S17 E1: Something Magical About Him

[0] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to something was wrong early and ad -free right now.

[1] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[2] I'm Dan Tversky.

[3] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[4] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[5] What's the answer?

[6] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[7] Hysterical.

[8] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[9] Binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[10] Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences, as it discusses topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence.

[11] Content warnings for each episode and confidential and free resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes.

[12] Some survivor names have been changed for anonymity purposes.

[13] pseudonyms are given to minors in these stories for their privacy and protection.

[14] Testimony shared by guests on this show is their own and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself, Broken Cycle Media, or Wondery.

[15] The podcast or any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional expertise or treatment.

[16] All persons are considered innocent and less proven guilty in a court of law.

[17] Thank you so much for listening.

[18] Hi, my name is Leslie, and I'm so excited to share my story with you guys.

[19] I want to thank Tiffany for having me on the podcast.

[20] This podcast has been an avenue for so many survivors to tell their story and connect and heal, which has been so powerful for me and I know for others.

[21] I've spent the last 13 years living with unrelenting guilt.

[22] People always tell me how strong I am, that I'm one of the strongest people they know, but they really have no idea.

[23] It's a mask that I've learned to put on.

[24] It's helped me live inside a nice little safe haven of denial, so I wouldn't have to deal with that guilt.

[25] I feel like survivors of sociopaths deal with a lot of personal shame and embarrassment.

[26] We feel ashamed and can't believe we allowed ourselves to be taken advantage of.

[27] But I feel like the more we share with each other and be open and honest about our experiences, the more we can start to heal and know we aren't alone.

[28] This podcast has proved there's a whole community, of us out there, and we can start to realize it's not about our choices and what we allowed to happen to us.

[29] We didn't allow it.

[30] Our choices were taken from us.

[31] We were prayed upon by masters of their craft.

[32] I've always had the heart to share my story with other women and single moms out there as a warning for what to look out for to help empower them.

[33] I finally found the right avenue through this podcast and hearing other women's stories has made me feel strong enough and accepting of myself enough and what happened to me to share what I went through.

[34] So here we go.

[35] I believe our experiences shape who we are and so much of who I was in 2010 was shaped by several years of trauma.

[36] I want to kind of give a backstory so y 'all can see where I'm coming from.

[37] The backstory also fits the podcast because something was kind of wrong my whole life.

[38] My childhood was pretty uneventful as far as I can remember it.

[39] But those beloved middle school years were a struggle.

[40] I mean, doesn't everybody hate middle school?

[41] My weight was a problem.

[42] I lived in a family that despised the outdoors, and we spent family time together eating.

[43] I didn't have a whole lot of friends and had my fair share of bullying.

[44] My sister is three years older than me, and we weren't particularly close growing up.

[45] I was the annoying little sister begging to sleep in her room because I was scared of the dark, and she was the oh so gracious sister that would allow me to on the one condition that I cleaned her room or did whatever she told me to do.

[46] My sister had to take on a caretaking role when she was much too young to have to do that.

[47] When I was in third grade, we moved to Colorado from the Midwest due to finances and my mother went into a deep depression.

[48] She never really came out of that, and I feel like my sister had to raise me because my mom couldn't.

[49] My dad worked all the time, and he really had no idea what to do with girls.

[50] My name is Dominique, and I am Leslie's and Stacey's aunt.

[51] I would describe Leslie as a very passionate, fassy, intelligent, motivated, loving person.

[52] Stacey, same thing.

[53] Passionate, sassy, brilliant, motivated, loving person.

[54] And as far as their relationship, complicated at times, deeply loving, deeply respectful in terms of their love for each other, I mean, they're just, they're amazing sisters, but I also know that they quibble quite a bit, but it's pure love.

[55] Leslie seems kind of like she lived a pretty sheltered life.

[56] I wouldn't say she wasn't outgoing, but went through what seems to me just kind of a reclusive.

[57] stage and of course we saw her at family get -togethers and so forth.

[58] I am Stacey and I am Leslie's older sister.

[59] I'm about three years older than her.

