S04 Ep02: “I Brought You Into This World I Can Take You Out”

True Story Media.

Before we begin, a quick warning that in this show we discuss child abuse, and this content may be difficult for some listeners.

If you or anyone you know is a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, please go to munchhausensupport.com to connect with professionals who can help.

So, as many of you may know if you've listened to the previous seasons of this show, I come to all of this with a really deep personal connection, which is that I strongly believe that my niece and nephew are victims of Munchausen by proxy abuse.

My sister has been investigated twice for medical child abuse.

And though she has not been charged with a crime,

one of the investigations involved a two-year-long police investigation that I was able to obtain a lot of information from.

And so I know that the evidence against her was incredibly strong.

In particular, that they had video footage of her tampering with medications.

So after my sister was investigated for the second time for medical child abuse, this time of her youngest child, my niece,

I was really hopeful.

during that investigation that something was going to come of it because I knew the police were involved.

They had a lot to go on and they seemed really serious about it.

And when I got the news in the summer of 2019, bizarrely right before my book came out, that she'd gotten her kids back, it was just so

crushing because

even though it feels naive to say this now, I really thought, okay.

They've got her.

Like this is the second time no one could possibly look at this situation and just think there's nothing wrong here.

I know these kids are not safe and no one is doing anything to intervene.

No one is going to help them.

No one is,

you know, kind of like no one cares, right?

I mean, that's, that's how it felt.

And so I remember, you know, I told my parents, I said, if there's information that comes in about Megan, don't tell me.

Unless something changes, unless something about this situation changes, I don't want to know because whenever I find out something new has happened, it just sends me back into a spiral and there's nothing that anyone can do about it.

So when the authorities have failed and those systems that are supposed to protect them have failed and the family members around them that are allowed to be in their lives are failing them, in my opinion, then like, what is even my role?

I think it wasn't until I started the show.

And I sort of learned about how to report on these cases and how to sort of like legally talk about cases where there wasn't a conviction, which there's not in my sister's case.

And there's not even, you know, there was never any charges filed by the prosecutor's office.

And then I realized, okay, the only thing I can do, the only thing I can do is be as public as possible with the information that I do have because hopefully that will alert the people who are in those kids' lives to watch out for them, right?

And just like more eyes on the kids will give them a better chance

of coming out alive,

of surviving to adulthood.

So I think as I was getting like into learning more about this abuse,

it's like the more you learn about it, it does not make you feel better about the possible outcome for those kids.

And it's really devastating to see what this does to people's like psyche and their emotional well-being.

But meeting Joe,

who's obviously, you know, Joe is an incredible person and very resilient, and

they gave me the chance to connect with like the real possibility of what my niece and nephew might be dealing with when they reach adulthood, if they're able to get some distance from my sister, and like how to potentially be able to help them in a time that like is coming up kind of fast now.

I mean, my nephew is 14 and it's not so many years away.

Like when I think about four years ago, I'm like, that sounds, that feels like five minutes ago, you know?

And so I think getting to know Joe has really

helped me feel like, okay,

there's nothing I can do other than share what I know for now, right?

I can't like just, I can't get them out of there.

There isn't going to be anything that I'm going to be able to do or anyone else is going to be able to do.

I'm convinced that will successfully be a successful intervention.

But

it's given me something to hold on to for when they come out the other side.

People believe their eyes.

That's something that actually is so central to this whole issue and to people that experience this: is that we do believe the people that we love when they're telling us something.

If you questioned everything that everyone told you, you couldn't make it through your day.

I'm Andrea Dunlop.

Welcome to season four of Nobody Should Believe Me.

This season, we will be following Jordan Hope as they unravel the many mysteries of their childhood.

How and when did you first discover that you had been a victim of Munchausen by proxy?

I first discovered that I was a victim in 2018.

I was sitting in a class at the community college I was attending in St.

Louis, and my professor in my psychology class happened to be talking about Munchausen's and Munchausen's by proxy.

And as she talked about it, I suddenly just got flooded with memory after memory.

And I took out my phone and I wrote it all down in my notes and immediately emailed my therapy team, kind of panicked because I had never heard of this.

And my whole life just kind of suddenly felt like it was over.

What was your understanding of your life story up until that that point before you heard that term?

Up until that point, I thought that I was sick.

I thought that I had asthma.

I thought I had a severe blood disorder called neutropenia that made it so I got sick easier than others.

I thought I had so many different illnesses and issues, and that I had just grown up really sick and on the verge of death my whole life.

The level of manipulation in cases like Joe's means that the survivor is not only dealing with the trauma and betrayal of the abuse that they endured, but that they have a life story that suddenly, when this abuse is revealed, makes absolutely no sense.

