend. We were inseparable. My mom would drop me off with her family to be babysat. Well, she had an older sister and the older sister had a boyfriend and he was probably like in his 20s.

I was in elementary school and she had two brothers and they were on the floor and we were in the bed and he was sitting between us and we were watching like Dukes of Hazzard or something. And he asked if he could touch me and I said, no. And he said, well, Alicia lets me touch her and you want to be a good girl like Alicia. And I absolutely wanted to be a good girl.

He would tell me to kiss him like an adult. He would make me give him oral sex. And that was really scary and it didn't feel good. And then he would have sex with me. And I was so tiny. It was so awful.

He locked me in the dark a lot, knowing that I was afraid of it. He made me watch scary movies, knowing that I was really afraid of them. He had one of the boys have sex with me and watched

I would beg not to go, especially when Alicia moved away and the sister was still there. I would just beg and beg. I would sit in the closet. I would sit in the car. I would do anything not to go. But she still dropped me off there because the sister was the babysitter. And it was pretty much my entire elementary school experience.

I couldn't talk about it, but I was definitely trying my best to communicate that I didn't want to be there. I would scream at the thought of going there, and nobody was there to stop it. I did try to tell my mom once. I was in seventh grade, maybe eight.

I was on a skating team and my coach was a man. And one time she said, I just want to check to make sure he's not touching you.

And I said, well, no, he's not. But, you know, my childhood and I tried to tell her that I was molested by a babysitter's boyfriend for a number of years. And she started to cry. And in my mind, I thought, oh, my gosh, you know, this is it. This is the moment where my mom really feels for me, really is there. And she told me her childhood sexual assault story. And she never acknowledged mine.

And so I had to, in that moment, take care of her and hold her and tell her it was going to be okay. My mom's eating disorder and her obsession with thinness, that traveled to me as well. I was in eighth grade, and I had to lay down on the bed. And if she couldn't see my hip bones, then I was fat. Anybody that's over 112 pounds is fat.

So I was deathly afraid of ever being over 112 pounds because like being called fat was like the worst insult because it made you undesirable. Anything I did, I did knowing that I didn't have any financial or emotional support. I just went into high school like super, super independent.

more so than any of my peers. Like my peers would have to ask their parents or they'd have to lie like, oh, I'm going to spend the night at this person's house. But I didn't really have to lie about anything because nobody checked. And I also like became like desperate for certain types of friends. So friends who had extra clothes. My mom didn't buy me clothes. Or friends whose houses I could go to and eat at because there wasn't food always in the house.

I wasn't always very nice because of just, I couldn't depend on anyone. So don't ask me for anything. In high school, because my mom had put so much pressure on me, being skinny, like ridiculously skinny was part of my identity.

Just so much of like who I was was wrapped up and being really, really thin. Like I'm this, at least I know I'm skinny. And I didn't necessarily have to work on it because I didn't always have access to food.

My romantic relationships in high school were sexual. And because my mom taught me really early on, you survive through what you can get from a relationship. They wanted sex for me and I would want to go to a concert, you know, or I would want to go get lunch. Intimacy was just a means to an end, but I don't think it ever felt good.

It was either all good or all bad. If somebody even hinted that a teacher or a person that I had deemed good, if they even hinted that they were bad, then they were just like tossed out. It was not even, oh, let me inquire. Like it was just, oh, okay, hard pass on that person. And I couldn't trust men because they might be smiling in my face, but ultimately they're going to try to have sex with me. And in order to survive this situation, I'm going to have to have sex with them.

In relationships, I was also really manipulative. I would tell guys that you're part of a hierarchy, right? Like you're at the top, of course, because you're who I'm dating. But then I also like this person and this person and this person. And I'm not going to not take opportunities to make out with them if it comes up or to do whatever I want. Because I couldn't trust that somebody would actually care about me.