[60] In my eyes, we've always had a very close relationship.

[61] She has always been to me like the most important person in my life.

[62] I would do anything for her.

[63] I always saw her as the pretty and cool one.

[64] When she was a kid, she was in dance, She was more athletic and adorable and all of those things.

[65] I viewed myself as the bossy, chubby one.

[66] Growing up, we had kind of a weird childhood in that a lot of bad things happened to me. And I got a lot of attention for those things.

[67] And she was kind of maybe the forgotten child in our family sometimes.

[68] When I was in second grade, she would have been kindergarten.

[69] I had my appendix rupture and had to have a couple of of surgeries.

[70] I was in the hospital for like a month, and my parents were very busy with that.

[71] It was very stressful.

[72] I think Leslie kind of got pushed to the side.

[73] And then when I was in high school, I was a sophomore.

[74] I was actually shot five times at a restaurant by an employee that worked there that got angry at someone else and decided to shoot a bunch of people.

[75] In seventh grade, I was called to the office for a phone call that never happened.

[76] so I had no idea what was on the other line.

[77] It was my mother informing me that my sister, and I only have one sibling, had been shot at lunch and was in the hospital requiring surgery.

[78] My sister and some friends that happened to go to our church as well, went to eat lunch at a local national fast food restaurant.

[79] A disgruntled employee brought a gun to work and opened fire.

[80] He shot three employees and three customers.

[81] My sister and her friends were the farthest away from the door, so they decided to hide under the tables.

[82] This worker came out of the kitchen and opened fire.

[83] He shot two girls and my sister.

[84] He continued to shoot her as she was trying to get out the door.

[85] My sister was only 15 at the time, and she had been shot five times, three times in the stomach, once in the arm, and once in the hip.

[86] I remember it being very scary, but when she came out of surgery, they told us she would recover.

[87] Of course, it was a big media thing.

[88] I remember the governor coming to visit.

[89] and the founder of this national food chain coming to see my family.

[90] Thankfully, no one was killed.

[91] Six people were injured, and he is now serving six life sentences in prison.

[92] So this was pretty hard for our community.

[93] We had a lot of support.

[94] However, I don't know you're ever really equipped to deal with that kind of trauma.

[95] And we didn't necessarily have the tools.

[96] That's a lot for a 12, 13 -year -old mind of process, so I didn't really get it until a lot later.

[97] I mean, we lived in a safe area.

[98] We're sheltered from a lot of negativity out in the world.

[99] We were heavily involved in our church.

[100] This only happens on TV, right?

[101] Not to us until it did.

[102] It was traumatic and I did have PTSD stuff afterwards.

[103] I went to a therapist for one session and my memory is that he said I was fine, which definitely wasn't fine.

[104] But I also really enjoyed attention and the spotlight.

[105] And so that also made me really popular in high school.

[106] I was also like very Christian -y and I was in the drug prevention club.

[107] I was like, I'm going to use this to change the world.

[108] It kind of just became my cool story to tell.

[109] I think one of the ways that we heal from trauma is by talking about it.

[110] And I just talked about it so much that I got bored with it.

[111] I told the story in so many settings and so many times, but it doesn't have really any like sting to it for me for the most part.

[112] Like, if I'm in a restaurant and hear a loud noise, I have the startle and I get scared, but I can talk myself into feeling safe again.

[113] And it's hard for me, like, if I'm watching a show or TV with a mass shooting, it's hard to watch.

[114] It reminds me of it.

[115] As I entered my freshman year of high school, she was a senior, and we could finally be in the same building.

[116] I was terribly shy, still had little to no friends, and I was freaking terrified of high school.

[117] My sister was cool.

[118] She was involved in everything.

[119] had lots of friends, and one of her best friends happened to be the captain of the football team.

[120] And I'm talking every single girl in high school had a crush on this guy.

[121] He was dreaming.

[122] My sister must have felt sorry for me because she took me under her wing.

[123] We became very close.

[124] She let me go everywhere she went with her and her friends.

[125] I got to hang out with all the seniors.