But as Joe listened to their professor explain Munchausen by proxy, something fell into place.

And suddenly, Joe's entire life since birth became a question mark.

So today, we're taking a closer look at the process of trying to reassemble their life story and untangle the morass of lies their mother left them with.

Who even was Donna?

If you just can't get enough of me in your ears, first of all, thank you.

I have a job because of you.

And secondly, did you know that I have a new audiobook out this year?

The Mother Next Door, which I co-authored with Detective Mike Weber, is available in all formats wherever books are sold.

It's a deep dive into three of Mike's most impactful Munchausen by proxy cases, and I think you'll love it.

Here's a sample.

When Susan logged in, what she discovered shocked her to the marrow of her bones.

Though the recent insurance records contained pages and pages of information about Sophia, there was nothing about Hope.

Susan dug deeper and looked back through years of records.

There wasn't a single entry about Hope's cancer treatment.

For eight years, the Butcher family had lived with a devastating fear that their beloved daughter and sister was battling terminal cancer.

For months, they'd been preparing for her death.

But in that moment, a new horror was dawning.

For nearly a decade, Hope had been lying.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Another person who works very closely with Joe and I at Munchausen Support, who will also be familiar to longtime listeners of the show, is Bea Yorker.

Bea has been a frequent guest and is a very well-known expert on Munchausen by proxy.

She has been a mentor to me since my very first meeting with the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children's Munchausen by Proxy Committee way back in 2020.

When Joe joined the APSAC committee, Bea recognized right away that they were a very special person.

So, most of the survivors of Munchausen by proxy are fairly chaotic

when they tell their story.

And then here comes Joe,

and their story is linear, and then they were able to link it to all the higher theories.

So for example, Joe was talking about the body keeps the score and advanced trauma theory right in that meeting and how they were making sense.

of their experience through that book.

For the last several years, Bea and Joe have worked with me at Munchhausen Support, which is the nonprofit that I founded to help families and survivors of this abuse.

One of the things we offer there is peer support groups for survivors, and we have all been stunned by the commonalities of their experiences.

And we've learned that there are many reasons why survivors struggle to make sense of what's happened to them.

One of the reasons it's chaotic

in the first few sessions for people to tell their story

is because they second guess everything that they think they might have a visual or an auditory or a physical memory of they just question it they just i'm not sure that's real i'm not sure that was real so they all question their reality then they all also have so much shame and that's another reason that having peers to talk about this with who can say, yeah, shame is a big part of this.

You're ashamed with your peers that your family would have such a dark secret.

For survivors and family members, we're not only dealing with the isolation of going through something

that

is not relatable to most of the people in our lives, and the loss of a really important relationship, whether that's with a parent or a sibling or whoever the offender is in your family.

But it's just a really heavy thing to live with.

I remember

for many years after becoming estranged from my sister, when I would see people that I hadn't seen in a long time

and they would ask me about her,

I mean, what do you say?

That's not something you can explain in a casual interaction at a grocery store.

It just isn't.

And

on the rare occasions when I did try and explain it to someone, they would get so upset.

So I had two choices.

I could sort of try and explain what happened or I could minimize it.

And then often that person would say something like, well, you know, you guys should really get back in touch.

Like family is so important.

And it just makes you feel so isolated.

And like you have this

huge, sort of dark

monster under the bed in your family history that nobody else can even relate to.

And being able to talk to other people

who've been through that same thing and aren't shocked by it, like just who understand, who have language for it is really profound.

Bea brings decades of experience to this work, so she knows that the road to healing is not going to be straightforward.

One step forward, two steps back, or two steps forward, one step back.

There's discouragement

when you do peel back another layer and another sort of

remembering with eyes that understand Munchausen by proxy abuse and perpetrators.

And then there's regression because the progress you felt that you were making to tackle your life, to go to school, to get your next degree, to have a relationship, to you know, maybe move in with a with a partner.

There's setbacks each time those layers are peeled back.

I do come back and visit, usually six months and then a year or however long.

I come back and visit the groups and I'm astounded at the growth that we see

after they do this work of unpeeling.

Step one for survivors is to try to put the pieces of their life story back together.

As they begin to separate from the insular world that their abuser confined them to, reality begins to seep back in.

Sometimes this happens via medical records they're able to collect or just from outside voices of people that they're now actually allowed to communicate with.

The veil begins to lift and suddenly nothing makes sense anymore.

Joe knows, objectively, that their mother did horrific things to them as a child, but these aren't memories that they can always access.

Yeah, I

can't really remember too many bad moments with my mom when I was really little.

I really, when I picture mom, then it's like just good mom.

That's kind of how I always have like good mom and then there is bad mom, but I can't really remember many instances of bad mom when I was really little.