I would do these really crazy things in school and I just, it didn't matter. Like if my peers thought I was weird. And I was also like not afraid to be combative with authority if I felt that that person didn't deserve my respect or even combative with like other people. Like I wasn't afraid to fight, but I

In a way, like I wanted someone to test me because I wanted to feel something, I suppose. And I was quick to also break up with people. When I would date and then somebody would break up with me, it was never like, oh, I'm sad about this, right? Like, it was just like, okay, who cares? I never had the responses that like some of my friends would have when like they were broken up with, they would cry or be really upset. It didn't impact me that in that way.

Even friends, the second they did something wrong, you know, like I didn't like them anymore and I could care less. I didn't have a lot of like sympathy because again, it was good or it was bad.

Even family members, my uncle, because he had everything in his life going well and he lost it all due to his alcohol use. And I remember because he lost it all, then to me, he was all bad. And I was never really nice to him. I can remember like a few days before he died, he called and I tried so hard to show him some kind of love. But because I had written him off for so long, it was so hard to pull it forth.

You know, to me, he was just the worst because how can you have it all, you know, a good house, a good job, a family and ruin it? Once you're bad and you're at risk, you're now stamped the worst. Once you were all bad, it was real hard to come back. Anybody could be on that chopping block.

I think it was 11th grade. There was a girl at the club and she made out with me. And it was the first time I felt something so fluttery and good. And I really wanted more of that. But I couldn't show anything that could be seen as a weakness. And if I was gay, then somebody could potentially use that against me.

And I also didn't feel good enough for women. Like I always held them to a different standard because like I'd never been sexually assaulted by a woman. So I just kind of regarded women differently. So I was always really awkward around them. Like even the few close girlfriends I had, I was so fucking awkward. Like I wouldn't know how to like navigate that relationship because they were so mysterious because it was like, what do they want? Why are they here? Why do they want to be my friend?

I didn't trust anyone except for teachers because they were the avenue to getting me the fuck out of this situation. And so always wanted to be around teachers. I was such a good student. I was such a super nerd because I had to go to college because I had to get myself out of this because no one was going to do it for me.

So I actually ended up getting into the college of my dreams and I was over the top. I couldn't believe that I'd gotten in. Like, here's this college that I had just dreamt of ever since I was in elementary school, ever since like seeing a play. This is my ticket. And because it was a private school, it was also pretty expensive.

So that was devastating. And I was like, okay, I'm going to do everything I can to get to this college. And I'm going to just start. I'm going to start paying for one class at a time at the community college. My whole goal was to graduate with this associate's degree and then immediately try to get into Rollins. Somehow, someway, you know, I had to get there.

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I was in my last semester with my associates and we would always go to this like kind of hipsterish coffee shop, some friends of mine. And one of my friends said, you know, oh, you really need to meet this guy. I think you'd really like him. So I went to the coffee shop and, you know, he was there and immediately I could tell like he was attracted to me and he was a teacher.

So he already got points and he was also going to Rollins. I think he was getting his master's and I was like, oh wow, the school I'm dreaming of going to. He was just so smart and he had money and he would buy my coffee and do whatever. And I thought that was incredibly cool.

On the outside, he just looked like Milk Toast, you know, just your average white dude. But then he was like covered in tattoos and he had gone to like hardcore shows. And I just thought that was so cool that he could like pass as being just, you know, typical guy. And underneath it all, had a double life.

He was polite and nice and friendly and charismatic and funny. All these things that I found really attractive. And he was sober, so I didn't have to worry about the awkward conversation of, "I don't let alcohol in my house and I don't do any drugs." He just seemed so grounded and mature and he said all the right things.

November, he had asked me for Christmas if he could take me to Spain. And I was just like, oh my God, this guy's amazing. Like, absolutely. You want to take me? I have no money and you're willing to pay for everything? Yes. We were in Spain for like two weeks and it was awesome. And then halfway through the trip, one of his students met us there, which I thought was strange. And she stayed in the hotel room with us.

Which I was like, huh. But then again, boundaries were really a confusing thing for me. So if, you know, her parents were okay with it, then why shouldn't I be? And then there were a couple other times where I was like, this seems odd. Like he really liked to get me drunk and then for me to hook up with women and he would watch that. That really excited him.

But again, to me, it was like, "Meh." I could easily write this off because that's something men fantasize about that, right? I kept excusing so much of it because he was going to save me. I was 25.

