S04 Ep04: Breaking Free

Speaker 1 True Story Media.

Speaker 1 This episode contains descriptions of disordered eating, so please take care. Resources are available in the show notes.

Speaker 1 The strangeness of what was happening with my sister hit me

Speaker 1 little by little, and then all at once.

Speaker 1 Because,

Speaker 1 of course, these behaviors of hers

Speaker 1 with deception and medical issues went back quite a ways. We both moved out of the house for college when we turned 18.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, I went to California for college and then went to New York for the rest of my 20s. And, you know, I was just being a young person and living my own life.

Speaker 1 And she was on the other side of the the country.

Speaker 1 Our family really

Speaker 1 stayed close

Speaker 1 throughout most of that time,

Speaker 1 even though there was this sort of escalating series of strange things, which was really exemplified by the fake pregnancy that she had when she and I were both in our 20s.

Speaker 1 You know, you would think that that would have been enough.

Speaker 1 That's a situation that I look back and think like, how could you have understood how serious this was when that happened?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I think that she just had enough sort of markers of still having a normal life at that point. You know, she had this full-time job that she, as a nurse that she'd had forever.

Speaker 1 She still had a lot of the same friends at that point.

Speaker 1 For myself and for my parents, it was when her son was born and he was born early and he started having this, you know, series of escalating health issues that the situation just became intolerable.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I think when I talk to other people who are either family members or, you know, non-offending spouses or survivors like Joe, we all kind of have this commonality in our experience of like,

Speaker 1 it was our normal with the person and it sort of seemed normal until all of a sudden it didn't.

Speaker 1 And then you're looking back at a whole bunch of incidents that led up to that and you suddenly see them in this very dramatic new light.

Speaker 1 And I think for someone who's outside listening to this experience, it's easy to say, how could you not know something was wrong? What about this? What about that? And you don't realize like how

Speaker 1 like how entrenched you are in that person's world when you're close to them.

Speaker 1 And I think that's obviously extremely potent for survivors because that's their parent and that's sort of the person who created their whole reality when they were growing up.

Speaker 1 One of the huge benefits from having some kind of peer support with this issue, so talking to other people who've been through cases,

Speaker 1 is that you feel

Speaker 1 this relief that you're not crazy. I think

Speaker 1 being close to one of these people makes you doubt reality, and usually for a pretty long period of time.

Speaker 1 And when you talk to someone else who's had that really similar experience, you just realize that they're not crazy. And that makes you realize that you're not crazy.

Speaker 1 And you can both sort of describe, sort of beat for beat, such a similar experience.

Speaker 1 And they're just such strong parallels in these cases that being able to see that pattern and then sort of look back at your own history and see where those parallels are makes you realize that you're not crazy.

Speaker 1 You weren't foolish for missing it, you

Speaker 1 aren't culpable for caring about that person and trying to help them.

Speaker 1 I think one of the things that makes getting out of that space that is the reality created by a perpetrator, what makes it so difficult for their children is that they have to leave the house and start to develop other support networks.

Speaker 1 That's sort of when we usually see survivors coming to some sort of realization about what happened to them.

Speaker 1 That happened for Joe

Speaker 1 because of Donna's alcoholism, because the reason that Joe was separated from Donna had nothing to do with the medical child abuse, and that revelation wouldn't come till later.

Speaker 1 But the wheels were just coming off with Donna. She was just becoming much less functional by the time that Joe was a teenager.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 3 this, ironically, you know,

Speaker 1 allowed Joe to get away from Donna earlier than they probably would have otherwise. And this very well could have saved their life.

Speaker 1 People believe their eyes. That's something that is so central to this topic because we do believe the people that we love when they're telling us something.

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Speaker 1 With their older sister out of the house and both their biological father Reza and Dale, the father they grew up with, on the outs with Donna, Joe was alone with their mom a lot.

Speaker 1 And as the abuse escalated, it became intolerable. As Joe got into their teen years, they started to resist their mom's controlling behavior, which only made Donna tighten her grip.

Speaker 1 In looking for sanctuary from their mother's abuse, Joe turned to more or less the only place one could look for help in Hutchinson, and that's the church.

Speaker 4 I guess maybe because

Speaker 4 that was when I was a teenager. I was probably

Speaker 4 14-ish.

Speaker 4 And so that's when I started to kind of break away from my mom a little bit. And I think she felt threatened by that.
And so she started saying, like, I was a Jesus freak.

Speaker 4 And she would tell me that my neighbors were going to kidnap me.