I remember like one time

getting yelled at for something.

I don't remember what.

I remember feeling scared, but that's like one memory that I have, or

I had like broken this shovel and I was really scared she was going to be mad at me.

So I like hid it and then she found it.

And I remember her not being mad.

And I remember being really surprised by that, but I don't have other memories of her being mad or angry, which is interesting because one of my biggest fears now is getting in trouble.

Like I break a salt shaker and I just like have a full-blown panic attack thinking like I'm going to get in trouble or go to jail or something bad's going to happen.

So I know like that fear had to have come from somewhere, but those memories I have zero access to.

I really remember going to jail.

Everyone dissociates to a degree.

This can be anything from you know, the feeling of daydreaming or when you blink and suddenly you've driven home and you can't remember your commute.

But dissociation can be really extreme for survivors of abuse and trauma.

And Joe often found that they didn't have an explanation for these intense physical and emotional after effects that they were suffering.

I remember going to Sunday school with my mom because she taught Sunday school at my church for a long time.

And then the baking, like I would sit there with my Legos baking a Lego cake while my mom baked whatever she was making.

And then I can just remember cuddling a lot, which I think when I was younger, I liked a lot more.

I think as I got older, I started to feel more trapped within that.

But as a little kid, I think there was some comfort that I found.

Like all I could remember was, like I said, being like kind of happy and fun and having like a decent childhood.

And I, but then I struggle with dissociation.

And whenever I would dissociate, I'd be hiding in closets or like really, really fearful or unable to talk.

And so I was like, why, when I'm having this dissociation and appearing younger, am I so scared?

But my only memories are of being happy and carefree and having fun.

And like, this does not add up at all.

And so I reached out.

That's when I reached out to family members and teachers and people from my past.

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We're back in Hutchinson and we are driving around in search of some of this lost time and trying to find the people who saw all of this go down.

There's nothing like a bunch of time in the car to get to know someone.

Though Joe and I have known each other for years, this is only the second time we've ever gotten to hang out in person.

So it was so great to have all of this uninterrupted time together.

Mariah, my new producer, and I had spoken exactly twice before this trip.

But bless her, she fit right in and was singing along with us to the rent soundtrack in no time.

Do you think Rent was your exhibite A of queerness?

Oh my gosh.

It's so weird because like in my head, like I'm like, nah, but like probably,

probably

it's so interesting to think back to all that it's like oh my gosh when I was I don't even know I was probably 14 14 or 15 I started calling surgeons asking if they would like do top surgery um

but even then it was like I was not aware of like being trans or anything like that I just knew that I felt uncomfortable in my body and that that would make me feel better.

But had like, yeah, at that point I was still, I feel like

overly feminine because I felt like

I just felt like that's what I was like supposed to do or had to do.

And I couldn't understand like why I didn't fit in or things like that, which obviously there were so many reasons.

But

when did you

like, was it earlier than that that you sort of like when did you first start to feel like

the way that people

saw your gender was not how you were experiencing it internally.

I think that was kind of like off and on probably my whole life in ways.

Like my mom kind of raised me to be like a girly girl, wear dresses, do pageants, like all a cheerleader, you know, whatever.

And my sister was very much like a tomboy.

And so it was very much, I had like, depending on which one of them I was with, it was very different.

But I remember like there were times like as a kid, like I was so afraid that people were gonna call me or like if people added an E on my name, I'd get really upset.

Or if people like, I would get scared at times that because my name was Joe, that people were gonna like think I was a boy.

And I was like so afraid of that.

Yeah, and like and do you think that fear was like you were afraid they were

because like I like i cut my hair really short when i was in like fourth grade and people would occasionally think i was a boy but that that i was afraid people would think i was a boy because i was a girl do you think it was more was it that or was it like oh you were afraid people were gonna see who you really were or like what do you think i don't know like what do you think that fear was about

i really do not know i know it was like pretty intense um

which makes me feel like it was probably more like be that i was like afraid of being being like found out or like seen

Even though I like didn't really know at that point

And how did your mom react to your sister's like sort of less feminine presentation?

Um

You know, I was like mom's mini me

so I think it was like kind of Okay

for my sister.

I don't know how it was like because my sister was already that way like when I was born and stuff.

So I don't know like

how she got to that point or if she was ever like the mini me

but I don't remember too much like I think it was just kind of like she is who she is.

I'd heard bits and pieces about Joe's sister Crystal over the years and I knew that their relationship had been challenging.

They are 12 years apart and they were close growing up, but they've really struggled at various points in their adult lives to maintain a connection.

And that was especially true in the wake of Joe becoming more public about the abuse they suffered as a child.