Some of my high school friends were married with kids and I was still like going to punk rock shows. I was getting tattooed. I was going out to the bar. I was sleeping with whomever I wanted. You know, I could get away with just about anything. I had zero responsibility. Zero. None.

Then all of a sudden I turned 25 and I have like this thing like, okay, I guess I need to get married. You know, that's what normal people do. Like I was constantly searching for what normal is because I didn't have that foundation. He came into my life at like just the right moment.

He also promised that he would pay for me to go to Rollins and he would pay for all these trips and I could live with him and I wouldn't have to worry about money and all I'd have to do, you know, is marry him. That seemed like a fair exchange. We didn't know each other very long, not even a year, and we got married and I get taken care of and I have a home and it's safe. This is the life.

And it just was like this totally different world of not worrying about things. It was the freest I ever felt. Like, I was just floored that people live like this. People don't have to live in fear and people don't have to live in constant state of survival. It just was amazing.

His parents were so sweet. And because I was his wife and I didn't really understand or know what that meant, his mom said, well, a wife takes care of her husband, you know? So like it was my job every day to make sure his clothes were laid out and the shirt had to be ironed perfectly. It was my job to clean the house. It was my job to pack his lunch. It was my job to make sure there was dinner. It was my job to have sex whenever he wanted. There was no way to say no.

Sometimes I would fake being asleep because it didn't feel good. He would still wake me up because that was part of my job. I had never been one to watch pornography. Just because dealing with so much sex in my life, I just didn't care about that kind of stuff.

And so he like slowly started like, hey, look, you want to look at this video with me? It's really fun. And the first time I watched it, I was just like, oh, this is awful. You know, this makes me uncomfortable. And it was like, okay, well, let's try this one. And then slowly but surely, it was like an every night. And so I just was like, oh, okay, this is what we're doing tonight. We're watching this porn.

There was a night where he had like a friend of mine come over and had all this booze and we drank. And then I think I fell asleep and then she fell asleep. And then like I kind of woke up and he was having sex with me, like why she was right there. And it just felt like super dirty, but I couldn't say no because it was my job to always say yes. I was having sex all the time and I didn't like it and it wasn't on my terms.

Perfect wives do this, and they don't argue, and they have the perfect dinner, and the perfect lunch, and the perfect outfit. I was so stressed. I was like, I can't mess up ever. My whole personhood became whatever he liked, whatever he wanted. I had no identity. I just was his wife, his

He had moved me away from my hometown that I grew up in where all my friends were. So I was also now isolated. And the only people I saw regularly was his family. And so like my whole world became like his family and him. And then it became like his classes and his students.

The teenagers, his students were so integrated into our lives that they would call us and ask questions or talk about something or needed advice or they were always around us or we were always at their house. It was so normal that teenagers were just around. He would stay out with these students and I would just be sitting at home because I never wanted to leave the house.

Because he's so charming and on the outside, our life looked charming. No one said, isn't that odd that like these teenagers are always around you guys? There was not a lot of questioning. There was a night where one student was spending the night at our house and he had just told me, he said, oh, just so you know, she's spending the night.

He picked her up and picked me up and we went to dinner and he doesn't drink. So he ordered a bottle of wine and he just kept pouring my glass. Then when we got home, there was like more alcohol encouraging me to drink and keep drinking and keep drinking and keep drinking. And I remember just being like unbelievably intoxicated.

I blacked out and when I came to, he was having sex with this girl and I also didn't have any clothes on. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. I just wanted it to be over. And then he took her home the next day and I called my closest friend at the time and

I told him what happened, but I was justifying it like, it's not bad, right? He was just like, well, that doesn't sound right. I think that's when if there is any semblance of identity or sanity left, it was absolutely gone. I'm 5'7 and I've dropped down to like 90 pounds. I didn't want to be alive anymore.

I just hated myself so much. I just, I didn't want to be a bad person. And I'm a good girl, right? So I didn't tell anybody. Things were just really, really bad. And I hated myself so much. I stopped any kind of talking to any friends. I just was a shell.