Speaker 4 And she would tell me and others that the church I was going to was a cult and like how bad it was and all of these things, which at that point in my life made me want to go more because I

Speaker 4 didn't want my mom to be like happy. I was really mad at her for drinking.

Speaker 4 Nothing to do with MVP stuff. Like high school is the first time I ever told anyone anything that was happening in my home.

Speaker 4 Prior to that, when I started getting more involved with church where I started, I opened up to my neighbors and my youth leader for Youth for Christ.

Speaker 4 He was the first first person I ever told anything that was happening. But all these people then that started to be in my life that were involved in church started to

Speaker 4 think I was making up illnesses and stuff.

Speaker 4 It was my choice to be healthy and I could just stop having an eating disorder and I could stop being sick and even though I was still in the home and all the other things.

Speaker 1 Without the context of the abuse that they were suffering, the other adults in Joe's life didn't understand that whatever disparities they were noticing between Joe's alleged health problems and the seeming reality of their health were not the result of Joe's choices, but of their mother's.

Speaker 1 And this set up a confusing and often adversarial relationship between Joe and their body that would manifest in myriad ways over the years to come.

Speaker 1 Just how fraught this connection had become was something that Joe wouldn't even fully have a handle on until they obtained their medical records as an adult and began to understand the scope of their mom's abuse.

Speaker 4 I think it wasn't until I looked through my records, what, like a few days ago, that it really hit me how deliberate it all was and how, like, so many of the illnesses and things were so like planned out.

Speaker 4 Like, it'd be planted seeds of, oh, she's having these little symptoms. And then all of a sudden, there'd be emergencies and things like that.
Like, there were so many

Speaker 4 seeds that were being planted that then like exploded and turned into something really big. Um, and I still, it's really hard to grapple with that and understand it.

Speaker 4 And I know, I mean, looking back with all of it, it's like she was very deliberate about everything.

Speaker 4 She pitted me and my sister against each other our whole lives, you know, like I was the thin one, I was the athletic one, I was the sick one who needed attention.

Speaker 4 And she did it deliberately, right, to make it so that like I would fight with her and she would fight with me. Like we would fight over who was mom's favorite and who could get attention from mom.

Speaker 4 And then she would like, if she was mad at us, she would give you the silent treatment and like wouldn't talk to you or would just cry. Like I remember starting in fourth grade writing poems to her.

Speaker 4 The first poem I wrote was for you, mom. And it was like a three page

Speaker 4 poem about like how good she was and how much I loved her and needed her and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 And that just kept going where I would have to write these letters and stuff, which ironically, one time I like looked through my mom's stuff, and there was like I found a letter from the person who I thought was my dad, and then from another one of my mom's exes, where they wrote letters to her about how amazing she was and how much they loved her and how much they like wanted her to stay in their lives.

Speaker 4 So, she knew what she was doing, and she had us all wrapped around her finger.

Speaker 4 Like, she knew exactly what strings to pull to like get us to behave in in the ways that she wanted and needed in those moments

Speaker 1 joe was isolated with their mom who was really deteriorating by this point given that joe had been coached to be terrified of reza and he wasn't really in their life the only other option was dale who also really wasn't up to the task of parenting

Speaker 2 When I was 14, my mom's alcoholism had gotten a lot worse and it had become pretty unsafe to be in my home. The cops were there quite often and we were quite well known around town for that.

Speaker 2 And so when I was 14, I was finally taken out of the home by the cops for the alcoholism. Absolutely nothing to do with the Munchausen by proxy.
And I was put with my dad for a little while.

Speaker 2 However, once my mom went to rehab and had this like miraculous recovery.

Speaker 2 I was placed back with her, even though on the way home, the social worker literally said to me that she knew that my mom was still drinking and there was just nothing that she could do.

Speaker 2 And so I ended up back in the home at 15, 16.

Speaker 2 And once I saw that my mom was still drinking and knew that there was really nobody that could help me. And so I ended up homeless from 16 to 18 until I was able to move in with my sister as an adult.

Speaker 2 But I never,

Speaker 2 within all of that, I had never really recognized that I wasn't sick. I still thought that I had all these different things.
I can remember my asthma suddenly going away.

Speaker 2 And I had told myself that, like, oh, I've just gotten really good at pushing through it. And I'm just like acting like I don't have it.
But I still thought I did.

Speaker 2 I thought that it was just like, I was stronger than it or something like that. But that is when my, when I got taken out is when my eating disorder started.
And I think that that was kind of

Speaker 2 since I was no longer in and out of the hospital because of my mom, I think that I started to be in and out of the hospital for this eating disorder because I didn't know any different.