So originally, I thought Crystal was going to be off limits for an interview.

But once we were there, Joe decided that they really wanted to talk to her, and she agreed.

Well, I'm glad this is happening.

Uh-huh.

I think since you felt like you wanted to send that message, it's that's the right thing.

That's right to follow that intuition, you know?

We'll find out.

Yeah, I think this this will be the biggest like wild card.

Crystal is, as Joe described, tomboyish in a tropical button-down and long loose blue shorts.

Her sandy hair is styled in a killer mohawk.

She's polite, but a bit guarded as she shows us around her apartment.

I mean, if you're guys' shoes aren't too bad, I don't really care too much.

These are just my indoor shoes only.

Crystal was almost a teenager when Joe was born, so she has her own very distinct memories of life with Donna, and it was a turbulent way to grow up.

I moved at least once a year growing up.

Like my mom would just get a wild hair.

Away we would go.

So we lived all over Hutch or like not Hutch all over Minnesota.

We lived in South Dakota once.

We lived in Florida for a while.

Moved back to Hutch.

Yeah.

And then kind of been

in this town from like sixth grade until I went off to college.

Eden Prairie.

Yeah, we lived in Eden Prairie after that.

Well, Shock B, Prior Lake, Eden Prairie, and then back here just because we thought we'd be able to save more money in a small town.

And that has not been the case.

This town is sucking the life out of everything.

Crystal was constantly bouncing around from place to place.

And even within Hutch, she was forever being shuffled to various family members and friends.

I grew up mostly with like

my mom's friend, so Jamie.

She was always at her house.

So like, I kind of grew up with like a sibling, or if I wasn't home for whatever reason, I had to stay with my aunts and uncles who also had kids.

So like I don't, I guess I consider myself, I guess I was an only child.

I just never felt that way.

So, just a heads up, there were a lot of different guys coming in and out of their lives during this time.

So, it can be very hard to track.

Donna appears to have been married to Crystal's stepfather, Dale, throughout this period.

But Dale stayed back in Minnesota when Crystal and Donna moved around Florida.

Then, at some point, Donna decided no more Florida and moved back to Hutchinson, but this time to be with a guy named Reza, before eventually eventually they moved back in with Dale right before Joe was born.

Sorry, your mom and Dale separated at that time.

I didn't know what was going on because they just fought a lot.

There was a pretty volatile little relationship.

Like Dale has a really high temper.

Sometimes he'll put it off like he isn't, but he was he was pretty violent as well.

Mom is also violent.

So like between the two of them, it was really hard.

So like they just didn't get along.

Mom started drinking more, got into like a really big depression.

So her, she moved me with her up here.

And that was just a weird travel experience from Florida to Minnesota again.

And because my mom man hops and

like I got my first mountain bike I've ever owned because

some dude that was driving a semi

was on the CB radio for whatever reason.

My mom had a CB radio in her old Ford Focus.

And like,

she was talking to him.

And we ended up at a truck stop where obviously

mom goes and does her thing and leaves me in the car at this truck stop.

And I have a brand new mountain bike.

Which, as a kid, you're like, wow, cool.

No, it was weird then, too.

That's fair.

So, how old are you when you're making the sort of trip from like 11?

You drove all the way.

We drove all the way.

Because, like,

I mean, we must have just packed up only what we had had in like we could fit in that little car

when we moved because I don't remember having a whole lot.

And then when Dale came up from Florida he brought most of the stuff with him.

Not all of, but most of the stuff that we owned came back then.

So what did you understand about why you were moving from Florida back to Hutch when you were 11?

It's the same as it always had been.

Mom just got tired of living where she was.

She would blame it on like my adoptive dad, like that we had to move.

But like you know that's not the truth even as a kid.

What's your relationship to Dale?

Dale's just was just a stepdad.

Like nothing more, nothing less.

Most time I felt like he just didn't care.

You know, I just kind of existed.

Maybe more of a nuisance at times.

Most of the conversations that we've had up until this point in our trip have felt like these really warm reunions.

But this conversation with Crystal feels really different and it feels like the stakes are really high.

I expected her to be really reticent with us.

After all, here Mariah and I are two people she's never met in her apartment with recording equipment, but she's actually incredibly forthcoming and she talks mostly to me.

I get the sense that maybe all of this is actually easier to say to a stranger.

And as we talk, Joe is sitting next to her on the couch and I get the sense that they are hearing most of this for the first time.

I think because I was so used to that growing up already with the way my mom did things that like you don't think it's weird.

You know it's not until somebody's like that's weird that you even consider it to be something off.

You know like I get to my aunt's all the time like yeah this guy Doug gave me this bike and she's like who's Doug and I'm like my mom's friend from from on the on the road and she's like how did you meet Doug?

