Unabridged Conversation with Hope Ybarra

True Story Media.

Hello, it's Andrea Dunlop.

Thank you so much for joining us on our trip down memory lane to our very first season of Nobody Should Believe Me.

Today, I am unlocking something from our subscriber vault, which is my unabridged conversation with Hopiabara.

This was and remains one of the strangest conversations that I've ever had in my life.

And if you listen to the re-ering of our finale, you will have heard some of my reflections on this conversation there.

But I am extremely grateful that I got to have this sit-down with Hope.

If you followed along with that season, you'll know there was a crazy amount of back and forth that led up to it, where she agreed and then pulled out and agreed and pulled out several times.

And I flew to Idaho with my producer, really having no idea whether or not she would show up.

Hope is an unpredictable character, if nothing else.

Anyway, of course, she did show up.

And, you know, as you'll hear in this conversation towards the end, I make an offer to help Hope if she wants it, you know, to connect her with some of the professionals that you've heard on this show, people like Dr.

Mary Sanders from Stanford, who we've spoken to several times and who has really been a pioneer in developing treatment protocols for people that

have factitious disorder imposed on another.

And part of the reason that it felt important to me to offer Hope this resource or any resources I could was because, as you can imagine, hope was functioning for me as kind of a stand-in for my sister.

Since my sister maintains that she's never done anything wrong, I don't envision any scenario where I will get a chance to offer to help her.

And so did Hope ever take me up on that?

If you listen to this conversation, if you listen to our finale, you'll know that she sounded enthusiastic about the idea.

So this conversation happened now three years ago, and she did not.

I never heard from Hope again after this.

And you know, the truth is

that like many perpetrators who do any media, who do any interviews after a conviction, they

find this interesting way to toe a line between sounding like they're taking some accountability, but in reality, they're not.

And Hope didn't really take accountability for her actions.

And I don't believe that she ever will.

I don't believe that most ever will.

And that is a challenge that we've talked to Dr.

Mary Sanders and other professionals about: is just that step one to any kind of treatment, to any kind of healing for a perpetrator, to any kind of

reunification with family members step one is accountability and most will never reach step one so what i can tell you is i wanted to release this full conversation to share with everyone even though this feels a little vulnerable for me because this was just a conversation where i was really in it where i was really in the moment but i think it's fascinating it's fascinating for me to listen back to the whole thing because i recognize that this was a pretty life-changing moment for me, like in this conversation while this was happening.

I think that this conversation with hope is the closest that I'm ever going to come to having

some kind of closure about my relationship with my sister Megan,

not the situation itself, because that is ongoing.

I don't foresee having closure about that, but it did help me close a chapter and sort of move on to another one and move forward in a way that I don't know that I could have done without having the chance to sit down with hope.

So if you are hearing this entire conversation for the first time, please do tell me what you think.

I will be very interested to hear your reflections.

If you are a new listener to our show, if you are a longtime listener to our show, I always love hearing from all of you.

So just a reminder that subscribing to the show on Patreon or on Apple is a great way to support what we are doing here.

And in addition to getting all episodes early and ad-free, you will get a ton of exclusive content.

We covered the entire Kowalski trial end to end.

We watched the Gypsy Rose Blanchard Lifetime series together.

And we are currently doing a deep dive into the Justina Pelletier case.

So if any of those things are interesting to you, that is the place to find them.

And as always, if monetary support is not an option, rating and reviewing the show really helps as well as sharing it on social media.

So without further ado, here we are in a little burger joint in Idaho.

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 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.

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We belong to something beautiful.

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.

This is hard.

What I would say to all of them is that I am so sorry for everything that I put them through.

I was selfish.

I love my family, especially my children, more than anything on this planet.

And

it was not fair, not right that I put them through what I put them through, especially

she was loyal to my baby girl.

And

I have so much regret for hurting her.

And in the process, hurting the other two as well.

And I destroyed what was a wonderful marriage doing it.

And

I was selfish, and I will carry that guilt guilt for the rest of my life for hurting all of them,

especially my family.

They stood by my side for a long time

and

there's not enough words to thank them for standing by my side and for loving me regardless.

And now me and my sister are communicating and that means so much to me.

She was always my best friend and she's still standing by by my side as my best friend.

The rest of the family not ready yet.

But Robin is still there

and I just hope one day the rest of the family will come around.

Yeah, I mean

can you tell us like

Yeah,

how are you doing?

Like, how are you doing?

I'm doing well.

I got a lot of therapy and counseling in prison.

I did some bad things that got there.

I tried to kill myself and ended up going to a psychiatric facility.

Spent a lot of time there.

I got one-on-one counseling.

I'm on medication now.

I'm not getting counseling anymore,

but I've come to terms with why I did what I did.

So, I'm really interested to hear about the process of getting that counseling because this is something I really want to focus on in the podcast.

You know, is

how

people can get better.

Because I think, in order for

you to be able to have a healthy relationship with your kids, in particular,

you know, that you have to be healthy yourself.

And I wonder, you know, what your experience was like with counseling and what you've come to understand about

the why.

I never got to that.

What we worked through is

mainly the depression,

what led to me trying to kill myself.

We worked a lot with my feelings,

why I had the depression.

why I didn't want to live anymore.

And most of the reason is because I felt like my family would never be back the way it was.

And my family was everything.

If I don't have my family, what do I have?

So it wasn't worth living anymore.

And there are days that I feel that way.

But I have more

faith and hope now that

My family will come around.

Robin has.

Robin talks to me.

And that means so much.

And she was always my best friend.

And so we text quite often.

And I hope one day my dad will come around.

He's the one that's not ready.

And so

I know I just got to give him time.

Fabian talks to me.

Lets me know how the kids are doing.

They're they're nearly all out of the house yet, so he didn't have much

oversight anymore.

But my biggest hope is that

my kids one day see that I didn't do it to hurt them.

I didn't do them to get away.

I didn't do it because I don't love them.

I did it because I didn't know better.