Speaker 2 And the hospital had become such a safe place in a way for me to be taken care of. And I was a kid that was homeless and so i needed some sort of care still

Speaker 1 eating disorders are more common in people who experience childhood trauma and many munchhausen by proxy survivors report struggling with them as joe did

Speaker 1 joe was also a teen during the early to mid-aughts which were a particularly bleak and ruthless time when it came to body image Not that it isn't a problem today, but back then, any deviation from the ideal of lean muscle and no discernible body fat would mean a full-on public shaping.

Speaker 1 Say Jessica Simpson mom jeans to any millennial and watch for the full body shudder. So being a young person during this time, you kind of had no chance to begin with.

Speaker 1 Our sense of self as teenagers is always pretty fragile, but Joe's had been utterly poisoned by Donna.

Speaker 4 I had formed this vision of myself as this evil, bad, manipulative,

Speaker 4 contaminant of a human. And that's kind of how I viewed myself in the world.
I thought that bad things happened to me because of me, and that it was like all my fault.

Speaker 4 And I think that was reflected a lot, especially in high school by different people that could have been, should have been, were supposedly mentors and things like that.

Speaker 4 And so I just, there was nothing really in me that said, like,

Speaker 4 oh, my mom's bad. I think, you know, obviously

Speaker 4 I knew that she was like an alcoholic, so I knew that she had a lot of issues with that, but I still didn't have any idea about a lot of the trauma and abuse I had really gone through.

Speaker 4 So in 2016, when I went out of state for eating disorder treatment, they had wanted me to write a timeline where they wanted me to write all of the memories I had about what I had been through throughout my life, which let me just say, nobody should ever be told to do that when they first start treatment.

Speaker 4 But when I sat down to write my timeline, I was like, huh, I don't have any memories pre being like 13 years old. And so that was a very weird experience.

Speaker 4 Like all I could remember was, like I said, being like kind of happy and fun and having like a decent childhood and

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 1 And how old were you when you first went to treatment for your eating disorder?

Speaker 4 When I first went to treatment, I was 16.

Speaker 1 Joe has been in the process of trying to put their memories back together for the better part of a decade now, mostly from afar.

Speaker 1 I really admire their bravery because I know how hard it is to come to terms with what this abuse really is, to really look at it in the face.

Speaker 1 And that's why most people, including some survivors, avoid it at all costs. My sister didn't have nearly as profound an impact on my identity as Joe's mom had on theirs.

Speaker 1 But coming to terms with who my sister is has had the effect of recasting my childhood in an entirely new light. Everything looks different.

Speaker 1 The way that my sister's pets always seemed to be the ones that got sick. Her suddenly getting close to anyone who is ill or impaired.

Speaker 1 As Joe and I have become close over the years, we've spent some time unpacking this dissonance and asking these questions. Was anything about this person real? Did they ever really love me?

Speaker 1 I know how emotional it is for me to talk to people from my own childhood.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I hear from people who don't know anything about what's happened with Megan and just casually ask me how she's been.

Speaker 1 Or sometimes they find this podcast first, and then it's a very different conversation. And for me, at least most of my memories are still there, even if they don't make sense.

Speaker 1 For Joe, coming back to Hutchinson must feel like walking into a forest with a blindfold on.

Speaker 1 How does it feel being back here?

Speaker 4 It has been such a whirlwind and really,

Speaker 4 really weird, honestly. I'm already emotional.
Thinking about like how far I've come and

Speaker 4 all the things that I've like survived to get to this point, and knowing like how

Speaker 4 little of my story has ever really been shared, and how much impact I think that it could have on other people.

Speaker 4 And just like, yeah, just the opportunity to be here doing this and that it's all real and really happening.

Speaker 4 And literally, just the fact that I'm alive really

Speaker 4 makes me emotional probably every day.

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Speaker 1 One of the people Joe remembers having helped them survive this precarious teen period where they were struggling with homelessness was Kristen.

Speaker 1 Oh my God. Kristen had her own struggles growing up in and around Hutch, and at the time she was raising a small child and in a troubled relationship.

Speaker 1 I miss you so much.

Speaker 1 But Kristen and Joe saw each other for who they were, and they did their best to be supportive. They kept a hold of each other like imperfect ports in the chaotic storms of both their lives.

Speaker 1 And while they'd seen some life updates here and there about each other on social media, like so many of us do with friends from childhood, they hadn't been together in the same room for almost a decade.

Speaker 8 Oh my God, it has been 10 years.

