EP 18 - Sara

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Speaker 27 This whole experience really made me doubt my abilities as a parent and myself as a person.

Speaker 27 Basically, every aspect of my identity that I had spent so long trying to find,

Speaker 27 it like shook everything.

Speaker 28 I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

Speaker 28 This is the story of an entire community. One group of parents who experienced a shocking deception and overcame it together.

Speaker 28 We'll hear more from the larger community later, but for the majority of this episode, we're going to tell it through one person's perspective. We'll call her Sarah.

Speaker 28 Sarah is living her best life as an organic farmer in Vermont. She exudes cool.
She's covered in tattoos and rocks a shaved head.

Speaker 27 I never have to

Speaker 27 have a bad hair day. I just don't ever have hair.

Speaker 28 She grew up in the Northeast as the oldest child in her family. When she was little, little, her parents struggled to make ends meet, and her father battled addiction.

Speaker 28 Sarah remembers a time when her parents were skeptical about organized religion. Even the Christian undertones in cartoons like Veggie Tales made her parents uncomfortable.

Speaker 27 I remember a conversation where my parents were like going back and forth and they were like, well, it's just vegetables. It seems fine, even though there's the religious stuff.

Speaker 27 My parents were pretty anti-religion.

Speaker 28 But when Sarah was around 10, her parents' religious beliefs began to shift.

Speaker 27 My dad kind of got warmed up to it when he was in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then less than a year later, we were completely embroiled in a cult.

Speaker 28 It started when her mom was recruited to join a local church.

Speaker 27 They were really nice to us. They were really supportive of my mom.

Speaker 27 She made friends and she struggles a lot to make friends. And so she felt very at home there.

Speaker 27 And my dad kind of hit it off with a couple of the other dads. And it seemed like a really good community.

Speaker 27 Before we knew it, we were involved in Quiverful.

Speaker 28 Quiverful is a fundamentalist Christian movement focused on having and raising as many children as possible.

Speaker 28 Her parents seemed happy in their new church and they became more involved in Sarah's life than ever.

Speaker 27 I just turned 11 at this time. So this was an improvement.
It seemed like when people said like, this is the right path, it seemed believable to me.

Speaker 28 This church became her new normal.

Speaker 27 The services were a little bit intense. Lots of like crying and speaking in tongues and stuff like that.
But I was like, okay, well, sometimes they had a potluck after.

Speaker 28 For an 11-year-old, the potluck desserts like jello were enticing.

Speaker 27 Then I started kind of moving beyond the jell-o and we all got baptized. And then there was like purity stuff, a lot of purity stuff.
So I

Speaker 27 pledged my virginity to the church and my dad.

Speaker 27 And it was almost like a wedding. These pretty white dresses and go up to an altar.
And it literally looks like a mass wedding, but it's like little girls all marrying their dad. But I was like, 11.

Speaker 27 So I was like, oh my God, I get to dress fancy and have a little present and more more jello. So yay.

Speaker 28 The standards around purity were very high.

Speaker 27 It was normal for people in our community to save their first kiss for marriage.

Speaker 28 Sarah's naturally curious, and that was tough to navigate in this community.

Speaker 27 Between me not having been raised in this environment and having like a

Speaker 27 rebellious spirit is what I always got told. Just mostly just because I asked a lot of questions.
It really put a bad light on our family.

Speaker 28 Eventually, she fell in line.

Speaker 27 It's definitely been like kind of hammered in there to

Speaker 27 trust authority completely. Like, there's a reason they're in this position.
I was totally 100% in. Like, I believed it fully.

Speaker 28 Her little sister, who was nine, struggled and was deemed a bad kid by church standards.

Speaker 27 She got kind of stuck with the

Speaker 27 bad kids. Everyone said that they were always pulling shenanigans and they were too loud, which they were just normal kids looking back.
They were just like nine-year-olds.

Speaker 28 Some families in their church had as many as 20 children. For the church, big families served a higher purpose.

Speaker 27 You are basically trying to birth an army for the end times. which you're told could come at any time.

Speaker 27 So it already feels too late because it takes like, you know, a couple years for kids to be able to grow up. So they're like, you got to have babies now.

Speaker 28 Even though they already had six kids, Sarah's mom felt pressure to grow their family, but she was struggling to have more.

Speaker 27 She was getting blamed for her issues with not being able to have like a ton of kids. It seemed like her fault for having a rebellious and like worldly family.

Speaker 28 The church believed that God blessed you with as many kids as you could handle. So, if a family was struggling to have more children, it was because their existing kids were disobedient.

Speaker 28 In order to get closer to God, Sarah's mom tried to control her kids, and she did it by following the church's teaching.

Speaker 27 You start corporal punishment at birth. If they bite you while they're nursing, you pull their hair.