I thought that's

what I needed to do.

When I got to prison and after I killed myself and got the therapy, I realized

why I did it.

And I realize now that that's not the way to do it.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Like you said,

you began to understand

why you did it.

Now, do you mean the suicide attempt or do you mean

what you did to

and I mean I've come to understand from just you know a uh the sort of academic perspective i guess sort of

what

underlies that and

i wonder kind of like you know and

yeah like what what what have your revelations about that been because i think that um

that might really help people understand

better

how things get to that point.

There's other ways to feel loved.

I didn't feel loved.

I had a wonderful husband.

I had three wonderful kids.

When I was born premature,

when people were gravitating and

coming to see her and seeing how she's doing and that I felt loved

and it kind of perpetuated from there.

She was an early baby

and she spent quite a bit of time in the NICU.

And

so it kind of, that's where it grew from.

And it just

I didn't see another way to feel loved.

I mean, that's just something that's internal, something that I had to figure out.

And then I had to see the bigger picture

that I've loved regardless of how people act or how people

what people say or

how people respond.

I'm very emotional.

I'm very

I respond to situations

quickly.

And so

I'm able to slow down now.

Like

an impulse type thing, like really sensitive.

Before,

that's just how it was.

How I felt right away, that's just how it was.

Not look back, I look back now and realize, well, it was just a feeling.

There's no proof.

Where's the proof?

And that's something that I've learned

where's the proof

see why it

is it true or not

where's the proof

and and if there's no evidence there's no proof that it's probably not true

I mean something that really strikes me and one of the things you know as I said watching your previous interviews, there are the questions that they, by and large, the questions they were asking were not the most, the things I'm the most interested in.

But there was one moment that really struck me, which was, I think,

one of the interviewers was asking you about one of your remission parties.

And you were, you know, describing in really similar language to what you just said, that at that party, you know, with all of those people there to celebrate you and celebrate your health, that you felt loved.

And you said, nobody wants to feel like an outcast.

And that struck me so hard because especially the deeper I've gotten into this and talked to your dad and talked to your brother and sister, like

I'm like, that's not how anyone else in Hope's life would have described her.

And I get that that's how you felt.

It's sort of that alone in a room full of people thing.

And so I wondered like, if you could go back to your younger self, you know, or like when you think about your younger self

before,

you know, the very beginning of these behaviors and like before it escalated to the, you know, stuff with the cancer and all of that, like what would you say to your younger self?

Look at the bigger picture.

Look at the bigger picture.

Stop looking within.

It's the look

throughout.

So sort of of like,

do you feel like,

do you get now the sense that your internal reality like did not match that external reality?

Very much so.

Very much so.

The way I feel,

a lot of the time it's not true.

It's

false perception.

Like when I tried to commit suicide,

I had a lot to live for,

but I felt like I had nothing worth living for.

But when I look back,

and as I was on the way out on the gurney

to the EMS, I realized at that moment,

at that point, I thought it was too late.

Doing this is showing all those folks that I love that I'm not worth living for.

why the heck would I want to show them that

and that's what kept me from doing it that's kept keeps me from doing it again

and

if we can kind of like go back to that younger version of you

where

you were first starting to maybe

have you know it's clear to me that you're just like a very sensitive person and that you feel things really deeply

and like I'm that way too.

I am a novelist.

Always have.

Always have.

So, like, even when you were a kid, like, yeah, it's like that really sensitive person thing where you feel like, oh, things that might not be be or seem like a big deal to someone else, like to you, sorry, he's

running a bit now because he'll say something, and then I perceive it as mean or ugly, and I'll start crying, and he'll feel bad.

And he doesn't mean it that way.

He's the sweetest man and

he would never say nothing to hurt me.

But

when he says things,

the way I perceive it, a lot of times is not real.

I just twist it,

I guess, because I feel like I'm not worthy.

And

I've always felt that way.

I've always felt that way, that I'm not worthy.

And there's a lot of times that I feel I'm not worthy of this wonderful man.

And I tell him that.

He is so good to me.

As good as my ex was.

And

my big focus and part of my changing now, I want to make sure that I don't ruin another relationship.

My marriage with Fabian was wonderful and I don't want to destroy the one I have now.

Because that would be,

I mean, the guilt that I have not only with the kids, but I hurt Fabin and his family as well.

And it was not fair.

And then I look now.

If I could have changed anything,

aside from not hurting the kids, I wouldn't have hurt

the man who was standing by my side through everything.

But I did.

And he did what he needed to do, walked away.

I'm gonna make sure that I don't make that mistake again.

Because I've got another one and he's by my side.

He takes care of me.

He looks out for me just like Fabian did.

And I want to make sure that I don't make that mistake again.

Yeah.

Your family had some very sweet things to say about you.

Do you want to hear one?

Do you want to hear what your sister said?

She's my best friend.

She was just one of the sweetest people I've ever met.

She's wonderful.

She's my best friend.

Well, I can play for you some sound.

I think you'll like it.

And Nick also had some really sweet things to say.

Really?

Mm-hmm.

They have really good memories of you.

And I think that's, you know, for me, I have really good memories of my sister too, even after everything that happened.

It's one of the hardest things to reconcile sometimes.

Should I go ask if I can...

So Hope was the oldest of the four of us, so she was kind of when mom was gone or dad was gone, she was kind of the adult in the house, which was always kind of interesting because she was a bit a bit of a wild one sometimes.

But we were really, really close, especially as I got into high school.

And that's really where my relationship with Hope had grown a lot because she was the first person in my family that had gone to college.

She did really well.

She was doing well in her life, and it was kind of an inspiration for me.

So, when she had her oldest kid, she was still in college.

And so, I spent a lot of time, we got to go out and see her and kind of see what that life was like.

And so, it was kind of inspiring to me.

Like, she was someone I wanted to kind of be like.

So, Nick is saying that he was very inspired by you

and that

he looked up to you,

that he looked up to you and he was very inspired by you and you taught him something that he still remembers today

through something similar to what she did.