Speaker 8 10, like a literal decade.

Speaker 4 A literal decade. A little decade.

Speaker 1 Kristen is a pretty Midwestern mom who arrives in a cute floral dress. It's February, but the unseasonable warmth has the locals dressed for spring.
And she has a big, warm smile.

Speaker 1 Joe met Kristen when she hired them as a babysitter, back when her kids were little, following an unfortunate incident with a different Hutchinson teen who decided to use her babysitting time to throw a wild party at Kristen's house.

Speaker 1 Joe and Kristen crack up as they remember the series of events that led to their fortuitous meeting.

Speaker 1 Joe had been kicked out of Dale's house by this time, and unmoored as they were, they still struck Kristen as completely trustworthy.

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 8 just, I feel the same. Like, Joe has always been my sister.
Like,

Speaker 8 you've always been family, like, we've always been family. And I love you so much.
Like from the instant I met Jo, like it was like

Speaker 8 I remember she was wearing like little neon shorts. I picked her up to come babysit for me.
And I'm like,

Speaker 8 this girl is adorable.

Speaker 8 And I remember coming home.

Speaker 8 after and she'd watched the kids and she'd made them snacks and had like the cutest like setup for them and was just so absolutely wonderful with my kids and it was such a change because we actually met through a previous babysitter situation that was exactly the opposite of that.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 3 so

Speaker 1 you were working full-time, had two little kids

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 then

Speaker 1 yeah, what did you know about what did you know about Joe's situation

Speaker 1 when you met them?

Speaker 8 Not a whole lot.

Speaker 8 I don't like to pry. I very much like people to give whatever they're willing and I don't ever want to make anyone uncomfortable so I didn't pry too much.
I knew that they needed a place to stay.

Speaker 8 I fucking love Joe. Like I

Speaker 8 their family like.

Speaker 8 And so I knew that there was rough

Speaker 8 tension between

Speaker 8 Joe and

Speaker 8 mother and I didn't know exactly what that all entailed until a bit later.

Speaker 8 There was I remember one

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 8 time I met her

Speaker 8 you had been staying with me I don't think for very long and I don't even recall what she she kind of stormed up to the apartment she like knocked on the door. I don't think she even said hello.

Speaker 8 She like asked whatever demanding question and left. Like it was a very weird, awkward, tense, not normal conversation.
And that was the, that was the impression that I had

Speaker 8 of her. And then I don't, I didn't have any like real interactions with her after that.
Like I had seen her at graduation party.

Speaker 1 Joe has a lot of happy memories of Kristen from this time, and the young mom was a lifeline for them. But they also carried some mixed emotions about the relationship.

Speaker 4 Sometimes when I think back I think I felt like kind of like a burden or like I was just kind of like

Speaker 4 yeah a burden I think would be like the best word to describe that.

Speaker 4 I've always felt kind of guilty so it means a lot to hear like you say those things because I didn't know how you

Speaker 4 I mean, I know that you've always still like showed up and still like loved me and stuff so I knew all of that, but I didn't know.

Speaker 8 You've never, ever, ever been a burden to me, Joe. You've only ever brought light to my life.

Speaker 8 When we were living together and we couldn't anymore, because we both were struggling with an eating disorder that was competing and not doing well for either of us, it was healthy for us both to not live together at that point.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 that was not non-you we both had that and

Speaker 8 I love you like it's

Speaker 8 that's aside you know I I fully understand that feeling of feeling like you're a burden because

Speaker 8 it's a trauma response I understand I felt that way too and that's what keeps you from asking for help from anyone is because you don't want to burden anyone. But Joe, you've never been a burden.

Speaker 6 I think that this has been like the craziest part of all of this so far is

Speaker 4 nobody has been saying the things that I like expect them to say from like the memories that I have, which obviously are from like my little

Speaker 4 kid teenage brain.

Speaker 1 Watching these two talk, I feel like I'm witnessing Joe's story of themselves be rewritten in real time. I can see from Kristen's face that she loves Joe and the the warmth between them is palpable.

Speaker 1 I know this isn't what Joe expected, that they felt like somehow there was something they needed to atone for.

Speaker 4 I definitely feel like I caused harm.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I mean, for a long time, right, I like held beliefs that I'm like bad and evil and manipulative and like all I do is cause harm and things like that.