We were away on a school trip, and in the middle of the night, he got a call, and he was charged with two different counts of lewd acts with a minor. We had to fly back, and it was all over the news. I was so ashamed and embarrassed.

And he said, don't worry, he's got a plan. I'm going to be safe and don't talk to anybody because, you know, I couldn't be trusted not to say things. He was charged. He was in jail and he just kept saying like, oh, he's going to fix it and he's not going to let anything bad happen to me. So anytime he talked to me, it was about like me being this kind of person and me doing something wrong.

Because of all the pornography, he told me, okay, get it all together and go bury it. And then get his computer and go and bury it. Okay, no questions asked. I went and did that.

It was all under the context of like, see, I'm going to make sure you don't get in trouble for having porn. I'm going to make sure you don't get in trouble for looking up porn on the computer. And he was like, you know, you better do this because you don't want something bad to happen to you. And it's like, oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, I better do that. I thought my whole life was over. It just like confirmed that I was a bad person, that I was bad. I thought that I was just evil, disgusting, disgusting.

The one student that had spent the night, her sister is the one that actually spoke up. She was younger and I was really shocked. He convinced me, well, they're in this together. Like she's lying. They always said that they were going to try to take a teacher down. Like they thought it would be a fun game. He kept saying like, oh, this, this isn't that bad. I'm not being charged with like rape. And it was like, oh, okay. He could get out of it.

There was one statement in there where he had had the younger sister like perform a sex act on him. I remember that specific night because they were late coming back from something. And I said like, oh, hmm, this is that night that you were late.

And he said, well, I did lie. We didn't get pulled over. She became suicidal and we pulled over and she cried. And that's why I had her glitter all over my body. And I was like, oh, okay. Again, like I'm going to take whatever he says as the truth because I can't trust myself. And he had an answer for all of it.

His parents bailed him out, and then he was home waiting for the trial. He was trying to find any way possible to make money to support his legal case.

Suicide girls were starting up and he said, you're tattooed and you're skinny and you've got this look. You can do these things. And then selling the image of me. And then he would film me or he would film us having sex or invite a friend over to do a sex scene.

We would go on these chat rooms where I'm talking dirty with somebody. And it would oftentimes be like him helping me, you know, formulate what to say. I was just this object to be sold. I was back to my worth and value being sex-oriented.

It was so easy to kind of lean back into that because it was so much a part of my childhood and I had to do what was best for this family because look at, he's saving me. So if this means me going on a date and having sex with somebody, that's what I'm going to do because he still loves me even though I'm this bad person. We're still waiting for these charges.

It wasn't like this discouraged him at all. He had so much confidence that nothing bad was going to happen to him. Because no matter what, I would lie for him. I would do anything for him. My mental health, it plummeted. If he wasn't around, I was scared. But then when he was around, I was scared. I was scared to go to sleep. But then all I wanted to do was sleep.

I was constantly afraid of the bathroom. I was afraid of the shower. I was afraid of the dark. I was afraid of chewing. I was afraid of choking. I was afraid of being too skinny. I was afraid of being in trouble. I didn't want to drive anywhere. I didn't want to leave the house

If my bladder got a little full, just even a little, I had to empty it right away. And if I didn't get to the bathroom in time, it didn't matter. It didn't matter if it was my clothes, it didn't matter if I was on the couch, it didn't matter if I was in the car, it didn't matter. I had to constantly keep emptying my bladder.

I just was petrified of every single thing. Everything was dangerous and nothing was safe. Nothing. And I couldn't tell anybody because if I did, then look at what a bad person I am. And two, look at what kind of person I chose. I chose to marry this person. So what does it say about me? We're about a year in to waiting for like the trial.

I was watching the news because it just was what was on in the morning. And that's when the first airplane hit. That morning was September 11th. And I remember just being in utter shock. I couldn't stop crying and I was inconsolable. And he was crying and it was just such a horrible thing to see.

And I wanted to do something. I wanted to, like, do good things and help people. And that's when he came up with the idea that I should join the military. I had never wanted to join the military. Like, I'd always been this kind of artsy type and also, like, very much fuck authority type.