So I had talked to her a lot.

We would talk pretty frequently about, you know, what she accomplished, how she did it, what I would need it to do in my point in life to kind of have the same thing.

And so I would say that was really kind of a turning point for her and I to be a lot closer.

And I think that was a really cool moment.

She and I had talked even when she came back.

You know, she was the person I was going to rely on when I was in school, when I was in college, she was going to help pay for books.

And she made me a promise.

As long as I was passing my classes, she was going to pay for books and all these other things.

And I never forgot that.

And still to this day, it's like, it seemed like she was someone who was always kind of a fun person.

She, I remember at times when we were growing up where, you know, she was just really kind of the life of the party.

She was

really good at everything she did.

She's one of those people where like no matter what she put her mind to, whether it was band or

just talking to people, like it was always like she was really good at it.

She is someone that everyone would kind of just kind of gravitate to.

So that was always really interesting because

I'll never forget like just high school band for example.

I think she was the drum major.

She went to Solara State out in way West Texas for band and stuff like that.

And she was really good out there.

And so every time I talked to her about something, she's like, yeah, I'm doing this and I'm so good at this and this is why.

And mom and dad were always really proud.

So it's like, hey, how do I I get to be that right it's kind of that same thing like it was inspiring I guess is a right way to put it

remember one time I was in school and I was just really struggling I was like I don't want to do this like how do I get my brain wrapped around it I can it's just not challenging it's not fun and I call her I'm like hey what do I do and I was like I don't how do you do this you're you know she was in college at this time I was still in high school

maybe in middle school even I guess the gap is there

and she said sometimes you don't have to want to do it it's just once you get it done think about what you get to do after and I was like okay so as long as I get it done, and it's always kind of sat with me, get the stuff done that I don't want to do first,

and then you get to do the fun stuff or the more entertaining stuff.

And so that's one of those memories.

It's like, I don't know where she came up with this all-wise moment all of a sudden, but it's something that is like, okay, this is the way to do it.

And I mean, I manage a team of eight people now, and I tell them that.

It's like, I know you don't want to do this, just get this done and then go to the other stuff that you actually enjoy.

Hopefully, they take that a little bit and actually run with it.

But I'll never forget that part of it.

It's just still stuck with me.

What, 25, 20 years later?

So it's good good advice.

So he was saying that you gave him advice that he still uses with his team now.

He just so looked up to you and you were the first person in your family to go to college.

He wanted to be like you

and be as successful as you were.

How does that feel to hear that?

I can send you that just so that you know it's there.

It's strange that he did good because he looked up to me.

It seemed like he always just did good on his own.

You were his example.

Well, I wanted to be a veterinarian.

Oh, you know, I graduated high school, I did okay.

Nick did wonderful.

He always did great in school.

Went to college, majored in chemistry,

but I ended up having

that kind of put a halt on continuing education.

But I had my degree.

I went to work so I could

go to Fabian.

And he got his master's so he could stay there with me

because

that way I could graduate.

and that's why he continued.

We had

and so he could stay out there and now fine with me.

And then we both graduated, we both went and got jobs and it's just you know once you have a kid that's what you got to do.

Got to work, go to work, take care of your kid

and I didn't want to struggle like mom did early

before she went to college.

Yeah, because they had you guys, they had you guys young,

very early.

And I didn't, I didn't want to struggle like that with

and so um baby and i both graduated uh got our degrees um and got out and got good jobs and baby's always worked

always been a provider

sounds like you worked really hard too yeah good or good job you know a couple good jobs

yeah yeah

and everyone like

you know

that was pretty representative of what everyone said about you.

You know, just that you were really fun and really smart and like life of the party.

And

that's not the way I felt.

Most of the time I felt like the loner.

I enjoyed being with people.

I'm a people person.

But I don't feel like

obviously

like the center of anything.

And now I'm okay with that.

At the time,

for a long time,

you know, I was not popular in high school.

I was not

by any stretch of the imagination.

I had friends, but who didn't?

And so because,

you know, I was going through,

you know,

adolescence and all that, and because I was not popular,

there was a lot that I felt like I was missing out on.

And

when I got towards the end of high school, I knew what I always knew I wanted to be a veterinarian.

Of course,

those plans kind of got interrupted.

And that's okay because I have three wonderful children.

And let me tell you what, I will take those kids over a career any minute.

But I mean, you also had a career.

Like,

you're almost describing it like you sort of underachieved, but I mean, you didn't.

You got your degree and you had good, well-paying jobs.

I mean, I think that's what, and I totally understand that it doesn't always matter what it looks like from the outside versus what it feels like from the inside.

But I mean, you know, for at least a period of time, you know, you were working and you were like involved in the community and you had your kids and you were, I mean, you were doing a lot.

Like you were doing a lot.

So you were, you were, yeah.

And I mean,

do you feel like that was part of maybe what added to the stress?

Very possible.

Very possible.

I put too much on my own shoulders.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because one thing, one thing that I've wondered in looking back through my sister's pattern of like when these behaviors started to emerge, when they got really bad, it seems like

that sort of stress level getting really high,

that it was almost as though she was doing some of those behaviors to like get some kind of relief.

Is that something that resonates with you at all?

Do you feel like

that's interesting?

I was in the gym when he called me.

I'll call you back later.

I don't think so.

You don't think so.

No.

So

for you, you've kind of got a lot of things.

That's an interesting thought.

I got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

It's like, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

I don't think so.

But I need more work.

I'm on your brother.

Yeah, and it should be easy.

Yeah, so I mean

back to kind of like where where you're at now,

you know, so you've told us a lot about your wonderful boyfriend and you know you found a good situation here and you've told us about

Kobe, right?

Yeah, your wonderful Siberian husky.

So, you know, what else are you, you're about to start a new job at Walmart.

Like, what else are you doing now?

Like, what makes you happy now?

What brings you joy now?

Right now, being with him.

That's what makes me happy.