We met him at a truck stop and we ate breakfast.

You know like like it was just like saying you know you you had a hamburger for lunch you know it just wasn't it wasn't dramatic or traumatizing or anything it just it just was

whatever you grew up with as a kid yeah

you don't think about it yeah and it's not until later when you're like oh yeah that was fucked that's weird

that's problem

you know and and it wasn't like it wasn't it was weird too because mom saw him again after that.

He drove to Hutch and we were staying with Terry and Jamie and

Doug was the truck guy, the truck driver.

I knew his name was Doug.

I don't know his last name, but he did come and he showed up in Hutch and parked outside of Terry's place over on California Street for like a day or two.

So it's not like with like his big semi-less it didn't have a trailer, but it was the full semi like with a full full cab.

Whoa.

So

did she have the CB radio like in the car all the time?

Was it like in the house?

It was always in the car.

Yeah, what's a CV radio?

This is like what truckers use to communicate with each other.

Oh, I don't, I think because we traveled a lot from she explained it because we traveled from Minnesota to Florida quite often to see family, which whatever state we were living in, that it was just a fun thing.

So, like, everybody had their call tags and stuff, you know.

And

you know, so she would just like chat with truck drivers on the road each way.

Oh,

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The picture Crystal paints of life with Donna is a chaotic one.

Different men and their trucks coming in and out and Donna's alcoholism in various stages of bad and worse.

And then into all this mess comes Joe.

What can you tell us that you remember, like, you know, when Joe was, you know, more like a child you could interact with, and like, what memories do you have?

I probably interacted with her most forever.

I took care of her so much that

I'd be asked by random strangers if she was my kid.

And I'm like, no, that'd be A gross because I'm Simon, leave it.

You know, that's only a 12-year difference.

You know, like,

that wasn't something that like I even considered a thing, but people would ask me that.

And so, you know, it was just,

if, if she was sick and, you know,

couldn't go to school or daycare growing up or whatever it was, like, I had to stay home.

And I, I watched, you know, like incredibly parentified immediately.

Which wasn't too different from growing up because, you know, my aunt and uncles, like, if I was there,

you know, my husband always would be talking about it like as if I was like a Cinderella.

It's clear that no one ever let Crystal just be a kid.

At her aunt and uncle's house, she remembers being expected to do chores, even though her cousins weren't.

Everything came with conditions.

By the way, as Crystal tells us more of her story here, you'll hear her dog chiming in with some words of support.

I took care of Joe more than my mom did.

And then as soon as I hit 16, like, well, 15, I started babysitting a lot more and like doing odd jobs.

And I was the one that paid for school supplies I was the one that paid for clothing so that she you know had stuff to wear when she was in school

Simon leave it when I was 16 I had I was working two jobs full-time part-time and I was in high school you know like and that was like my life until

oh boy I mean I guess I've always had more than more than two jobs or two or more jobs.

So like it was just always was normal.

Like my mom would be like, I don't have money.

Or mom would go and she got like a cell phone plan and she's like, happy birthday.

You know, your 16th birthday.

Here's your cell phone.

But you have to pay the bill.

And then like, you know, maybe a couple months went by and I was just paying my phone bill and she'd be like, well, I don't have money for my phone bill.

So you either have to pay the whole thing or your phone is also going to go away because you're on our plan.

And you can't at 16 and 17 get your own phone plan.

So like it kind of started there where like I was starting to pay her bills and then I was paying you know like

it would it just kept getting amped up more and more until like until I basically had no money for myself to do stuff yeah you definitely like were the only person that fed me you were the only way I ever got clothes outside of like hand-me-downs from neighbors and stuff but I just felt like

That's what family does.

You know, you you look out for each other you you take and you buy it.

You know, you you take less for yourself if you have to.

Looking back on that now,

like,

obviously it brings tears because it's...

It was really hard.

Other than Jamie, I didn't have friends.

Sorry to break down.

It's just it was so hard.

It was clear listening to Crystal that she loved Joe and also that her mother had put her in a terrible position.

And this wasn't simply a function of Donna's neglect, as B.

Yorker explains.

This was entirely by design.

The siblings of victims of Munchhausen by proxy abuse

all say how they were divided and split by their abusive mother.

The abusive mother did everything they could to pit the children against each other, to keep them hating each other.

Because heaven forbid, if the siblings got together and shared their experience, it'd be two against mom, right?

And so these mothers have like

a driven instinct to keep one of the kids from ever really hearing what's going on that's bad from the other.

So splitting, and we know splitting is a function of narcissists and people who abuse in other ways is keep them separated.