Speaker 27 If they don't have hair, you use the switch.

Speaker 28 Sarah was only 12 when her mom asked her to use a switch on her newborn sister.

Speaker 27 I'm also a kid, and no matter how much indoctrination there was, I just could not bring myself to do that. It felt like some Stanford prison experiment kind of thing.

Speaker 28 This was a defining moment for Sarah.

Speaker 27 At that point, I started questioning, is it because I'm not faithful enough? Is it because I shouldn't be a mother? Or is this just wrong?

Speaker 27 And that was the first time I had considered it might be wrong.

Speaker 28 She started questioning the church, specifically how they parented and the strictly enforced gender roles.

Speaker 27 One of the weird things about Quiverful is like, boys will be boys until they're 45,

Speaker 27 but girls are future mothers in training from day one.

Speaker 28 When Sarah was 14, she started going to public school. This was actually a form of punishment.
But there, she met a new friend who opened her eyes to another way of living.

Speaker 28 And her friend's mom was worried about Sarah's home life.

Speaker 27 They were so concerned, and rightfully so. She basically told me to come and live with them, and she would lie to my mom.
about where I was if she asked. My mom was not that invested, to be honest.

Speaker 27 She didn't really come look in.

Speaker 28 Soon, Sarah stopped coming home altogether

Speaker 27 and so i ended up moving in with this family and they

Speaker 27 really did everything in their power to help me out and so i do refer to her as my foster mom even though i was never officially in the foster care system

Speaker 27 she adored her new foster family especially her foster mom she wanted me to have like good role models and got me involved in the community in a Jewish community.

Speaker 27 She was never pushy about anything and they were really good role models. Jewish people don't proselytize, which I found very strange.

Speaker 27 I was like, are they trying to convert me? And she's like, they don't want you to convert. That's not a thing.
They just want to give you some food. And I was like, oh, cool.

Speaker 28 Through her foster family, she was welcomed into the Jewish faith. They nurtured her natural curiosity.

Speaker 27 That was what was most appealing to me. I had a million questions and they were excited to answer the questions with more questions.

Speaker 27 There was never like a shut up, don't ask that. It was like, so this is three different opinions that most people have, and this is my opinion.
What do you think?

Speaker 28 Sarah was smart and inquisitive about the world, but she'd fallen behind in school.

Speaker 27 My parents had taken me out of school in fourth grade. And so from fourth grade to the end of sophomore year, I had no education.

Speaker 28 On her 18th birthday, Sarah dropped out. After that, she decided to leave her foster family's home too.

Speaker 27 I didn't want to burden this family, so I left them as well.

Speaker 27 I hadn't been taught how to like live with normal people. It was just like time for me to go.

Speaker 27 But they were instrumental in my running away from the cult.

Speaker 27 And so I left and I went to the nearest city and I was homeless for a year.

Speaker 27 At first I was on the street and then I was in a shelter.

Speaker 27 For the first few months it was really rough and then I got a job at a tattoo studio and I became a body piercer there through an apprenticeship. It was like my passion.
It was so much fun.

Speaker 28 She didn't leave everything from her old life behind. She still wanted faith in her life somehow.
Being exposed to Judaism in her foster family inspired Sarah to officially convert.

Speaker 27 It gave me a sense of community and a sense of stability that I think I was missing, and like this very kind

Speaker 27 group of people who want to support you, and you don't owe them anything for that. That's really nice for me.
It's comforting.

Speaker 27 Like, I don't like go to bed wondering if I'm going to wake up still part of my only community.

Speaker 28 She also decided to start dating. That's when she met Paul.
She was swiping on Tinder and his profile made her laugh.

Speaker 27 He had like mostly pictures of frogs, but they were like from Google with like the watermark.

Speaker 27 I was like, that's really strange.

Speaker 27 And so I was curious and started talking to him and he was like hilarious.

Speaker 28 For their first date, he brought her a surprise.

Speaker 27 He brought me a Stuart Little 2 poster as a gift. I was like, what a weird guy.

Speaker 28 They dated casually for about six months, going on dates when they both had time and money to spare.

Speaker 27 That was until the day of COVID lockdown in 2020, I found out I was pregnant.

Speaker 28 As soon as she saw the pregnancy test, she knew she would keep the baby.

Speaker 27 I have terrible PCOS, so I did not think I was able to get pregnant, which is part of why I wanted to keep the pregnancy so bad.

Speaker 28 She was prepared to go it alone with or without Paul. After she took a few minutes to process the news, she called him.

Speaker 27 Both of us were just kind of crying and just

Speaker 27 like trying to figure out like what to say to the other person. And so I told him like,

Speaker 27 I want to be a mom like really bad.

Speaker 27 And I was like, you don't have to have anything to do with this.