He's what makes me happy.

Yeah.

He's very affectionate.

Very much a caregiver like me.

So we take care of each other.

Not a day goes by that he doesn't tell me something sweet

or special.

Like if I

sometimes he falls asleep watching TV, if I put his tray up, he'll

tell me how much he appreciates that I took care of his tray.

And I mean...

to me, it's nature.

It's just what I do.

And he makes sure that I know how much I appreciate it.

He constantly tells me, like, today, he told me how beautiful I looked

because I wanted to dress nice today.

And I don't ever.

I meant to say that earlier.

And I don't ever wear this.

I got it in Texas and I've only worn it once.

And that was from

my job at Nari at Wilmer.

And he told me how nice I look.

And it's, I mean,

I'm not.

I'm not one

for looking good.

I don't spend a lot of time on makeup, obviously.

Don't spend a lot of time on my hair.

I need a haircut.

It's hair, though.

It's like very long.

It's time for a haircut.

Time for a haircut.

Yeah,

I haven't cut my hair since I got locked up.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so it's quite long now.

Down to my butt.

It's time for a haircut.

Need to cut the dead ends off.

But yeah,

I don't know.

I've always had short hair.

And so now this is like, whoa.

Yeah, and very heavy.

Very heavy, up, very thick hair, so it's very heavy.

It's nice long though.

Appreciate it.

Maybe you'd go like a little,

you know, little shoulder length or something.

Like, I don't, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

Um, I need to cut the dead ends off for sure.

Um, he loves the long hair, so I'll probably keep the long hair.

Um, that's something that I've learned

and what I destroyed in my marriage: is that

whatever relationship I have,

um,

that we have to work together, make each other happy.

Um, and I didn't do that in my marriage,

and that's

why he he walked by me.

What do you

want

people to know about

you?

Like, maybe in particular,

things that have you've been written about a lot.

And I wanted to keep this

podcast from being a thing about you, not with you.

And so now that we have you are with us,

what do you want people to know about Hope?

That I'm an individual.

I have feelings

and that

I love my family, especially my children, more than anything on this planet.

Regardless of what I've done and the choices that I've made,

I love my family.

That's what I want people to know.

That regardless of what I've done, I love my family so very, very much, especially my children.

And

what do you hope for

going forward?

Like, what do you want?

What do you want your life to look like in five years and ten years?

I want restoration of my family.

and

what do you

I mean so I guess I want to say to you

you know as I said on on I said on our text message chain

you know I hope that having this conversation will help you

and that meeting me will help you

and I want to help you in any other way that I can genuinely

because

I care about your family, and

it would be better for them, I think, to have some kind of reconciliation.

And again, obviously, like they're going to all handle that in their own individual way.

I

have worked with a lot, I'm working with, you know,

because of the effect that this has had on my personal life and because I have this public forum of having the book and everything else.

You know, I've become a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children's Munch Housing by Proxy Committee, so I know a lot of experts.

That's helped me a lot to understand

the,

you know, what sort of goes on in these cases and what genuine like healing and restoration can look like.

And it can happen.

And it takes a lot,

a lot of work.

You know,

the thing that you're living with, that you have been living with all these years, which has taken such a toll on your life.

And I see it.

I mean, I see it.

Like, I

see the human being in you separate from the choices that you've made.

And I think it's really important for other people to see that too.

I really do.

And

I...

don't think that we should write you or anyone else who's had the same pattern of behaviors.

I don't think it should be written off and, like, oh, that person just should never talk to their family again.

You know, I think sometimes that's the way it turns out, and sometimes that's the best way, you know, forward.

But, you know, I have now talked to, like, you know, a friend of mine, Mary Sanders, who I interviewed for the podcast, is the foremost expert in the world on helping

women like you

figure out a way forward.

And,

you know, know, it's a, but it's a lot of work.

You know, it means taking, you know, a full accountability and sort of working through these steps.

I mean, it's almost a sort of,

almost like an Alcoholics Anonymous sort of like, you know,

thing.

But she's had success and it's been extraordinary talking to her about what that can look like on the other side.

You know, it probably wouldn't look like what you might have hoped when you were younger, that your relationship with your family, you know, there's no way that these events are not going to take a toll.

But, you know, if you

wanted to put in that work,

I mean, I'm happy to help connect you to some folks that can help you do that.

And to me, that is, you know, a really necessary part of like

you being,

you know, healthy enough to have that relationship with your kids that you want.

That's going to be good for them.

You know, you've said to me over and over again that you don't want to hurt your family anymore.

You were worried about doing an interview because you didn't want to, you know, compound the damage and that kind of thing.

And I think that like there is a way for you to do that.

It's going to be a heavy lift, you know, I mean, I

think that's been a new revelation for me that that is even possible.

You know, you were in prison for 10 years.

You've lost your whole family.

Like you, I have no, there's no question of you having suffered consequences.

So I also just wanted to come here today to tell you that, like, if that is something that you are interested in, if that is something that you are willing to do, then it can be done.

It will be a difficult process and it will take a lot of work on your part, you know?

I don't, I don't skirt or walk away from hard work.

Never have, never will.

Which is part of why

the successes that I had, I did have.

Yeah.

Because I worked hard for it.

I'm not one to walk away for

anything from hard work.

Not a problem.

And if it means that my family can come back together, I'll do whatever I can do to make it happen.

Because the family that

I know,

I don't have right now.

That makes my day-to-day a little difficult.

And whenever,

if the ever time comes for us, I want my family to be there.

I've found a wonderful man, and

I'd really love for my father to meet him because my father is German as well.

And I think the two of them would get along very well.

But you know, my daddy's not ready yet.

That's okay.

And I think, I mean, this is,

you know, I think this is something that you would all, the whole group of you,

you know,

would need to, like, something that I've seen with my own family, right?

Because it affects everybody, right?

It's like, obviously the kids are the biggest thing, but then it's like, you know, siblings, like, it was really moving and like cathartic and wonderful for me to sit down with Robin and Nick because they

understand a lot better than anybody else I've ever talked to, you know, and like, and your dad.