[126] I remember one time she told me I was her second best friend, and that put me on cloud nine.

[127] Toward the end of that year, year, this captain of the football team started a Bible study at his house that his family led.

[128] Of course, a lot of students went.

[129] This was the one thing, though, that my sister asked me not to go to, something that she could keep for herself.

[130] I understood, so I never went.

[131] Over time, my sister started to become more distant.

[132] She started pulling away from our family, and less and less people went to this Bible study.

[133] But a few students were sucked in.

[134] My sister was one of them.

[135] I grew up in a Christian home.

[136] We were very involved in our church, but this was something different.

[137] It became cult -like.

[138] The students that were left started withdrawing from their families more and more.

[139] My senior year, she was a freshman, and she hung out with me and did some of the groups I was in.

[140] I gave her and her friends rides, places.

[141] I remember that, but I don't remember a lot about our bond or her emotional state.

[142] We grew up very involved in church.

[143] I took it maybe way more seriously than our parents did in a lot of ways.

[144] Very straight -laced and saw everything very black and white and you had to do the right thing.

[145] We both did not experiment.

[146] We didn't drink.

[147] We didn't have sex.

[148] We didn't do anything bad.

[149] Now I think there are some things we did that are bad, like be super judgy and harsh on people.

[150] But we followed the list of rules pretty closely.

[151] The most popular guy in school.

[152] He was captain the football team, student council president and all that was also the most Christiany guy.

[153] He and I were good friends.

[154] We were in the same friend group.

[155] My senior year, his family started a house church and we're very charismatic.

[156] A lot of speaking in tongues, a lot of prophesying.

[157] A lot of God told us to do this or not to do this.

[158] Dancing around to worship music with tambourines.

[159] It started out as like, I was like, a house thing and they started doing a Bible study with kids from our high school.

[160] The leader dude was super popular.

[161] So a lot of people came.

[162] And then things started getting kind of weird and people's parents started not wanting their kids to go to it.

[163] People who were in the inner circle of it started deciding not to go to college because God was telling them not to.

[164] And I mean, it turned into a cult.

[165] I actually ended up leaving home.

[166] I called my parents one day and said, I'm not coming back, dropped all of my friends, told them that they didn't believe in God or they were not good enough Christians for me to be friends with, even though they were very Christian.

[167] So this group became very controlling, but it was attractive to me because when our family moved to Oklahoma, Our parents kind of checked out and they kind of stopped parenting us.

[168] Leslie and I joke that I raised her.

[169] And that was pretty painful and pretty lonely.

[170] This group offered me the family that I had been longing for.

[171] As far as things like mind control and cults and things like that, I was in it.

[172] And if they would have said, God wants you to jump off a bridge and kill yourself, I would have said, okay, I have no doubt in my mind that I would have done it.

[173] So that's what it was like.

[174] I gave them a lot of money.

[175] I left my family.

[176] I left my family.

[177] family and moved in with people that were also in the group and didn't talk to my family very much for probably a year.

[178] An unintended consequence that I'd never really considered at that time was I pretty much just dropped Leslie.

[179] I stopped talking to her.

[180] I talk about me being lonely in my family.

[181] Well, then I just left her behind as well.

[182] My grandparents, who had money even higher the cult intervention specialist to get me out of it, which didn't work because they couldn't find me. so basically they convince you to come and talk to them and then you sit in a room and they explain cults and mind control to you and then try to explain to you how this fits into that narrative and then your family members tell you how you're hurting them there's a few ways to get out of a cult and the main two ways are either you decide to leave usually because of some kind of intervention or danger that you're trying to escape or you get kicked out of the cult and I ultimately was not the best cult member.

[183] I was kind of the black sheep of the cult.

[184] I felt like authenticity has always been important to me. I just didn't always give the answers that they wanted me to that I was supposed to give or things like that.

[185] In some ways, the cult itself kind of fizzled out, but they ultimately stopped talking to me, which I had to go through like all these attachment and abandonment things because of that and went through very, very dark and difficult time.

[186] That was probably way more traumatic for me than getting shot.