So even if a child in the house doesn't experience medical child abuse at the hands of their parents, the experience of being raised by a perpetrator is deeply traumatizing.

Because

many of them didn't know the term munchhausen by proxy at the time their siblings were being abused, they just thought that there was torture going on in the house and they would also be abused by the torture.

Like many of them will say, yeah,

I was locked in my room.

I was just kept in my room.

I didn't even realize what all was going on in that hospital room down the hall in our home.

I was just locked out.

One of the ways that this abuse is so insidious is the secrecy and shame that it creates within the entire family system.

The children aren't able to turn to their primary caregiver for the support that they need, and the dynamics created by that parent also often inhibit them from getting care anywhere else, leaving them completely isolated.

We don't know if Crystal was subjected to any of the medical abuse that Joe was, or even how much awareness she had of what was really going on with Joe's health, but it's clear that she suffered neglect as well as emotional and financial abuse.

Because I was kicked out at 17.

You're not able to get an apartment.

You're not able to do anything.

So I had to work every other weekend at Target, plus whatever other jobs I was working.

Take care of my name.

And I'd have Joe all the other weekends.

So like even if I wasn't the full-time parent because I got kicked out because mom got a wild hair up her ass again

for whatever reason, probably because I wasn't giving her more money.

Um, you know, I still had those responsibilities.

And I made sure

when I had Joe, we would go

every weekend.

We'd go to the St.

Cloud or we'd go to the Mall of America.

We'd just go do something just to get out, just to have some fun because, you know, it sucked for me too, just being on my own.

But like, like then after that, like, I couldn't afford that apartment anymore because layoffs happen.

But then I ended up having to move back in at home with mom, and that was just terrible because

all of my paychecks once again had to go back to her.

You know, she was like, Well, they're raising my rent, they're raising my rent.

And then I find out after I move out that mom's rent was $20 a month because it's income-based,

and she was charging me like $500 a month.

And

I think a lot of places, and it's like a common thing where

if you're down and out, people want to keep you there so you can't do better for yourself, right?

Like places like apartments, right?

They're going to continue to raise your rent to offset any pay increases you get because then you can't leave.

Right.

They just want to keep you here making your money.

And that was the same thing with mom.

She just wanted to keep the money so that

I couldn't leave and I couldn't go and do things for myself.

I understand that like, you know, addiction and that kind of thing have sort of exacerbated some of these things.

Do you remember kind of a different version of that?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think she was always this way.

She was always aloof, right?

Where she would just, you know,

one day you think everything's fine.

The next day she was moving.

We're moving right now.

You know, by the end of the week, we'll be gone out of this town.

And it's like, well, and we would, we would be gone.

um and so that was always her thing um depending on which guy she was with she could be more or less violent it kind of just depended on who she was with and how the relationship was going violent violent

oh yeah oh yeah

you know

oh yeah and i and i like

you know when joe came along like i knew that it was my place to be that buffer too so that it wouldn't be her in that like firing line of like because

shit

when I was like

five six she was with Cliff we were living in Biskey

and she she would brag to people that she hit me so hard my nose bleed

and I do remember it I remember sitting in my bed with my nose just blood gushing everywhere and she was proud of it

you know later on oh gosh I was in high school it was probably

maybe closer to senior year and I decided I was going to dump out her booze because I was just tired of it.

And she pulled a knife.

You know, so my mom always had this.

I don't, I don't know that she necessarily would have done it or if it was just a threat.

I wasn't going to take that

chance because mom's favorite phrase growing up is, I brought you into this world.

I can take you out.

There's nobody that can stop me.

There's no rules that say I can't.

And it's like, well, no, that's murder.

And she's like, well, no, because you're my kid.

That doesn't, it's not murder.

You know, so she, but she talked a lot more than acted a lot, especially as I got older and I stood up for myself, I stood up for everybody else.

Like,

I don't, I don't know that she actually would have acted on a lot of it because I think she tried to hit me once and I went back after her.

And that was, I think, the last time she tried to hit me, you know, and that was middle school.

So, like, she's always been pretty violent, especially if she's drinking.

She could definitely be a lot more violent.

Did anyone try to intervene?

With me?

No.

No.

No.

No, my family thought because I wasn't home with mom all the time that

it wasn't a big deal.

But nobody really took steps until

I think the first time CPS was even called, Joe was maybe one or two.

And that was the first time that anybody has ever stepped in in our lives.

And they just came in and then they left because dale showed up and they're like everything's safe again

so like and mcloud county is really bad about child like protective services here like they're really really bad about it in this area and i don't know if it's small town like if they're understaffed or what it is but this town is really bad for protecting its youth

It has always been clear to me that Joe loves Crystal.

And I can tell sitting here that Crystal loves them too.