And, you know, everybody deals with their own separate thing with it.

Right.

And so I think you always have to be prepared for people to deal with it on their terms, you know, and that like it's not going to be like, oh,

the family as a unit is going to like accept or not accept.

Like, I mean, even obviously you're experiencing that right now.

Like, Robin is more open than the others.

I think I just completely lost my train of thought.

I'm sure it was going to be something profound.

I think that where you're going is probably like

that, oh, sorry, I don't know how this is going to turn out,

but

there is

beauty and wonderful things on the other end of your willingness to be as open as you have been.

There is.

And I believe that.

Whatever it's going to end up looking like, we don't know.

But I think, given the fact that Andrea does have resources and that you have an open heart and a willingness to figure this whole thing out, it's remarkable.

Yeah, one nothing more.

And I mean, it's you know, the people that I work with on the committee, and Mary Sanders is the one that I've been talking about,

you know, she's been working on this for 40 years and she has a tremendous amount of empathy and a tremendous amount of curiosity, you know, like about

what

are those things that happened in your internal world that made it feel like doing destructive things to get the attention and love that you needed was the only option.

And like,

I don't say that with judgment.

I say that like understanding that that's like a really difficult place to be.

And I think we want to help families like yours heal.

And that's going to be on everybody's own terms.

But I think that like it's something that's going to require, I mean, from what we've heard from the people that are, that have been able to get treatment, you know, a pretty lifelong effort, you know, in terms of like

staying on track, staying on track with it.

You know, but if but if you're willing to do that, I mean,

I would want that for your family too.

I would want your dad to have some peace with it.

I would want, you know,

Robin and Nick to be able to have, and your kids and Fabian.

And I mean, I think, like, I think that would be better for everybody, you know?

I do.

I mean, what else?

Like, what else do you...

What do you think people...

Are there things that you think people have the wrong idea about you

that you would like to sort of

correct the score on?

Or either of you or people who are in a similar situation.

What do you think

you live

in there over there?

Based on the results of my other interviews,

they put total focus that I'm an attention seeker

And I'm not.

That's the last thing I am.

So

what were you?

So

what do you think you were seeking?

Was it more like love and acceptance?

I wanted to feel loved.

You wanted to feel loved.

That was it.

And so when you...

You were looking for the attention to be focused on me

um

i just wanted to feel loved and i did and i don't know why um i had a wonderful family um

i had a wonderful husband

wonderful children so i don't know why i didn't feel loved

um

i just wanted to feel loved that was all and i did what i did

i'm guessing because it made me feel loved.

And it, like I said, it started when I was born early.

I want to ask you about that because

I certainly understand where that

behavior, sort of pattern of behaviors really kind of took off around that time.

But of course, there were incidents before that.

You know, and again, it's not that I want to make you relive the details, but I just, again, I'm really just looking for insight

you know in terms of the the cancer

do you have any sense of what

of what

kicked off that situation or like where

you know that played into what you were needing at the time

just help us is there anything that you have an insight on now

Because I think one of the big things that I, the reason I asked that question, again, not to just make you relive bad times,

because I think that maybe one of the keys to helping families is to be able to

catch

things earlier.

Like I'm wondering, you know, at what point could, like, okay, okay, for instance, I think back on,

you know, after what happened with my sister happened, I thought back on like my parents and I sat together and thought, oh, this thing, oh God, this thing.

And we sort of saw this whole like chain of events going back to when she was at least a teenager.

And for my parents, I think even far beyond.

And

I could see then in retrospect things escalating.

And so I think one of the biggest,

I don't even know if I'd call it a regret because we didn't really know what we were dealing with.

So I don't know what we would have done differently, but I wish I'd known.

I wish I'd had a name for it.

Because I wonder, is there a moment when we could have, you know, when she was 16, when she was 23, when she was sort of these different, you know, incidents that we can point back to, like, is there a moment when we could have

said,

you're clearly going through something.

You're clearly doing some destructive things to get it, to get what you need, to get your emotional needs met.

Like I think that's a better way to say it, right?

Than getting attention.

It's not attention like, look at me, like Instagram, you know, it's like, right?

It's like, I think sometimes, and I think sometimes actually that like we give attention seeking like a bad rap.

Like human beings need attention.

We are designed that way.

Like we need attention from each other.

We need, we're a social species, right?

It's like, actually wanting attention is like why most people do most things.

Like that's actually, if you boil it right down to it.

But that said, I mean, I think it's like getting like your emotional needs met, right?

Like you said, acceptance, love, those things.

Like, I wish that I could have seen those behaviors

as sort of these cries for help that they were.

And it's clear that those were cries for help now in terms of like,

My sister is not getting her emotional needs met.

She does not feel love.

She does not feel accepted.

She feels alone.

All of those things that you've described to me today.

I wish that I could have seen those

seemingly bizarre behaviors as, oh, this is a symptom of what she's feeling on the inside.

And then, like, gotten to her, helped her, helped her address

what she was feeling.

And I just wonder, I mean, do you think looking back now with all that you know with your vantage point, like, was there a moment, you know, before was born, like before all of that, when like some of these feelings really started to manifest for you and like what could someone have done?

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It's okay that you don't have to answer.

I think I mostly needed to ask the question.

It makes me really

makes me sad to think about you and all that pain and

sometimes it's even more isolating when everyone perceives that you're doing just fine.

Yeah.

It's nice that everybody thinks I'm doing just fine

because I have support now.

And he knows.

He knows.

And so I like that my family thinks I'm doing just fine.

Because if they asked, I don't think I would tell them the truth.

And that's not something I want to do anymore.

So I'm glad they don't ask.

Because he sees, he knows.

If something's wrong, it's like he reads me like a book.

And it's simple things.

If I'm sad, he knows.

If I'm mad, he knows.

If my blood sugar is low, he knows before I know.

And that's

nice.