Speaker 4 And I think over the past couple months, that like shifted with just like different revelations that I've talked about having

Speaker 4 and I can like recognize that I still caused harm as a kid as a teen as a young adult but I could also recognize that it wasn't like

Speaker 4 I was ever like trying to like hurt anyone and that it was just like I was unwell I was in survival like I was

Speaker 4 literally a teenager that didn't have a place to live

Speaker 4 and was like trying to get through school and all of that sort of stuff but I can like so I can recognize that, but I think it feels really different to hear

Speaker 4 from like other people like

Speaker 4 I don't hate you or like that like you aren't a burden or things like that. It feels really

Speaker 4 really confusing because I think I've been starting to know notice that it seems like more people were aware of what was going on and obviously you were like had to have been somewhat aware since I was like living with you as a teenager.

Speaker 4 But it's like so I know people were like aware and it's like

Speaker 4 I still felt so alone and was alone in a lot of ways. Some of it because I didn't have words to verbalize like what was going on.

Speaker 4 I didn't have any idea what was like all happening and stuff like that. So like it makes sense, but it's just like so

Speaker 4 confusing to like kind of hold both like I really did have a village like I really did have a lot of really really really good people good safe people in my life and I was still in a really shitty situation for that was like out of a lot of people's control Kristen becomes very emotional listening to Joe say all of this

Speaker 4 what are you thinking

Speaker 8 I like fully fully understand everything that you're saying like

Speaker 8 I totally get it and it it hurts. Like I hurt, I hurt for 17 year old Joe.
I hurt for child

Speaker 10 Joe that carried that.

Speaker 11 You never,

Speaker 8 we all fucking cause harm, like all of us, like especially when we're teenagers. Like we're growing, we're shitty.
Like we're my teenagers, I love them, but they're shitty right now.

Speaker 8 Like we all do shit and we all cause harm. And you didn't deserve any of the shit that you were going through.

Speaker 8 And none of that has

Speaker 10 none of that shit was on you.

Speaker 8 None of it. You weren't evil.
You weren't doing anything. You

Speaker 8 were learning and growing and doing the best that you could with the tools that were in your box as we all were.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I think that

Speaker 8 10 years makes a big difference in being able to recognize that and

Speaker 8 just the growth that has happened. I mean, psychologically, and it's

Speaker 8 incredible. It's

Speaker 8 incredibly enlightening.

Speaker 1 Just as Joe's first grade teacher, Mrs. Becker, did, Kristen remembers Donna as taking great pains to present herself as a good mom.

Speaker 1 Kristen explains what happened at Joe's high school graduation party.

Speaker 8 She wanted it to look like she was doing so much

Speaker 8 for Joe when she didn't do anything. Like literally Joe arranged her entire graduation party.

Speaker 8 But I remember she was very

Speaker 8 just very much wanting to be the mom that loves her daughter, wants everyone to

Speaker 8 know this is this is my Joe. This is like, and again, this is many years ago.

Speaker 8 But

Speaker 8 my overall impression was that she very much wanted an audience for her good parenting when she wasn't present as a parent, from what I could tell, because Joe is living with me

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 8 didn't see her, didn't

Speaker 8 have, like, she didn't come by and check on her to see how she was doing.

Speaker 4 The graduation party. I have pictures pictures of us together at my grad party.

Speaker 4 So I reached out to my mom and said, hey, I need all of the pictures of me from when I was a kid so I can do something for my grad party. And

Speaker 4 my mom was like, you have to give these back. These are so important.

Speaker 3 Oh my god, yeah, that's like better not ruin them.

Speaker 4 I still have them. All of them.

Speaker 6 I just have told her that I lost them or something.

Speaker 4 Or I ignore the texts. But for years, like probably a good decade, she would like randomly reach out and be like, Do you have those pictures?

Speaker 3 And I'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 4 They're mine. That's literally me.

Speaker 4 But so I like

Speaker 4 got these big poster boards and kind of put together all these pictures

Speaker 4 and got help because I had no idea what I was doing.

Speaker 4 I think at that time I was still really involved with my church, even though later found out that that same church, like people had been warning people about me and to stay away from me because I was like a bad kid or something.

Speaker 4 Who's to say?

Speaker 4 But they did they did the performance. They made food for the grad party.
I you know, I invited people. I was 17 and like put together this whole thing

Speaker 4 as someone who was so sheltered my entire life. No idea what I was doing.

Speaker 4 But we got some people to make some food. My sister's husband's mom made cupcakes.
That's right.

Speaker 4 And then I like reserved a space at a park or something.

Speaker 4 Literally don't know how any of it came together. But and then yeah, my

Speaker 4 mom showed up. I'm pretty sure Dale showed up.