To me, that didn't make any sense. But he told me like, this is what I should do. I should join the military because since his charges aren't so bad, maybe they'll let him go everywhere with me.

And his hope was that this would look favorable in the courts, that I was this all-American, you know, how could you take him away from me? I'm going to be fighting and defending the country and going to war. Like, what kind of cruel person would take their support? And I mean, I was sold. I was like, okay, this is going to make sure that I'm safe. Will do.

I walked into like the army recruiting office. I was so freaking naive. And I just walked in and I was like, hi, I would like to join. I need to do something for my country. Like just trying to repeat the things that he had told me. I didn't know to ask for a sign on bonus. I didn't know to ask for a specific school. I didn't know. I just was like, yes, sign me up and send me to war.

I started the paperwork and the Army at the time had rules about tattoos. And the Navy recruiter got my attention right away. He's like, "Hey, come here." And I was like, "Yeah?" And he said, "We don't have any rules about tattoos in the Navy." And I was like, "Okay." And I told them about my husband and the charges and they told me what to say and what not to say when I get interviewed. So they got me all ready.

But they also got me like a really sweet job in the military. They got me a sign-on bonus. I didn't know anything about that. They got me really set up. With any branch, you have to wait until there's enough females to have an actual group. And so I had to wait. And while I waited, the trial came.

Right before we went into the court, he said, "Just so you know, I'm going to plead guilty because I don't want anything bad to happen to you. And so I'm going to do this for you. While I'm in jail, you need to take care of me while you're in the military." I was like, "Oh, okay. Wow, you're sacrificing yourself for me." I was under some belief that nothing bad was going to happen.

The judge was going to hear his story and show mercy because what a good guy to plead guilty, right? He's doing the right thing. After he pled guilty, the parents of the girls and the girls, they got to say their impact statements, which was very heartbreaking. I could see how hurt this whole family was because of his actions.

The dad got up and he was crying and I felt like a piece of shit. These girls were so, so brave in the moment. I was sad, but I was angry because I was convinced that they had done something to us. They were out to hurt us. And then I was so scared.

I'm there with his mom and his dad all holding each other's hands. And the judge, he looked at my husband and he said that he wishes he could give him more time. I remember that being like very odd to me. Like there's no way he's going to really go to jail. Like that's not going to happen. But the judge then gave him his sentence, which was a total of 10 years. I was in shock. And I remember everything going black.

I couldn't wrap my brain around it. Like, how will I function? Who will tell me what to do? Who will tell me who I am? Who am I if I'm not his wife? He's going away. Like, he's not coming home. The girls started crying because they were relieved. And they handcuffed him. And I immediately, like, got sick. And I said goodbye.

Within about five days, I lost my husband. My car was repossessed. I lost my job because I couldn't get out of bed because all I could do was cry. Literally within five days, I had lost everything. I stayed at his parents' house because they moved me there.

Like after a week, she told me to get up and that it was time to stop. And so they like took me to the mall to get like a little job while I waited for the military to call me up. And then they did.

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When I left for boot camp, I remember like being really scared. But as soon as you're off the bus, no one's hand-holding. No one gives a shit if you're scared. The military provided things that I had never had before. It provided structure and safety and security and health care.

I hadn't had healthcare, I hadn't been to a dentist, I hadn't experienced regular meals every single day and knowing exactly what every single day was going to hold. And I loved it. And I thrived. By this point, I had cut off all communication with my now ex-husband. I had sought out therapy because I had had a really bad panic attack.

I lost a significant amount of weight because I had become so afraid of dying because food would get somehow stuck in my throat. I was back down to like in the 90s, if not in the 80s. The day I told her my story, I thought she was gonna just tell me how gross I was and bad. And she was so understanding. She was amazing. She saved my life.

we started unpacking the trauma and naming it and naming it trauma and giving a name felt so validating getting me to see that i was victimized that i wasn't an evil or bad person that i was worthy of love and worthy of compassion and that i was a fighter and none of these things had crossed my mind

I was by myself and I started learning to like myself and to love myself. I felt like I could breathe. When Don't Ask, Don't Tell was overturned, it was like the next day, it was like, I can explore this.