It's real nice.

And I wish I would have seen what I had when I had it.

Because I know without a doubt they'd have been there as well.

Just from a different perspective, I didn't see it.

But after going through what I've gone through and

meeting with counselors and seeing

what the source of the behaviors was

or could have been,

Now at the back side I can see

the truth.

And what do you think that truth is?

That I am loved.

Regardless of what my life looks like, how I feel, I am loved.

And that's why what you say to me means so much what my family said.

You have no idea the impact those words have on me.

Because

I miss my family.

I miss all of them.

My family.

My internal family, my kids.

They've all missed my ex,

even though he's an ex.

And he still, I mean, goes loving me out and tried to help me out whenever he can.

And

he loved me.

That's not something he should be doing.

But he does.

He's a sweet man.

He was a phenomenal father.

I couldn't have picked a better father father for my children.

And he's done it all alone because of my stupid decisions.

He's had to do it all alone.

And I know that's some hard work.

And he was most of the time helping me financially when I was locked up until the divorce became fine.

Always put money on my boats.

Write me.

Had the kids write me.

I mean,

what else could I ask for after everything I did?

My entire family is phenomenal.

I wish

one thing I could change would be go back and change what I did.

So they would have never broken apart to begin with.

I mean, is there anything else that you want to say to them, to any of them, to your dad or

your siblings?

Just that I love them.

I know I didn't show it.

My actions showed how much I didn't love them, but that's not why I did it.

It wasn't because of them.

It wasn't their fault.

And then my biggest regret of all my decisions is that my family is not together like it used to be.

How much my parents lost because of me.

Just not very,

not right.

I mean, I think something that,

you know, Robin and I talked about this a lot,

like,

that sometimes it can feel really hard to reconcile all of these good memories that she has with you and that I have with my sister with like kind of you know what happened after

but I think it's kind of helpful to think of things in chapters right so like you heard Nick talking about

all his you know memories of you from and how he looked up to you when he was younger and you obviously have a lot of good memories of your family from before all of this and

I think it's like you can have those things and then you can acknowledge the bad things that happened and this bad time for you of being in prison and being in such a dark place that you tried to take your own life.

And that's its own chapter.

And now we're here.

And

now we move forward, right?

Yeah.

And that's what I've done.

That's what I've done.

When I came to terms with my family, may not

ever be like it was

part of why I moved here.

This was the new start.

Fresh start.

Good start.

A real good start.

It's hard sometimes.

I don't think it'll ever be easy.

I have helped get through day to day.

And I needed that.

Just one kind of like final question,

if we can.

If someone else, if another mom, finds herself

where you were

in this sort of situation where

she feels like the only way that she can feel loved and accepted is to have been in the position of having a sick child.

I've got an answer.

Look outside the box.

Look outside the box.

Don't look internal because you are loved.

Regardless, may not feel that way, but you are.

Because you don't want to wait till you get to the other side of a bad decision to be able to see it.

Look inside the box, not outside.

Don't wait till it's too light.

Because that's what I did.

And what do you think?

What do you think someone should do to do that?

Should they tell someone they love how they're feeling?

Yeah.

Like,

if you could go back and like grab your hand,

you know, right in the middle of that.

What would you say to Hulk?

Like, what would you tell Hulk to do?

Like, go tell Fabian you're feeling this way.

Go tell your dad.

Go tell.

I mean, what would you say?

I wouldn't have told Fabian.

Because

he don't do emotions.

But I would have told my family.

I would have told my family.

I would have told my mom.

Like, reach out.

Reach out.

I would have told my mother.

Yeah, because I know she would have.

She would have.

She would have.

If she couldn't help, she would have found the right help.

I wish I could go back and tell my sister that.

I wish I would have had a chance to tell my mom.

I'll never be able to.

I'm really sorry for your mom.

I mean, say feeling.

I'll never have a chance.

I should have reached out when I had a chance.

she passed away when I was in prison

totally unexpected

I know never have a chance

and I had a great mom wonderful father

and I should have looked outside the box not inside

and asked for help.

I should have let mom know how I was feeling because she would have helped me.

I shouldn't have kept it to myself and just thought how I felt was the way it was.

Yeah.

Like your emotions or your reality.

Yeah.

If there was a bigger picture and my mom would have shown me that picture, I know she would.

I mean I

hope.

And I really think like you're gonna help people by saying that hope.

I really do.

Because I think like what nobody has managed to do and what has been missing from all of the coverage of all of these cases

you know you just see these words on them like oh monster that you know and it's like

as a person who's feeling those things and it's like that's the thing you need to address and like

I just think that if people don't feel like they can come forward and say

I feel like I'm doing this because I'm not like help me not do this thing.

Like people need to be able to

not have such a huge huge shame and stigma around feeling the way that you were feeling.

Like it's the action that was the wrong thing, not the feeling.

And I think if we stigmatize the feeling and make it this monstrous thing,

then that will make it more likely to happen, not less likely.

Like people need to be able to go to a doctor or a therapist or hopefully their mom if they have a great mom like you did, you know, and that's the thing, I guess, what breaks my heart is like, my sister could have, she could have said that to us.

My God, we loved her.

We would have done anything for her.

She could have come to us and like, there's part of me that's like, that's all I ever wanted was her to just say, like, please help me stop.

And there's part of me that like,

I don't think this is likely.

Like, part of me with this podcast almost hopes that like I'll put this out there and she'll say, I'm tired of doing this.

I want to come home.

Please help me.

I don't think that'll happen, but like, it's a wish.

It's a wish.

It's a wish

wonderful if that would be i i'm not gonna like totally hold my breath for that one but you know but

i hold just like a tiny space

you know and i and i

i mean i

we're not talking because that's her choice not mine so you know um

and it's always seemed so sad to me because like we are my parents are wonderful too you know we have just just like your family and i I,

you know,

I hope that someday when they're of age, I'll be able to.

I'm kind of in like in some ways, I'm in a parallel situation to you, right?