But their relationship is complicated.

And when Joe began sharing their story publicly, first on social media and then later in a much more public fashion on national television, it caused a rift between the siblings.

So as much as Donna had been fine shirking off all the responsibilities of raising Joe to her older daughter, she'd also done plenty to poison the two against one another.

This conversation is one that Donna never wanted to happen.

Well, Crystal, one of the reasons that we really wanted to talk to you and then glad we're going to have this conversation is so I've known Joe for years and I've heard a lot about you and Joe consistently mentions you as one of the people who

protected them and really kept them alive through their childhood.

And

I just wonder like, what is it like for you to know that you you played that role?

It's gonna make me cry again because like to be fair I didn't think

I didn't think that she felt that way

Is that surprising to you to hear that she was?

It is

And it's not to make you feel bad.

Um

but when we had that fallout

back when we were living in Indian Prairie a lot of things got said

and it

Facebook posts were made and stuff that

said family.

I never had family I never had this.

I never had that.

And I was never excluded from it.

So I, for the longest time, have always thought

that

what I did didn't matter.

And

it has caused a lot of stress, anxiety,

you know, some depression in a way, not to make you a fault because that's not what it is, right?

But like, because like my feelings are my own on that.

Um,

I did hurtful things.

But like,

I

since that happened, I just, I felt like nothing I did mattered.

That

that I was blamed just as much as my mom or these other people that should have done it.

even though I myself was a kid.

But like, I was a child raising a child that wasn't mine.

and

i thought that i was doing the best i could with with the tools i had which wasn't much because i didn't have

that that force in my life to

even really know what being a parent was

this feels like a huge moment being with these two in the room.

There's this sense of a wall finally coming down.

and they go from talking mostly directly to me to finally talking to each other.

Joe, do you want to?

I feel like we've heard some of the ways you've expressed how much you know your sister needs to you and do you want to share like that?

Yeah.

It's hard.

It's hard to talk about like that emotional thing.

Like it's

yeah.

I mean, definitely, like, we had a falling out and like, um, I definitely said so many hurtful things.

And I think, you know, we both went through a lot of trauma and through a lot of shit.

And, like, I didn't know how to have a healthy relationship.

I couldn't, at that point, like, I couldn't understand like how you're literally the reason I'm alive.

Like, I couldn't wrap my head around that or understand that.

Like, I still didn't really understand

what either of us had been through.

And honestly, like, I've learned more about what you've been through today than I ever have.

You know, like you obviously don't usually talk about any of it for, I'm sure, a lot of reasons, but like,

I've just like missed you so much, Nathan, because I've like really learned like how much

the stuff with mom really strained all of my relationships with everyone.

And through adult eyes, when I like look back, like you said, you were parentified and like all of that.

And like you, you were a kid like you should have never ever had to do all the things that you did for me and I hate that you had to do all of that and obviously I'm like forever grateful because I wouldn't be sitting here alive not to interrupt but like like that's that's why I never said anything yeah that's why I never talked about it because I didn't

I didn't take it as a burden You know, even if even if it was difficult, I never took it as a burden, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, we were best friends.

You know, like it's it's just

what I had to do

in that sense.

And,

like, I don't, I don't regret it.

Like, even after the fallout, I don't regret it.

But I didn't talk to you about it because I just didn't want you to feel heavy with that.

Yeah.

And what it, what it did to, you know, everything else.

Like, I just didn't want

you to feel it.

I mean, I definitely feel heavy.

Not, I don't.

I mean, it hurts.

Like, I hate that

you went through what you went through

to take care of me um

and i see it more as like you were put in that position not because of me but because of like mom and like other people like it wasn't um either of our doing but it sucks i think how much

i think it like really affected me like later on and you and i think um

yeah it's just i talk about you all the time and how important you are in my life.

I still only call you sister.

Most people never know your name

because you're just sister.

I like do art on your birthday every year about how much I miss you.

Like I

all I have ever like wanted is like a relationship with you.

And I know like it's been so strained.

One, because of our fallout.

And then two, I think because of everything that we were put through and all of that.

And like, I know like we've been talking like a little bit more here and there and it's been like kind of weird but like also really nicer when we got lunch more recently that was like

that is like one of the

like best memories that I like have in a really really long time because it felt like I finally like

have my family again

yeah

yeah I mean when you left like

like a child leaving you know like

you don't know who you are without that person you know like we were attached at the hip

mundausen by proxy abuse doesn't just endanger the lives and well-being of the child victims it really hollows out entire families Perpetrators of this abuse split everyone in their children's lives in order to maintain control.

You're with them or you're against them.