I've always known, I think, somewhere that I was gay. But because I loved women, right, I couldn't manipulate them. I couldn't hurt them. And because I thought I was inherently a bad person and inherently evil, me trying to date one would only, like, subject them to me, you know, because I'm just bad. And then once I was in the military, well, I definitely couldn't because my job, my career was more important than

And when Don't Ask, Don't Tell was overturned, I just remember like telling myself, okay, I get to explore this. I'm going to set up a profile for

and I set it up like for only women. And I remember like the night I did it, it was like super giggly. Like I couldn't believe I was doing it. And yeah, and then now my now wife, we talked and the moment I saw her, it was like I was so in love with her. She's so loving and healthy and understanding. And I just fell madly in love.

The courtship was really short. We got married two months after knowing each other, but we've been married now for 10 years or going on 10 years. She's just the best. I made it a really big mission of mine while active duty to help anybody who wanted to come out and that nobody was going to be bullied or harmed.

I made sure that if anyone had a DD-214, which is like your separation paperwork that shows unfavorable discharge due to like homosexual acts, you know, then if they wanted to have that rewritten, I could help them, you know, anything I could do. But that also put a target on my back.

I started getting in like lots of trouble for everything, the littlest things. I'd sent an email with updates of my office and what all has happened. And a lot of times when people send out these emails, they also add like a tiny snippet of their life. Like they had a child, they bought a house. So I thought, okay, I can add that. And I added, you know, that I met the love of my life and I'm happily married to, you know, my wife.

That got me written up because I had mentioned getting married. I thought, "Okay, well, I'm going to get in trouble." And Captain's Mass is like a court almost. And so I was petrified of being in trouble and being bad. And all of that came flashing back. And I thought, "Okay, I'm not any use to anybody if I don't have this as my identity. And so I should just die."

I had a plan and this is what I was going to do. I was going to just drive off the cliff or off a bridge and die. My wife noticed something was off and she stopped me and she asked if I was okay and I lost it. I was taken to the hospital and I was put inpatient for about a month. And then I eventually was discharged because I could no longer be active duty.

I became very depressed and I saw a veteran therapist for the VA to deal with the depression, anxiety, PTSD, everything. And that's when she told me that I had borderline. And I at first was pissed because I didn't want to have borderline. How dare she say that to me?

I told my wife and she was like, well, let's look into it. And yeah, all the criteria. I couldn't believe it. And I was like in shock. My therapist challenged my old patterns. We challenged the thought that I was somehow inherently unlovable. And I am so grateful to her.

I went back to school to get my master's in mental health counseling, and I was thinking while I was in school, I want to help people like me. I want people with borderline to feel like they're not alone, that they're not bad people, that they get to be seen and understood.

And I had told my professor that I had borderline and that that's what I wanted to do. And he told me not to tell anybody ever, you know, not to tell any of my classmates, not to tell any other professors and definitely not tell anybody I work for.

I said, you know, if I was an addict helping other addicts, that's a good thing. Like that's encouraged, like definitely disclose your addiction history. If I have anxiety, people disclose that and it normalizes. What's so bad about this? Why can't I normalize it? Why can't people be seen? And, you know, basically it was like, well, this is totally different because borderlines are difficult people.

And even he was like, you're not full borderline. Basically, I'm not losing my shit. I'm able to convey my thoughts, right? I have a marriage and I'm not just blurting out sexual language or cutting my, you know, like I'm not a fucking asshole. And I was so offended and I refused to listen to him.

My first job as a therapist, that was definitely looked down on. My second job, I lacked the ability to notice boundaries. And I was fired because, you know, I had disclosed

Now, my third job where I'm at now, I disclosed and my boss who's amazing said, "Okay, now I know what to look out for." She has never shamed me for having it. We use it. We use it effectively.

So I think with borderline, what makes it so stigmatized is that anytime we see it portrayed artistically, it's portrayed as this awful person, almost like they're sociopathic and not dissing anyone who has psychopathy. But even for a while, like the language online was don't date somebody who has borderline. Don't trust somebody who has borderline.