Like, you're hoping to be able to have another chapter with your kids, and I'm hoping to have another chapter with my niece and nephew, too.

And neither of us knows if we'll get that,

but we just have to try.

Just gotta

keep prayer to myself and be patient.

I feel

grateful to you for taking this paragraph.

I know this was not easy.

I hope you feel good about our conversation.

I hope that helped you a little bit.

It was worth it for me to hear what my family said.

That made it all worth

to know.

There's more.

I'll send it to you.

There's more.

We can send you the other ones from Robin and your dad to be able to.

To know that there's no other feelings.

That alone made it worthwhile.

Because even to this morning, I wanted to picture say I'd

be happy.

But at this point I

made a commitment and

I don't back out.

I'm really grateful to you for trusting me with this.

I mean I really like hope what you said at the end

about looking outside instead of looking inside.

That's an insight that we, and trust me, I have read just every freaking thing.

I have not heard that perspective anywhere else.

And you're really smart.

People who are in your situation, they don't talk about it.

I mean, for all the reasons that you can probably relate to, right?

Because it's not easy to talk about.

Well, and the hardest thing about talking about it is having to admit that you've done wrong.

To accept that you've messed up.

and that's the hardest thing about talking about it.

You have to face the facts.

And

eight years into my imprisonment, I still hadn't faced the facts.

It wasn't until I'd given up on myself and my family.

that I was kind of forced.

that I was kind of forced to face the facts

because the facility I went to was a psychiatric facility

for people like me.

It's called Sky View.

Sky View?

Uh-huh.

And people that hurt themselves or try to hurt themselves or want to hurt themselves, they go to that facility.

It's strictly psychiatric, strictly.

You have groups every day, five days a week.

So you're counselor quite often.

You have to address the issues.

Yeah, pretty much forced to.

I mean, you have a choice.

You can either go to group or not go to group, but eventually get kicked out of the program.

At that point, I had already tried to hurt myself

and then had the guilt

of giving up on my kids, because that's what I felt like I had done, giving up on my kids.

after I did that.

And that's what keeps me from doing it again.

There's a lot of days where I feel like it's not worth living anymore.

Then I remember, you got to be strong for those kids.

Whether they know it or not, it doesn't matter.

I've got to be strong enough for those kids.

If I kill myself, it's showing my kids that I don't

love them enough to try.

And that's what I thought the minute that they put me in that stretcher.

And I don't, and that's not the truth.

I do love my kids enough to try.

Regardless of what I've done, regardless what they know, regardless what they believe.

I love them more than this entire planet.

And I believe one day,

one day,

they'll want that relationship with mama again.

And I keep being strong every day until that day comes.

Because I'm still their mama regardless.

And nothing can take that away.

If it's 10 years away.

Can't.

And I mean, you know,

how do you think you

prepare yourself for

those eventual conversations?

I mean, if your kids have questions, if they have, you know.

I've got to be honest.

I've got to be honest.

Whatever they ask, I've got to be honest.

The things that I've had to face myself,

especially in Skyview,

I need to let them know that.

Let them know what I've worked through there.

Let them know what I've

realized since I've gotten out, because

there was a lot of help there, but it wasn't all therapeutic.

There's a lot of things that I've learned and that I've had to face

in reality, in real life now.

I better tell the kids all of that.

And do you think that you'll be able to kind of have a relationship with them like on their terms?

It'll have to be.

It'll have to be.

That's not an option.

That's not an option.

It's going to have to be on their terms.

That's going to be that have to be that way with my entire family.

I lost my terms.

I broke that when I heard that.

I lost my terms.

It's going to be have to be on their terms.

I mean,

I think it's,

it seems like you're, you know,

starting off on a good foot with that.

You know, something that we hear from survivors a lot is that their parent just never

never admits to what they did.

Even if they have been to prison.

Like there are, you know, there's there are

people sitting in prison now that just say they still saw a mistake, etc.

So that's a good, it's a hard thing and it's a good place to start.

And I was like that for three quarters of my incarceration.

Like I said, it wasn't until I went to this, until I

went to psychiatric facility until I had to face the facts.

And my mom had written me a letter and told me until I accept what I've done and why I did it, I wasn't going to get better.

I was so mad at mom.

That was the truth, wasn't it?

Yeah.

I was so mad.

I had written her a nice letter

and she responded with that letter.

Yeah.

And I was offended because I felt like she was coming out of left field.

Well, I can, I can, I can probably give you some insight.

You may have figured this all out already, but I can probably give you some insight into where she was coming from.

I think,

you know,

with my own sister, as I said, there was like a lot of things that led up to that break.

And one of the most frustrating things

was that she wouldn't ever fess up.

And

even if you can't undo it or make it better,

Just to have someone say,

you're not crazy, I did that thing, is a relief.

And if you don't get that accounting, if you don't get that person looking you in the eye and saying, I did that thing, here's, you know, where I can try and explain why I did it and I'm sorry, that just like, you can't really like move on from there.

And what happened with my sister was

she kept doing things that were

very destructive.

You know, she had

a

false, not a a false, upset, faked pregnancy with twin girls and lost it really late in the pregnancy.

And I completely believed that she was pregnant.

It turned out she never was.

And she just never addressed it.

We continued our relationship after that, but she just never,

like, we knew she, we put it together that it wasn't true.

And then she sort of was like,

yeah, I was just really upset about this.

And then just like, acted like it never happened.

So for me, it was like, but it did happen.

And I spent months of my life being really upset about it.

And now it's like, I'm just supposed to pretend it never happened.

And because I loved her and because I wanted to continue a relationship with her, I just let it go or I tried to let it go.

And then something else happened.

And something else happened.

And I got more scared.

And then her son was born.

And I got more scared and more scared and more scared.

And she was just never being honest with me.

And so it's like

you get it reaches a point where you just think,

if I can't

have any honest accounting, I can't just keep acting like things are okay

because then you start to feel like you're crazy.

You start to feel like, wait, did that happen?