Speaker 4 I want to say Reza might have showed up, but I can't remember. I'm pretty sure he did because I remember being, or he was maybe going to.

Speaker 4 I remember being terrified that both my dads are going to be like in the same place at the same time um weird enough having my mom and dad there but yeah my mom came in and just acted like she had put it all together

Speaker 1 Kristen had essentially taken over as Joe's parent during this time not that Donna exactly thanked her for it

Speaker 4 I don't remember my mom ever coming to your house at all.

Speaker 8 I do. Like that, that's how I met her.
Like she came to my house and maybe it was even even when it was like did the pictures.

Speaker 8 Maybe that's what, like, but I just remember like her coming and just say, I think she was like, where's Joe? And I don't remember you were,

Speaker 8 but it was like she didn't ever like acknowledge me or like say like,

Speaker 8 like, hi, I'm Joe's mom. Nice to meet you.
There wasn't that intro.

Speaker 8 Yeah, like there wasn't, there was no introduction that ever happened. It was like, where's this? Okay.

Speaker 1 After she met Donna, Kristen began to understand that this went far beyond the normal parent-teen tension.

Speaker 8 I had, like, my mom and I had some rough

Speaker 8 years.

Speaker 8 I think like all teenagers do, but it wasn't the same dynamic. And I think I was a bit shocked when

Speaker 8 I think I

Speaker 8 connected with Joe over like kind of issues with mom but then when I met her I'm like this is not this is not the same, because like,

Speaker 8 this is not a normal communication between mother and daughter. Like, it just wasn't,

Speaker 8 I don't know, it was very,

Speaker 8 it didn't seem

Speaker 8 loving.

Speaker 8 It seemed, it was very like coercive and demanding.

Speaker 1 During this time, Kristen was really up to her eyeballs in life stuff. A young mom in a troubled relationship struggling with her own eating disorder.

Speaker 1 And yet, yet she clogged that what was going on between Joe and their mom was serious.

Speaker 1 There was something really dark simmering beneath the surface, but Kristen couldn't put her finger on it until later when Joe began to open up about the fact that they'd been a victim of Munchhausen by

Speaker 8 social media, I just followed Joe through their story. on social media and kept up to date that way.
And

Speaker 8 when they started coming to light with all of these things it was like

Speaker 8 it all made so much more sense

Speaker 8 you know it

Speaker 8 she made a lot more sense because it is that kind of wanting attention demanding like I don't know do you remember me

Speaker 4 ever like being sick or having like different physical

Speaker 4 issues I guess going on

Speaker 8 in line with the eating disorder yes, but

Speaker 8 other than that, no.

Speaker 4 Yeah, which actually that makes like so much sense. I talk a lot about how I think once I left the home, I wasn't sick anymore.

Speaker 4 Like in that way, like I wasn't going to the hospital for asthma or for like neutropenia or all these like wild things that I supposedly had, but it was the eating disorder like took over.

Speaker 4 in that way and I mean you know I was in and out of treatment centers.

Speaker 1 You work in the medical field.

Speaker 1 Did you have, before hearing Joe's story, did you have any awareness of men chasing by proxy?

Speaker 8 No,

Speaker 8 I'd heard of it. I had known of it, personally seen it.
No, not to my knowledge. I've since

Speaker 1 have any training about it or learn about it, sort of in any of your medical training?

Speaker 8 No, I mean, in school and psychology, I learned about it just as much like as along with a whole slew of other psychological disorders, but not in depth, no.

Speaker 8 I

Speaker 8 have read more into it obviously since and I think that it's definitely

Speaker 8 the alarm bells go off a lot more in that

Speaker 8 in I also work in urging care.

Speaker 8 I have a bunch of jobs, but I also work in urging care as a medical assistant and there are definitely I see warning bells there because we get that repetitive mother bringing their child back

Speaker 8 with the same type of

Speaker 8 symptoms and situations. And I think that knowing of this

Speaker 8 definitely creates the awareness to help future people.

Speaker 8 Awareness is...

Speaker 8 you can't fix it without being aware of it.

Speaker 4 Mrs. Becker also like commented on like she kind of like became aware of the extent of more of my trauma also through social media um

Speaker 4 and it's like interesting because when I think back

Speaker 4 like I was

Speaker 4 obviously I was living with you so like you knew like certain things but I feel like

Speaker 4 really most of my life like I kept so much to myself I also repressed so much and like I didn't have awareness.

Speaker 4 Like you could have asked questions and I'm not sure I would have had any memory of it because I don't think I really

Speaker 4 blocked like pretty much everything out

Speaker 4 until like 2016. So it's like, yeah, you could have asked all the right questions, and I still don't think I would have had the words or the language or

Speaker 4 any sort of

Speaker 4 like understanding.