A therapist would say when they have a client who suffers with borderline, they would say, ugh, my borderline client. Whereas every other diagnosis, it's identified that somebody suffers with it. Whereas borderline, it becomes like the whole entity. It's all you have to say. Like, I'm having a hard time with a client. Why? What's going on? Borderline. Oh, yeah. I don't know how you're dealing with that.

It's such a painful diagnosis because the crux of it is just kind of always having this well inside of you that can't be ever filled and not ever feel good enough. The thirst is never satiated. It's like I need validation for my worth and value because I have no skills to do it for myself. Because when I think of me, I'm horrible.

What makes Borderline unique is that you hurt the ones you love and then that you're confused why they would leave. It is this distorted view of anybody that gets close to you. It's like, come here, hug me. And while you're doing that, I'm punching the shit out of you. But don't you dare stop hugging me.

And so it makes it exhausting. It's not an easy disorder to treat. The level of anger and viciousness and being attacked, it drains people. And it's just so confusing. And it's confusing for people who love people with borderline. It's confusing for family members. It's confusing for the sufferer. I'm not naive to that, for sure. But being diagnosed with it, it can feel like a life sentence.

You know, like I knew I was a bad person and now here's the proof. For me, having borderline, it's the feeling of absolute self-hatred. It's this feeling that I'm going to fail at everything. I think what's really hard is that it feels so lonely. The world feels confusing.

Like everybody else has a handbook and they know how to navigate healthy relationships and they know how to navigate boundaries. What is too much or what's inappropriate or what is just somebody saying, hey, can we talk? And it's not them saying they hate you.

It's like everybody on this planet has a secret language and it's like, I don't get it. I can't navigate the world that everybody else is navigating. It just feels lonely.

I feel like there's diagnoses that you can see the progress. Borderline is not like that. It's exhausting for the person who has it. It's exhausting for the people who treat it. It's exhausting for the people who love somebody. It's so alienating.

One of the constants with anybody I have ever seen who has borderline is that they have had to suffer the trauma knowing that there's this part of them that hurts and then this community that I work in, shame it. It breaks my heart and I get angry and I correct people because people who

who suffer with borderline, they are not their disorder only. Because they're so afraid also of being hurt, they'll push people away. You know, my clients push me away all the time. I have to deal with a lot of rejection, which has made me face that fear. I have to remind myself, they get to have their voice heard and they get to have autonomy and

And they get to also know that I'll still be here if they ever want to come back. And it's okay to push me away because I won't judge that. People are on their journey and I have to respect that.

Once you start to like really get someone to slow down and it's like, oh, they can be grounded and we can heal. We can get better. We can have lasting, loving relationships. We can be good parents. We can be excellent employees. We can. But people that are in our realm often just fucking, they burn out.

As a therapist now, I almost exclusively see borderline patients. And that always feels like such a deep honor to get to be part of my community and do something for this community. And that I get to be a therapist at all is amazing.

that I get to do this job that I love and that I get to pay it back because therapists saved my life. I get to say, "Oh, okay, I see you have borderline." Like, "Yeah, there's some shame." And then I always say like that I also have borderline. And so you can just talk. Like you don't have to change the language. Like you and I, we speak the same language.

And there's such a relief, like their face immediately lightens up. They're like, okay, so you get it. I'm like, yep, I get it. So I'm ready when you are. Let's dig. If I could wish it away, I would. But at the same time, I think it makes me a resilient human being. I'm so thankful for the traumas. I wouldn't change them. I don't regret them.

There are definitely times where I'm embarrassed or ashamed or still processing, but they made me who I am. You know, I try to say that every disorder has a superpower. And like borderline, it has a superpower. My superpower, my personal superpower is having compassion for individuals who try so very hard to push somebody away or not be seen.

To find this ability to love, even when love has been used as a weapon, I feel like that's my superpower. Today's guest requested to remain anonymous. But if you'd like to reach out to her, you can email at stickandsand60.3 at gmail.com. That's stickandsand60.3 at gmail.com.

From Wondery, you're listening to This Is Actually Happening.

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