Speaker 27 But he really wanted to be like a present and good dad.

Speaker 28 After that day, Sarah moved in with him.

Speaker 28 On some level, she felt prepared for parenthood. After all, she'd been taking care of young children her whole life.

Speaker 27 I felt very comfortable with my ability to keep babies alive. Like, I've done this a million times.
I know exactly what I'm doing.

Speaker 28 But the environment she'd grown up in wasn't emotionally healthy or nurturing. And she knew one thing for certain.
She wasn't going to raise her baby the way she was raised.

Speaker 28 She would have to find another way. She would need resources.

Speaker 27 Being an emotionally present and caring parent who's raising a person,

Speaker 27 I was like, oh my God,

Speaker 27 I have no idea what I'm doing.

Speaker 27 Like, I need help now.

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Speaker 8 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 12 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 13 That's pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 14 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 16 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 18 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 20 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 15 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 21 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws at it.

Speaker 16 And here's the kicker.

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Speaker 22 Right now, get up to 60% off in Black Friday savings because no one should have to live with a stain that won't quit.

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Speaker 28 Sarah's pregnancy was a fresh start for her, a chance to mold a new life and a safe, supportive family. It started with her and Paul.

Speaker 27 I had like dated a couple people before,

Speaker 27 but I had not

Speaker 27 had a partner.

Speaker 28 She would learn the meaning of true partnership during pregnancy.

Speaker 27 I did have a super high-risk pregnancy. and I had to be on bed rest from like week 12.

Speaker 27 It was awful. It was terrible.
I I had to quit my job. He had to support me and take care of me, like physically put me in the shower and help me shower.
And like,

Speaker 27 he was amazing.

Speaker 27 He bought me a Kindle, loaded it up with like every book ever.

Speaker 27 And he would like put my socks on me so my feet didn't get cold. So I didn't have to like kick the blanket around to try to get it back over me.

Speaker 27 And he would do his work in the bedroom whenever possible so that I just had like a person nearby.

Speaker 27 He just took amazing care of me.

Speaker 28 And she learned by his example.

Speaker 27 So that really turned things for me. I was like, okay,

Speaker 27 a successful relationship between friends, between partners, between parents and children is like a huge mutual effort to make the other person feel cared for.

Speaker 28 She reached out to her friends who had young kids, and she started by calling two friends whose parenting styles she admired.

Speaker 27 They had both suggested that I join some gentle parenting groups on Facebook.

Speaker 28 Being bedridden for her entire pregnancy meant she had a lot of time on her hands. She browsed group after group until she found one that really resonated.
And it was a huge community.

Speaker 27 I think at the height, there was like a couple hundred thousand.

Speaker 27 And everybody in there, it seemed

Speaker 27 was like focused on the same goal that I was we're like raising a functional confident compassionate person and I was like okay this seems like a really good place for me to be

Speaker 28 she started spending hours every day in the group reading every post and asking questions of her own

Speaker 27 I was trying to absorb every single molecule of gentle, kind parenting advice that I could fit in my brain in the course of nine months.

Speaker 28 Sarah made real friends through the group and she noticed a pattern.

Speaker 27 Almost everyone in the group was trying to break some kind of cycle of like abuse or neglect and a lot of people were like, my childhood was hellish and I am never letting that happen.

Speaker 27 So it just seemed like a really supportive community for people who were trying to do better for their kids.

Speaker 28 For Sarah, this was more than just a Facebook group. It was personal.
She was estranged from her family.

Speaker 28 So this group became a real community, supporting her through pregnancy and celebrating with her.

Speaker 27 With groups based around cycle breaking, some people don't have a family to celebrate with them. And so we would be

Speaker 27 that family. A person you don't even know would be like, oh my gosh, after four years of trying, we're finally pregnant and we got our first soldier sound and it's twins.

Speaker 27 And we would all be like, oh my God.

Speaker 27 Genuinely, I was so excited for these people.

Speaker 28 There was a hierarchy in the group. Four admins approved every post and enforced the community guidelines.

Speaker 27 So the admins in the group, they were like moderating, approving posts, but they were also kind of like leaders in the group. Because, you know, people come there with crisis level stuff.

Speaker 27 So if you're really struggling with something, they're the first people to see the post because they approve it and they

Speaker 27 really go out of their way to make sure that people are safe.

Speaker 28 Sarah had a lot in common with one of the admins, who we'll call Becky.

Speaker 27 She had posted a lot about

Speaker 27 being a Jewish parent.

Speaker 28 Becky was a huge presence in the group.

Speaker 27 She was like an admin and a super frequent poster. People were very invested in her life.
People knew her kid by first name and like people had her birth announcements on their fridge.

Speaker 28 Becky was a successful attorney who'd overcome a great deal of adversity.