I've accepted at this point that I'm not going to get to see my niece and nephew until they're adults, and that even if they're willing to meet me, the work of dispelling whatever it is that they've been told about not just me, but our entire side of the family is going to be a daunting task.

But as I watch Joe and Crystal reach out to one another across the divide that their mother's abuse created, I'm moved and inspired.

Daunting, yes,

but maybe not impossible.

Just that I love you so much and I'm so grateful that you did this.

More just like getting to hear, like, talk more deeply than we have in so many years.

It's been a long time.

And I just,

yeah,

I

hope you know that, like...

That I love you so deeply and am forever grateful for

everything that you've done in my life and for raising me when you shouldn't have ever had to.

And yeah, all those memories are there.

I just don't want you to go forward thinking

like

it's one thing to be grateful for, right?

But I just don't want you thinking that like I don't want you thinking that it was that burden.

I really don't.

No, that means.

So like I just don't.

Like yeah, yeah, like the way you talk about it, like, you know,

makes it feel like

at that time it wasn't a big thing for me.

Yeah.

So, like,

um.

No, I don't feel like a burden.

Yeah.

I just, I don't want you to go away with any of those feelings that I thought it was, like, a negative thing, because I didn't.

It wasn't until, like, that big fallout that it even started to feel like maybe

like I had done.

a lot of wrong things or something like so it took a long time to even get to that

um

otherwise you know i if if we if i it had to be all done over again, I don't know that I would have changed a whole lot.

So

luckily, it doesn't have to be done all over again, but you know, it won't smell like dropped dumb.

This day has been a roller coaster.

This was a conversation Joe never really thought would happen.

And now that it had, even though it had lifted a weight between the siblings, it was a lot to process.

Later that night, after we decompressed and had dinner together, Joe recorded an audio diary from our hotel.

I'm really struggling tonight.

It's really hard.

It's really hard.

It's one thing to recognize like I've done so much work

to like hold my truth and all of that, but

to have other people validate it just makes it so much more real.

Hearing all that my sister has also endured,

like there's nothing that I could have done.

I wasn't even alive, but it just breaks my heart because

she really has always tried to be so caring.

And

I just hate that she's been so hurt.

I hate all of it.

I hate that it's all real.

That none of it was in my head.

It hits me really hard listening to this

because I just relate to it so hard.

Joe's describing this sort of decades-long process of facing this horrible truth about someone that you love.

And like, you know, you have to face it.

And yet you still wish with all your heart that it wasn't true.

And you're always hoping that something's going to come to light that makes you realize that maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought it was.

And the opposite keeps happening.

It turns out to be worse.

I feel really honored to be able to go on this journey with Joe because Joe is someone I care about a lot.

I'm also doing it for myself so that when I get there, If I get there, if I get the chance to be in a room with my niece and nephew,

that I'll know the way.

And so just as I'm with them while they're going through this,

I know that they'll be with me when I'm making these attempts to rebuild,

to build to begin with, I guess, a relationship with my niece and nephew.

Hope about this situation with my sister is something that has been elusive over the years.

And

Every time I've felt hope

about the situation, it's been completely dashed.

And that sort of going up and down, that roller coaster of, okay, someone's called, you know, there's an investigation, they're going to do something.

And then having that come to nothing has just been so grueling and made me feel so

helpless.

I'm watching Joe.

take control of their own destiny in a way and being really, you know, active in trying to rebuild the relationships that they actually want.

It's an incredible thing to witness.

And it just reinforces for me everything that I

had been trying to do with this show and with this project, which is so that none of us have to be alone.

I think this is one of my core beliefs as

someone who has spent my whole professional life being a storyteller, right?

Like first as a novelist and now with the show, telling our stories, listening to other people's stories, empathizing with one another.

It can help.

It doesn't fix things, but it does help.

Watching Joe

go through this, reassemble their life story, rebuild some of these relationships.

This is how you start to put a human being back together.

Next time, we unravel one of Joe's biggest childhood mysteries.

I just thought that was common knowledge.

I didn't realize that

anybody ever thought that Dale was your dad.

I mean, I'm not white.

Yeah.

Nobody Should Believe Me is written, hosted, and produced by me, Andrea Dunlop.

Our senior producer and editor is Mariah Gossett.

Greta Stromquist is our associate producer.

And administrative support from Nola Carmouche.

Music provided by Johnny Nicholson and Joel Schupak, with additional music and sounds from SoundSnap.

And thank you to Cadence 3 for additional recording support.

If you'd like to support the show, the best way to do that is to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on Patreon.

where you can get all episodes early and ad-free, along with extended cuts and deleted scenes from this season, as well as two exclusive bonus episodes every month.

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For more, you can now find us on YouTube, where we have all of our episodes as well as bonus video content.

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