Speaker 4 I just knew that I

Speaker 3 was

Speaker 4 unwell.

Speaker 1 How does it feel to see how far Joe's come since

Speaker 8 fucking glorious?

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Speaker 1 The mystery of Joe's medical history is one they've spent years unraveling.

Speaker 1 And while we're in Hutchinson, we stop by a place that is easily as familiar to Joe as any of the houses they lived in with Donna. The hospital.

Speaker 10 I'm Dr. Kate McGinnis, and I'm a family doctor in Hutchinson, Minnesota, and I've been here for 34 plus years.
And I took care of Joe when she was young, on and off.

Speaker 4 I remember Dr. McGinnis being a really safe, safe person.

Speaker 4 I...

Speaker 4 Yeah, I remember just always feeling really safe and like I could tell her a lot of things. Obviously, I didn't know a lot of what was going on for me,

Speaker 4 but she was the first person that I ever told that I had been like purging to.

Speaker 4 I mean, she asked like outright, like, have you ever made yourself throw up? And I was like, oh my gosh, no one's ever asked me this before.

Speaker 4 I said, yes, and then I know for a while I like saw her weekly to get weights and draw labs and just like make sure that the eating disorder stuff wasn't causing too much

Speaker 4 physical damage until she helped me get into Melrose Center in the cities.

Speaker 6 What do you remember about,

Speaker 4 I know it was a while ago, but what do you remember about that time seeing Jo?

Speaker 10 Well, that I was worried about her and that I knew things weren't going well and we did not have a lot of resources for eating disorders. It was just all you know, kind of coming out in the 90s.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think, yeah, my memory really once the eating disorder disorder kind of was

Speaker 4 more like full force, I didn't have many other health issues. It was really the eating disorder.

Speaker 4 And I don't think my mom came with to a lot of

Speaker 4 the appointments.

Speaker 1 Do you have any memory of meeting Joe's mom?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 What were your impressions of her?

Speaker 3 Well.

Speaker 10 I know that she was pretty dysfunctional and had a lot of issues. I think that was part of why you developed your eating disorder with some of her dysfunction is my impression.

Speaker 10 But your grandma played into that too, I think too.

Speaker 3 What do you mean?

Speaker 10 Well, I think

Speaker 10 when I was looking at your chart last night, I looked at one note from Melrose, your initial evaluation, and they said something about your grandma said,

Speaker 10 you know, told you to always suck in your gut or you'd look fat. So I don't know if that was if you have that memory too.

Speaker 3 Oh yeah, I do have that memory.

Speaker 10 So that's not really a healthy thing that I think that people should be saying to anybody.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 10 I think there was

Speaker 10 plenty of issues to go around.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah, I remember that vividly.
I was wearing my green and blue swimsuit and

Speaker 4 I sat down and then my grandma was like, No, like stand up stuck in your stomach before you sit down. Otherwise, like you'll look fat.

Speaker 4 And that did stick with me for like, I mean, for so much of my life, I would do exactly that because I thought that's like what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 4 And then, not long after that, started like weighing myself every day.

Speaker 4 Didn't understand weight at the time, but like it just became like a

Speaker 4 probably around seven.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 I have a picture of me in that like little bathing suit.

Speaker 4 And I was like,

Speaker 4 yeah, I was a very tiny kid.

Speaker 4 Like I needed more food to be eating, like I was unhealthy.

Speaker 4 So then to be telling me that I like should suck in my stomach because I'm like looking a certain way or things like that. I mean, obviously all fat phobic and like inappropriate regardless.

Speaker 1 This piece of Joe's story is unfortunately all too relatable and I am certain I'm not the only one who is just transported back to some bad swimsuit moment from their own childhood.

Speaker 1 So yes, just a reminder to those who need it, don't make comments to kids about their bodies because an off-the-cuff remark can lodge itself in their spongy little brains forever.

Speaker 1 Don't do it to the fat kids. Don't do it to the skinny kids.
Just don't.

Speaker 3 Okay?

Speaker 1 Don't.

Speaker 1 Much like their teacher, Mrs. Becker, Joe's doctors were deeply concerned about their well-being and tried to intervene.

Speaker 10 I know that Dr. Wilson said

Speaker 10 she was really worried about you and had documented in confidential files and turned you into social services.

Speaker 1 Dr. Wilson is a big part of Joe's story of discovery, and we'll be talking to her in the next episode.
Joe found themselves in a predicament that many survivors encounter.