Speaker 27 She had just a really

Speaker 27 difficult upbringing. I mean, the odds were completely stacked against her.
She was a teen mom. She had her first baby so young.
She had also suffered child loss,

Speaker 27 which was unimaginable to me

Speaker 27 just like thinking about you know how much i loved my son before i had even met him i think that's every parent's worst fear

Speaker 28 becky's toddler had passed away unexpectedly she was a resource and a guiding light for other parents in the group who experienced the same tragedy becky managed this grief while raising six other kids But the tragedy didn't end there.

Speaker 28 Her oldest child had recently been the victim of an anti-gay hate crime.

Speaker 27 The sympathy and like hurt that I felt for her, knowing that her kid had been through this

Speaker 27 awful.

Speaker 28 Becky posted all the details of the hate crime in the group.

Speaker 27 There were hundreds of comments being like, we love you, Becky.

Speaker 27 People were

Speaker 27 just

Speaker 27 so

Speaker 27 genuinely caring for her.

Speaker 27 She was receiving gifts, some of them monetary.

Speaker 27 She was getting constant affection and attention

Speaker 27 from

Speaker 27 everyone.

Speaker 28 But despite all this hardship, Becky was thriving in her career and putting her all into raising her six children. She was a supermom.

Speaker 27 Like, she's amazing. You know, she had her kid in these cultural emergency schools and she was taking these incredible trips.

Speaker 27 Like, they went to Scotland and like she had these beautiful, enriching, individualized lives that she had built for these kids.

Speaker 27 And I was like, wow, I need to get my act together if I want to be able to parent like this.

Speaker 27 And so I think I kind of idolized her a little bit.

Speaker 28 Becky posted videos of herself giving updates on her family's life. In all the videos,

Speaker 27 she was alone. There were no kids' sounds or never her husband.

Speaker 27 It was just her.

Speaker 27 I assumed that it was like her five minutes alone. She wanted to connect with other parents.

Speaker 28 Becky's husband and their oldest kids were all on Facebook too.

Speaker 27 Her whole family was for the most part on Facebook.

Speaker 28 Becky and her husband were always flirting with each other in the group.

Speaker 27 It was a lot.

Speaker 27 It seemed like it was in good fun, but it was uncomfortable to see publicly.

Speaker 28 When Sarah joined the group, she was finishing the process of converting to Judaism. She looked at Becky as a resource and inspiration for raising kids in the Jewish faith.

Speaker 28 But when Sarah tried to connect over this, Becky wasn't interested.

Speaker 27 I was like, why are we not friends? And she didn't even want to acknowledge it, which was very odd to me.

Speaker 28 It wasn't just that they were both Jewish. They were interested in the same things.

Speaker 27 I'm passionate about heritage language. Like, that's my thing.

Speaker 27 And she's a Jewish person who's passionate about heritage language, and she would not speak to me about it.

Speaker 28 But Becky would post videos of herself, showcasing her language learning skills.

Speaker 27 She was speaking Ladino, which is like Judeo-Spanish. It's sort of adjacent to Yiddish, which is one of my languages.
And it really drove home to me and a lot of other people how smart she was.

Speaker 28 Sarah learned that Becky was also a convert. It's not that common.
So she really wanted to bond over that shared experience.

Speaker 27 I wanted to ask questions about that. And I was like really looking for that advice from her.
And unfortunately, she just would not.

Speaker 28 And there was another reason she felt connected to Becky. They both had difficult upbringings.
When Becky posted about her childhood, Sarah chimed in.

Speaker 28 She understood because she'd been through some of the same things.

Speaker 27 I jokingly sometimes refer to myself as a rescue. It's like, you know, I was literally living on the street and then living in a studio.

Speaker 27 When I met my husband, I had probably like 20 bucks. So I was like, that happens.
That's crazy. We both had our like Cinderella moment.
And she just like did not.

Speaker 27 The kinship thing wasn't neutral. And I was like, okay, I'm being weird.

Speaker 28 Sarah began to worry that maybe she'd said something to offend Becky.

Speaker 27 And I was like, oh,

Speaker 27 did I like say something? So I was really concerned that I had really hurt her.

Speaker 28 So she tried to connect with other people in the group.

Speaker 27 I started seeking out other Jewish parents in that group and everyone was like, you got to talk to Becky. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll try.

Speaker 28 Sarah would ask Becky about things like breastfeeding and keeping kosher.

Speaker 27 Every time I asked her a question, I would get an answer, but it didn't line up with anything that I had ever heard before, but I guess she would know.

Speaker 27 And so I started to sort of get back to that place where I was like, am I qualified for this?

Speaker 28 The interactions with Becky always left her feeling worse than before. She wasn't even a parent yet, but she started to doubt her ability to raise her son in the Jewish faith.