Am I making that up?

Was I confused about that?

And it just really messes with your head, you know?

So at some point, like, you kind of just have to like cut through it to be able to have any bond with that person.

Otherwise, you're just sort of handling them.

Otherwise,

which was what my relationship with my sister was in the end.

We were just trying to like, we were on pins and needles all the time because we knew that like she could tell us it was raining outside and we'd be like,

you know, and that's you can't really have a relationship with someone when they're doing that, you know?

Like, does that

kind of resonate with you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep.

Totally.

I was really glad that your mom and dad stayed together.

Me too.

It seems like they really, really loved each other.

Yeah.

My mom and dad are one.

day as wish I

had a chance to reconcile my relationship with my mother before she left.

What would you want to say to her?

Sorry.

Sounds like she was a really good mother.

I just never got you.

And I wrote one of our projects in prison was to write a forgiveness letter

to somebody that we've hurt.

It was in a class called Changes

and we had to write a letter to somebody that we've hurt in the past and ask for their forgiveness.

The class was basically for getting up drugs and alcohol but

this particular project

We were

facing people that we've hurt in the process of doing the things that we did.

All the classes that I took while I was there, I took voluntarily.

I didn't have anything on what's called an ITP individual treatment plan.

Basically, my time consists of sit on your butt and do your time

because I didn't do drugs, I didn't do alcohol, I didn't do all this stuff, so I didn't have to take GED because I already had, you know, education.

So I had nothing, and I got, I was getting bored.

So I signed up for every single class I could get into

because it was boring sitting in the dorm all day.

And I ended up taking a bunch of classes.

I got OSHA certified.

I

got

carpenter certified.

Things that I'll never use.

Who knows?

But it was something to do.

And I got tired of sitting in the dorm with all the drama all day.

It was really crazy.

But in the

changes class,

one of the things that we learned is that

our projects was to write a forgiveness letter to people that we've hurt in the past.

The letter I wrote was to my mother.

And

I sent that, but I don't know if she ever got it.

And I hope she did.

because I fussed up and asked her to please forgive me for hurting her because because I know she's the one that I hurt the most.

But I sent that very close to the time she passed away, so I don't know that she got it.

Yeah, but I did it.

And regardless whether she got it or not, I know she saw it.

Yeah.

It's really interesting actually that you mentioned that you were, you know, taking these.

So you said changes was an, that was an addiction program um it was about change changing changing lifestyle behaviors was the the um

core curriculum okay because it you know one of the things that's come up a lot in the research is that it actually really functions like an addiction and you kind of talked about some of those like internal thinking and that impulse control kind of thing.

And I think that that's like a really helpful connection for people to make because I think it's like

that sort of sense of like not being so much in control of the behavior.

I think that's really important for people to understand.

So did some of that kind of language around that addiction stuff resonate with you a little bit or no?

It was kind of a different thing.

The class itself didn't help me at all.

Just that one piece of it.

It was just

there were some things that I saw at that time.

When I was taking that class, I hadn't really faced my reality yet.

And so when I taking the class, I didn't see the connection.

It was afterwards that I thought, you know what?

When I was at Skyview, I'd be like, when my counselor would tell me that, I was like, oh, yeah, I've learned that in changes.

Okay, interesting.

Yeah, I'd look back and go, wait a minute,

I learned, wait a minute, these two are saying the same thing.

It must be true.

Yeah.

It was.

Some of the classes I took were real good at learning.

I took parenting.

And

at that point, I knew that I wasn't going to have a chance to parent my children anymore.

But I took it anyway.

That was the first class I took was parenting.

Because I felt like I could learn stuff in there to help me be a better mother here on out.

Yeah.

I took parenting, I took changes.

OSHA.

Took five different classes.

I don't remember the others, but

those three are really the only reason I remember OSHA is because I have an OSHA certificate.

What is OSHA?

Occupational, safe, and healthy,

occupational

safety and health.

Safety in the workplace.

Oh, okay.

It's mainly construction.

Okay, well, there you go.

If you become a carpenter, then you can

like I'm gonna work construction.

But it was a class that had an opening, so I got in it.

And that's how I did it.

I signed up for everything.

I took

one in two in the chapel.

One was Kairos.

The other one...

Two more classes in the chapel.

All the other classes were held in education.

But yeah, I originally signed up for all this stuff because I was bored.

I didn't have nothing to do.

You know, people are going to school in the morning.

I'm sitting in my butt going,

what's boring in here?

You know, most people work.

I didn't work.

I was medically unassigned.

So I didn't have to work.

A lot of times I wish I could, but because of my different diagnosis, I couldn't work.

The warden worked medically unassigned me.

So are you, do you

think you would be open to finding a counselor to see here?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I could sort of envision, like, you know,

if you were to, you know, be able to find someone to talk to on a regular basis here,

you know, I can certainly connect them with, you know, Mary and Mark and these other big experts.

And,

you know, and they would be happy to like give them, you know, just sort of the specifics so that you don't have to explain everything from scratch.

Because I think that that's really exhausting to try and explain this to people that don't have any.

I'm on medication.

I am on medication.

Yeah.

well

is there anything I can do to to to help you I mean I'm happy to like help you know make those connections and

let me know okay yeah yeah

yeah got got wonderful support now it's good

real bless

yeah it's great glad you have each other very glad wonderful man very glad wonderful man I'm really blessed yeah do we need to get a sign

just yeah the only last thing I knew like a little business keeping, is to get your permission.

Because I didn't, yeah.

We have a permission slip with us.

So can you just say I'm Hopi Barra, I give you permission to

put your now?

That's right.

Sorry.

Oh, that's right.

Sorry.

Your full name.

Just say your full name and that

you

give us permission to use this on this podcast.

Yeah, I'm Hope Allison Puscher and I give you permission to use whatever's uh on this recording for whatever means you need to use it.

Thank you, Miss Chris.

It means more to me than you can imagine and it's

going to mean a lot to a lot of people.

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