Speaker 1 By the time they discovered that nothing about their health history made any sense, the documentation that would have been able to illuminate it is long gone.

Speaker 1 When did you become aware

Speaker 1 that Joe had been suffering from this abuse?

Speaker 10 Hard to say. I mean, I'd have to go back and look at my notes, which I can't access because there are three computer systems that go, which is a problem with changing computer systems.

Speaker 10 But I would think that I kind of had that in the back of my mind.

Speaker 10 You know, when people have an issue, whether it's chronic ear infections or Winchester's by proxy, depression, anxiety, whatever it is, it goes on your problem list and you review that before you see every patient.

Speaker 10 So you kind of have, oh, these are the things they've had in the past.

Speaker 4 I had a long problems list.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 10 So, but I mean, just to be aware of that. But like I said, I think I mostly saw you and we were focusing on what you said

Speaker 10 and

Speaker 10 weighing you in and talking about

Speaker 10 what all was going on and telling me to eat. Trying to get you into treatment.
I mean, because at that time I think Melrose Place was the only eating disorders

Speaker 10 option we had.

Speaker 10 You know, I think, like I say, I was worried about you.

Speaker 10 I know things couldn't have been good at home,

Speaker 10 but I don't think we talked a lot about exactly what was going on.

Speaker 10 Because that would be pretty classic of a child of an alcoholic.

Speaker 4 I told you, I think, more more than like anyone

Speaker 4 which says a lot right if you like say like I didn't really say much

Speaker 4 but I remember like

Speaker 4 yeah coming in to the appointments I was always nervous because I always thought I was gonna get in trouble or something

Speaker 4 not like because you ever made me feel that way but just because like I knew that I wasn't eating or I was purging or like doing things that were harmful.

Speaker 4 So I was always like nervous about that but at the same time

Speaker 4 I liked coming in, I guess, every week. Like I liked that,

Speaker 4 like you, you were like my support. Like you were like that adult in my life or whatever.

Speaker 4 And I'm sure that that played out with the struggles with the eating disorder, you know, like to keep me being able to come see you every week and things like that.

Speaker 4 Because I just needed that

Speaker 4 safety and that safe person.

Speaker 4 But I yeah, I remember it was like, yeah, like a love-hate relationship with coming here.

Speaker 4 Like I didn't want to because I didn't want to tell you that I was still not doing what I was supposed to, but then at the same time, I just wanted to have someone to talk to for a little bit.

Speaker 10 And I think that's pretty common and pretty classic.

Speaker 10 You know, at the time we did not have

Speaker 10 like the mental health unit didn't do a lot of eating disorder stuff. And I had other people with eating disorders who would come to weigh in with rocks in their pockets and things like that.

Speaker 10 So, I mean, it was,

Speaker 10 you have to really be careful.

Speaker 4 I thought that just smelling food, the calories would like seep into my skin. And like,

Speaker 4 so I was so

Speaker 4 struggling very, very deeply.

Speaker 4 But now, like,

Speaker 4 sometimes I'll be like, wow, it's kind of weird that I'm just eating. But, like, that's like the the most, it's just like a slight thought where I'm like, whoa, this is different.

Speaker 4 But like, now I'm like, oh, I'm hungry, I need food.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't really think much.

Speaker 10 It's such a positive thing.

Speaker 10 Because there are plenty of people who struggle their whole lives. So I just am so impressed with the progress you've made.

Speaker 10 I just want to reiterate how impressed I am, how far you've come. Because people can

Speaker 10 go the other way and become more psychiatrically ill when they've had difficult childhoods.

Speaker 8 Well,

Speaker 10 call your childhood that. I think it's reasonable.
And

Speaker 10 you've just really, really turned yourself around and

Speaker 10 made such a positive impact on the world.

Speaker 3 I'm very impressed.

Speaker 10 So pat yourself on the back.

Speaker 1 Next time, we go down the medical records rabbit hole with Joe and talk about how the trauma they suffered impacted their young mind.

Speaker 11 I would say being a multiple is having one body that has many selves in the mind. So you have many independent selves who share one physical body.

Speaker 11 And most of the time it's understood that the biggest reason that can happen is from surviving extreme and prolonged trauma.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 3 Engineering by Robin Edgar.

Speaker 1 And administrative support from Nola Carmouche. Music provided by Johnny Nicholson and Joel Schupak, with additional music and sounds from SoundSnap.

Speaker 1 And thank you to Cadence 3 for additional recording support.

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