Speaker 27 I don't know anything.

Speaker 27 I was like, maybe I am further behind with conversion than I thought I was.

Speaker 28 In the winter of 2020, Sarah's son was born. She had unexpected complications, and the birth didn't go as planned.

Speaker 27 I had

Speaker 27 a very

Speaker 27 traumatic birth. It was really, really bad.
He was almost completely fine. But I needed a lot of help.

Speaker 27 At the very end of the birth, while my son was being being put in my arms, I had a psychotic break and I ended up going into postpartum psychosis.

Speaker 27 And I had no idea what that was.

Speaker 28 About 2% of women develop postpartum psychosis after they give birth. It can start with obsessive thoughts about the baby's well-being and concerns that something is wrong.

Speaker 28 But it spirals into hallucinations and delusions. It's a condition that can be really dangerous for both the mother and the baby.

Speaker 27 I was hallucinating very vividly, but I had no idea that I was hallucinating. And so I was experiencing really intense paranoia.

Speaker 27 You know, a lot of people have like intrusive thoughts, scary, violent ones. And once those thoughts start sounding like a good idea, you need to talk to someone.

Speaker 27 I was having those thoughts toward myself because i thought that if i didn't get myself out of the picture something would happen to my baby she was scared and she didn't know what was going on so she reached out to a doctor when i sought advice from medical professionals i was actually told it was normal but i didn't know how to effectively communicate how serious it was

Speaker 27 and so i was at home in full psychosis with with a new one.

Speaker 28 This lasted for two months until she hit a breaking point.

Speaker 27 I had like a full breakdown episode and I was admitted to a hospital.

Speaker 27 I stayed there for a little over a week, I think. Time really wasn't, I'm not really sure about that.

Speaker 27 It was really hard to like be away from my baby, you know, but I did feel that he was safer and i felt safer as well after she left the hospital she was stable but the experience was traumatic so there was still some fear there i was really afraid to hold my son or be alone with him for a long time i loved him but i didn't trust myself to be a good parent I didn't even trust myself to be like a babysitter.

Speaker 27 I just was so afraid that I would do something terribly wrong.

Speaker 28 So she turned to her support system, the parenting group.

Speaker 27 And then, as soon as I got out, I went to the group because I was like, I don't know who else that I could possibly ask about this. And I started asking, Has anyone had this happen before?

Speaker 27 And the person who kept popping up was Becky.

Speaker 27 And she had postpartum depression before and anxiety and OCD.

Speaker 27 She knew what she was talking about. She had been through like a similar situation.
Not psychosis to my knowledge, but really, really rough mental health stuff following the birth of a baby.

Speaker 27 And I was so grateful to have that resource.

Speaker 28 This was some of Becky's advice.

Speaker 27 Just like go to therapy, just drink water, just wait.

Speaker 27 And I was like, oh, okay.

Speaker 27 She would know, not me.

Speaker 28 Sarah didn't just need advice.

Speaker 28 She needed someone who'd been through this and made it out on the other side to tell her that she was going to be okay, that it wasn't her fault, and that she wasn't a bad mom.

Speaker 28 But Becky did the opposite.

Speaker 27 She was definitely implying that I wasn't cut out for this.

Speaker 27 You know, this just isn't for some people.

Speaker 27 Maybe it's not for you.

Speaker 28 not being cut out for parenting was sarah's worst fear at the time she was isolated by covid and her postpartum recovery so becky's words cut deep i mean just validation would have gone a long way but she

Speaker 27 really went out of her way to make it seem like anyone who was struggling was just so beneath her and that she was just like super mom.

Speaker 27 And so I was really questioning everything and not in a good way.

Speaker 28 This was one of the darkest times in Sarah's life. She was suicidal with a newborn.
To keep herself grounded, Sarah focused on the positives she did have.

Speaker 27 At this point, we are about two months away from

Speaker 27 being officially Jewish. I'm

Speaker 27 going to the mikveh and I'm so excited. It's like a huge deal.

Speaker 28 A mikveh is a spiritual ceremony, and it can be used to officially anoint someone in the Jewish faith. So, Sarah's first mikveh was like a baptism.

Speaker 27 I got dumped, and it was amazing. It was so great.
And I passed my little exam, and I got my certificate for me and for my son, and it was the best. You know, I

Speaker 27 can't even describe

Speaker 27 how symbolic and amazing it felt after my weird, quiverful baptism experience to go to a mikbah of my own volition.

Speaker 28 During the postpartum recovery, her faith was everything. She started teaching her son Yiddish and leaning into her identity as a Jewish parent.

Speaker 27 It took me like two or three years to be what I would consider back to myself, but my like light at the end of the tunnel is that I'm the Jewish parent in my son's life, and I have to stick around and I have to keep him in touch with his culture.