[187] At the time you're 19 years old, that's a lot, Stacey.

[188] Yeah.

[189] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[190] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[191] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[192] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[193] She's like, I can't.

[194] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

[195] It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.

[196] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[197] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[198] Well, you were holding something back.

[199] Intentionally.

[200] Yeah, yeah.

[201] Well, yeah.

[202] No, it's hysteria.

[203] It's all in your head.

[204] It's not physical.

[205] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[206] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

[207] Or is it something else entirely?

[208] Something's wrong here.

[209] Something's not right.

[210] Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[211] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[212] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[213] You can binge all episodes of hysterical early and act.

[214] ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

[215] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[216] She had been under the influence that she left him there.

[217] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[218] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[219] What happens next?

[220] Depends on who you ask.

[221] Was it a crime of passion?

[222] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[223] This was clearly an intentional act.

[224] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[225] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[226] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[227] Everyone had an opinion.

[228] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[229] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[230] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[231] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[232] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[233] One day, my sister left in the morning and she just never came back.

[234] That was it.

[235] She was gone.

[236] She left.

[237] She didn't take anything with her.

[238] She didn't contact my parents.

[239] She didn't contact me. She didn't tell anybody where she was going.

[240] She was just gone.

[241] I was devastated.

[242] I thought, if anything, she would at least contact me. I mean, we're second best friends.

[243] I never felt so alone and betrayed, but I had no one to talk to about it.

[244] I couldn't talk to my parents.

[245] They were heartbroken and crying all the time.

[246] Several months later, my sister slowly started communicating with us and stepping away from this cultish environment.

[247] but the damage was done.

[248] She never moved back in.

[249] We were on speaking terms, but things were strained for several more years.

[250] I was now the only child in the house was no one to guide me. I was lost.

[251] While my sister was gone, I started focusing on the one thing I could control in my world that was completely out of control.

[252] I started controlling what I put in my mouth.

[253] And thus began my lifelong battle with the eating disorder anorexia.

[254] I was overweight, was a 14 -year -old.

[255] I began eating right and exercising.

[256] and slowly losing weight.

[257] I started to get compliments now and some attention from boys, which I had never had.

[258] But then I just kept going.

[259] My life was now consumed by how many calories I put in my mouth, how many hours I exercised, on what the number on the scale read.

[260] Nothing else mattered.

[261] Well, with eating disorders comes a lot of depression and for me suicidal thoughts.

[262] I had been in therapy, in patient treatment, you name it, done all the things it takes to get better.

[263] But by my junior year high school, I was now down to 72 pounds and a walking zombie, barely able to sustain life.

[264] I hated who I'd become.

[265] I was lying all the time, manipulating my parents, and trying to maintain any sense of control.

[266] And I was good of that until I wasn't.

[267] My physical condition became so bad that I had to be hospitalized for two weeks with a feeding tube down my nose that fed me continuously for 24 hours a day.

[268] From there, I went to treatment in Arizona.

[269] for five months, and it saved my life.

[270] I recovered enough to come home and complete my senior year.

[271] I was better, but I still struggled with that for the next 10 plus years.

[272] I apologized to my family after the cult experience kind of fizzled out.

[273] I had reconnected with my family maybe after a year.

[274] Everyone was like, we love you.

[275] You're part of our family, but also we're really mad at you.

[276] Leslie and I, we were back in touch, and I knew she loved me, but also.

[277] So she was not happy with me for quite a while.

[278] My sister had stopped eating and had become severely anorexic to the point she'd almost died.

[279] She got down to something like 70 pounds and was literally on death's door.

[280] During that time, everyone was like, Stacey, you know, this is not your fault, right?

[281] So many people told me it wasn't my fault.

[282] I was kind of like, well, obviously it's my fault.

[283] That was really difficult for me to go through, and of course for Leslie to go through.

[284] We actually went to a family therapy week in Arizona where she was getting treatment.

[285] We're sitting in this family therapy session, and Leslie has a feeding tube hanging out of her nose, that they have to hook up to a machine to feed her to keep her alive.