Speaker 28 Slowly, Sarah and her husband learned to parent in a way that felt right to them. The Facebook group was instrumental in helping them get there.

Speaker 28 As their son got older, Sarah began to have more questions about raising a child in an interfaith marriage.

Speaker 27 My husband is not religious at all, but we technically are an interfaith family because he's not Jewish and I am.

Speaker 27 And it's really hard to find supportive interfaith parenting spaces

Speaker 27 and Becky was a Jewish parent in an interfaith family and so I was like hey I really need your help and she was receptive that and gave a lot of advice that was maybe more critical than I was expecting every time I asked her a question I would get an answer but

Speaker 27 It didn't line up with anything that I had ever heard before, but I guess she would know. And so I started to sort of get back to that place where I was like, am I qualified for this?

Speaker 28 At the time, Becky had made a post about how she keeps a kosher kitchen.

Speaker 27 She was very much positioning herself as an authority and she made this big deal out of keeping kosher.

Speaker 28 Sarah was considering keeping kosher for the first time herself. So in the comment section, she asked a follow-up question about setting up a kosher kitchen.

Speaker 27 I just had a question

Speaker 27 about separate sides of the kitchen because I haven't done it.

Speaker 28 But strangely, Becky deleted her comment from the post.

Speaker 27 It was weird. My comment got deleted very quickly when I asked the question, and so I don't even think I saw what her reply was.

Speaker 28 So finally, she turned to her rabbi.

Speaker 27 I contacted him in tears,

Speaker 27 just like crisis mode. Like, I don't think I'm supposed to be doing this.

Speaker 27 I can't be a parent like this. Like, you made a mistake by letting me be Jewish.
Like, I don't know what's going on. And he was the first person to ask,

Speaker 27 who is this person?

Speaker 27 Do you see them a lot?

Speaker 27 Can you stop seeing them? I was like, they're just a person on Facebook. And he's like,

Speaker 27 why are you listening to them?

Speaker 27 Like,

Speaker 27 what is their role? What is their authority here?

Speaker 27 And I was like, dude, I don't know, actually. I don't call my rabbi dude, but, you know,

Speaker 27 I was like, yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 27 I had been interacting with her for almost three years.

Speaker 27 And I never realized how badly it had been affecting me until he said that.

Speaker 28 Pretty soon, Sarah would get an answer to that question. One she wasn't expecting.

Speaker 27 So I was

Speaker 27 at home and I got added to this group chat that had like 200 messages and it's called Therapy Sesh

Speaker 27 and it had the name of the parenting group. I was like late to be added and I was like, what is happening?

Speaker 27 And then one of my friends from the group was like, I'll catch you up.

Speaker 27 Thank God, you know, thank you so much.

Speaker 27 And she tells me,

Speaker 27 we just found out Becky, the admin in the parenting group, was like, oh, I know her. Go on.

Speaker 27 She just was like, she's not

Speaker 27 real.

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Speaker 28 After three years of interacting with Becky, an admin in Sarah's parenting group, the truth was revealed. Becky wasn't who she said she was.

Speaker 27 She was like, she is a catfish. She's been stealing people's pictures of their children, pretending that they're her kids and giving them these crazy backstories.

Speaker 27 Immediately, my brain went to the child that had a hate crime committed against them. What possesses a person to see a picture of a child they don't know and invent a hate crime against them?

Speaker 27 This cannot be real.

Speaker 28 The community was reeling. Sarah went to the Facebook page, and Becky was gone.

Speaker 27 And then I saw the announcement from one of the admins, just like how heartbroken and shaken she was.

Speaker 28 200 of the most active group members were all in a text called Therapy Sesh, comparing their notes, trying to understand what was happening.

Speaker 27 How could she not be real? I had seen her talking to her husband. Like, I'd seen videos of her.

Speaker 27 And things just kept coming out over and over, like all day.

Speaker 27 And for that whole day, I just completely abandoned my work and just stayed in the group chat.

Speaker 28 Becky had posted videos of herself, her real self, with her real name. But nearly everything else about her was a lie.

Speaker 22 She didn't have six kids.

Speaker 28 She didn't have any. She had never been a parent at all.

Speaker 27 We found out that none of her children are real.

Speaker 27 Her children

Speaker 27 were pictures pictures of someone else's children that she had been taking from an account that she was following.

Speaker 27 Her son, that was talking to children of other people in the group on Kids Messenger, was her.

Speaker 27 And she had given him this really traumatic backstory. But he wasn't real at all.

Speaker 27 And then she had her husband that was her as well

Speaker 28 there was no husband becky just made a fake account where she posed as her husband and filled out his profile using stolen pictures from the internet she had taken pictures from i believe an actor from thailand

Speaker 27 her entire family was her

Speaker 28 some people were friends with becky in real life and they were blindsided too.

Speaker 27 People had met her in person while she was pregnant,

Speaker 27 but she wasn't pregnant. And it was like she fooled these moms of multiple kids.

Speaker 27 Nobody could have seen this coming.

Speaker 28 Becky lied about the death of her two-year-old daughter to a group of parents, some of whom had actually lost kids of their own.

Speaker 27 The thing that like sticks with me

Speaker 27 was the amount of other parents in the group who

Speaker 27 had

Speaker 27 lost their children, like toddlers and even older or younger,

Speaker 27 who were consoling her and

Speaker 27 sharing

Speaker 27 their similar struggles. Like, what, who could do this?

Speaker 28 It was the extent of her lies that kept people from questioning her.

Speaker 27 If you say something like, did you even have the death of a child and you're wrong.

Speaker 27 You are the worst for doubting this person.

Speaker 27 And no one who's an actual normal person would want to do that.

Speaker 27 Then there's also the practical side of it where she can just delete your comment. She can just kick you out of the group.
She was an admin, so she could get rid of you.

Speaker 28 The admins, the people most intimately involved in running the group, were the ones who discovered Becky's fraud and they needed answers.

Speaker 27 When she was confronted by the admins that she was close with,

Speaker 27 she said that she can't stop. I don't understand why, but I do believe that she can't stop.

Speaker 28 After Becky's accounts were deleted, the parenting group banded together to find out more about the real Becky.

Speaker 27 When we started finding out more about her and we spoke to someone in her life who knew more about her as a real person and her background.

Speaker 27 They revealed to us that she had been doing this since high school, making up people and

Speaker 27 making up herself.

Speaker 28 There was one thing she didn't lie about. She was actually a lawyer and the kind of lawyer who protected vulnerable people.

Speaker 27 I think that's the only thing she has ever told the truth about, other than her cat's name.

Speaker 28 One of the admins gathered evidence and reported Becky's actions to the Bar Association in her home state. But as far as the group knows, nothing has ever come of that report.

Speaker 27 It seemed like it was a joke to a lot of people because I think that there is this attitude where if something happens online, like mainly online, it's not real.

Speaker 27 And

Speaker 27 it was very real to a lot of us.

Speaker 28 It was very real for Sarah, especially when she found out she wasn't Jewish at all.

Speaker 28 For three years, Sarah was repeatedly dismissed and belittled by Becky, told that she didn't know what she was talking about when it came to her faith.

Speaker 28 And worst of all, when Sarah was going through a mental health crisis, Becky was there saying she'd been through something similar and telling Sarah that maybe she wasn't cut out to be a parent.

Speaker 27 For me, it was transparently life or death at one point.

Speaker 27 With stories like this, If I hear them from other people, you know, like on that catfish show, I'm like, at what point would this person call it?

Speaker 27 At what point would this person be like, okay.

Speaker 27 And for her, it was not

Speaker 27 a new mom considering ending things.

Speaker 27 So I don't know what it could possibly be. Because anyone in their right mind would have stopped.
She knew what I was going through. Everyone did.

Speaker 27 And she just

Speaker 27 did that regardless.

Speaker 28 It was an insidious kind of interaction that undermined Sarah's trust in herself.

Speaker 28 Becky was like a personification of Sarah's worst fears.

Speaker 27 That insecurity was there. And it's not like her doing that it was there.
A lot of it was just that I felt that way. But she really honed in on it.
She could really sense that stuff.

Speaker 27 And it's taken until like a couple days ago to realize

Speaker 27 how

Speaker 27 awful

Speaker 27 and how deep it went and how much it affected me.

Speaker 27 This whole experience just really made me doubt my abilities as a parent and myself as a person. And just like basically every aspect of my identity that I had spent so long

Speaker 27 trying to find.

Speaker 27 It like shook everything.

Speaker 28 But then she started seeing it all differently.

Speaker 27 I saw that she had lied about something that made me feel like an imposter.

Speaker 27 And she was the imposter the whole time. I had actually done it.

Speaker 27 Like I had overcome a lot of the same things that she had lied about.

Speaker 28 She's not just talking about parenting. She's talking about persevering after a tough childhood and homelessness, finding identity and a new religion, and surviving a postpartum mental health crisis.

Speaker 27 It went from me being angry about that and feeling

Speaker 27 like I had let myself down to me feeling like I am really proud of myself.

Speaker 27 I did this thing that is so hard that she had to lie about it. I did it for real.

Speaker 28 One question Sarah still has is that out of all the groups to catfish, why did Becky choose this one?

Speaker 27 I really can't understand her reason for finding a group

Speaker 27 that was parents trying to break cycles of abuse and take advantage of them and like make them doubt themselves.

Speaker 27 People who are in this incredibly vulnerable spot of trying to be better for their children and trying to be better for themselves. If I were evil, I would leave that one alone.

Speaker 27 You know, I just, that seems like a line.

Speaker 28 Becky's deception changed the group, but for Sarah, it brought her closer to the other real parents out there who really wanted to connect and support each other.

Speaker 27 A lot of people did actually just disappear, just quit Facebook, quit online stuff. I not blame them at all.

Speaker 27 But the thing that I found so kind of heartwarming, like it almost feels like a Hallmark movie, is this like pack of moms that

Speaker 27 in hindsight

Speaker 27 saw

Speaker 27 somebody messing with other moms and their kids and were like, absolutely not.

Speaker 27 And

Speaker 27 we were there for each other.

Speaker 27 And we've gotten really close, a lot of us have.

Speaker 27 The way that we were able able to show up for each other. That kind of undid a lot of the distrust that was immediately planted by this.
Like that was the initial function of the group.

Speaker 28 We first heard about this story through someone else, another mom, who wrote into our email, betrayalpod at gmail.com.

Speaker 28 On betrayal, we share stories about how one person couldn't see the deception right in front of them. But in this case, it was a group of thousands of people, a whole community.

Speaker 28 So we asked members to send in voice notes about how Becky impacted them.

Speaker 28 This is what they said.

Speaker 32 I got to know her family.

Speaker 33 She presented herself as this perfect parent.

Speaker 32 She posted prolifically.

Speaker 34 And also judging other people's parenting like she was just this kind of professional.

Speaker 32 She would center herself in these conversations as almost an authority figure.

Speaker 33 She always made it seem like it was this effortless, seamless thing, and she just has it all together.

Speaker 34 I saw my spouse becoming self-conscious. It's really aggravating that anybody is comparing themselves to somebody who is like measurably impossible.

Speaker 33 I truly felt like I wasn't good enough. I was not a good enough parent.

Speaker 28 When the community found out that Becky was a fraud, that deception felt personal.

Speaker 34 Becky was talking to children pretending to be children.

Speaker 32 Her father's not dead. He's living still and is a physician.

Speaker 34 I've seen several friends of mine severely impacted by this and how they just can't trust anybody.

Speaker 33 So many of us are really trying our best and are great parents.

Speaker 33 We just are not the perfect parent because the perfect parent does not exist.

Speaker 28 Sarah doesn't like the framing of looking on the bright side or the silver lining, but she did learn something from all of this. Here's Sarah again.

Speaker 27 This was one of the situations in my life that pushed me to begin questioning: like, who put you in charge?

Speaker 27 That's a simple question, but it has been incredibly difficult for me to ask because I was taught under no circumstances should you ever ask that.

Speaker 27 And

Speaker 27 now I do

Speaker 28 Today Sarah has big news

Speaker 27 Well, I'm almost eight months pregnant.

Speaker 28 We are having a little girl and this time around she's feeling more confident in herself.

Speaker 27 I don't feel the sense of dread that I thought I would because I've put

Speaker 27 a lot of effort into building a super strong community online and in real life with people that I know and people that I trust.

Speaker 27 I'm really excited to start out with the confidence in my role

Speaker 27 as the Jewish mom. I'm feeling really confident and excited in my abilities, in Paul's abilities, and in my son's abilities to be a big brother.

Speaker 27 I mean, there are challenges always, and I have no idea what they're going to be yet, but I think that we can handle it.

Speaker 28 We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question: Why did you want to tell your story?

Speaker 27 The reason that I want to talk about it is because

Speaker 27 I do think that she can't stop. I do think that she's doing it again, and I think that there are people, other people in the world who do stuff like this, of course.

Speaker 27 And so, I want to be there for another person

Speaker 27 to just say, like, you're not crazy

Speaker 28 On the next episode of Betrayal,

Speaker 35 he eventually told me the whole story.

Speaker 35 And I said, why me?

Speaker 35 He said,

Speaker 35 as my uncle was saying,

Speaker 35 why not you?

Speaker 28 If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's betrayalpod at gmail.com.
We're grateful for your support.

Speaker 28 One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.

Speaker 28 Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison.

Speaker 28 Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Monique Laborde.
Also produced by Ben Fetterman.

Speaker 1 Associate producers are Kristen Melcuri and Caitlin Golden.

Speaker 28 Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines.

Speaker 28 Music library provided by MIBE Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 12 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 13 That's pendo.io/slash podcast.

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Speaker 38 Hey guys, it's Aaron Andrews from Calm Down with Erin and Carissa. So as a sideline reporter, game day is extra busy for me, but I know it can be busy for parents everywhere.

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Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.