[286] And the therapist asked my dad, so what do you think about all this?

[287] And he said, while she has this feeding tube hanging out of her nose, I just don't really think there's a problem.

[288] I think that's probably kind of the backstory of what's made, Leslie and our family are vulnerable to a sociopath.

[289] We'd had a lot of trauma.

[290] We'd had a lot of of hurt.

[291] After I graduated from college, she and I moved in together.

[292] And then in 2006, we bought a house together.

[293] She usually didn't come out of her bedroom.

[294] She was doing better with the eating disorder by this time.

[295] She had some friends and she was really good at her job.

[296] Leslie is really smart and a really gifted nurse, but she just didn't get out a lot and was pretty isolated.

[297] I was always trying to get her to do stuff or come out of her room or have a life.

[298] I think that after the eating disorder stuff, she was just trying to survive and couldn't handle a lot of stress or pressure.

[299] I think she was probably severely depressed, that that's just kind of how she dealt with it.

[300] She rarely wasn't dressed in like a sweatshirt and leggings.

[301] She's funny and cool person.

[302] And so she just definitely was very isolated.

[303] I worried about it a lot.

[304] But when she finally did come out of her isolation, I worried about it a lot more.

[305] Around this time, Leslie started having more friends at work.

[306] She has this best friend at work who has a lot of influence over her, who I was not happy about.

[307] And looking back, I think, oh gosh, I was super controlling of my sister.

[308] my behavior was inappropriate during that time.

[309] I didn't know that at the time.

[310] I wasn't able to recognize that then.

[311] That's just how we were.

[312] Our dynamics were not super healthy, but I did not have the insight into that back then.

[313] I was better, but I never wanted to admit it.

[314] My body image was crap.

[315] I was depressed and social anxiety crippled me, but I didn't want to admit to anybody that I needed help for these issues because that would mean that I would have to change and change is scary.

[316] I graduated from nursing school and began my career in the neonatal intensive care unit as an RN, but other than that, I rarely left the house.

[317] I never went out with friends, and I sure as hell never dated anyone.

[318] The thought of that was inconceivable to me. I prefer to cover up my body with sweatshirts and sweatpants regardless of the season, and I will never forget my beloved wind pants.

[319] I still wish I had those things.

[320] I didn't know I had social anxiety until I was in my 30s because I finally started taking medication and it was like, I'm okay being around people.

[321] I want to go out and have fun.

[322] Who is this person?

[323] I tell everybody that I've got two girlfriends, now three, that if it worked for them, I wouldn't have any friends.

[324] My name is Lauren.

[325] I've been best friends with Leslie since 2007.

[326] We first met, we worked in the same Nikki together.

[327] And I originally started on nights and her on days.

[328] So we didn't really know each other.

[329] We had passed each other in the locker room because back then you would have to change into scrubs at the hospital for your shift.

[330] Her locker was near mine.

[331] And she wore these god -awful wind pants even when it was hot out.

[332] And so I remember always just staring at her thinking, who is this girl?

[333] She would come in with these big old sweatshirts, too.

[334] It didn't matter if it was the middle of the summer or if it was winter.

[335] And she wouldn't really talk to me, but I wouldn't really talk to her.

[336] We'd just kind of look at each other.

[337] We were both in our mid -20s when we started working together.

[338] She had very few life experiences that I would say is probably age appropriate for her age, given that she had trauma from her sister getting shot and also leaving to go to that spiritual cult.

[339] And then her parents really being not involved, I think she didn't have good examples at times.

[340] I also think she didn't have the best self -esteem.

[341] Middle school, high school, you're seeing all these people go one direction.

[342] So she very much dove herself into the spiritual world.

[343] I know she ran the Bible bowl in high school.

[344] I make fun or not because she did that, but I was like, yeah, if we would have been the same high school, because our high schools were kind of close to each other in the same town, but we didn't know each other in high school.

[345] But I was like, gosh, I think you would have been praying for me the whole time.

[346] And I don't think we would have been friends.

[347] She goes, oh, no, we definitely would have been friends.

[348] I had more freedom than most kids did.

[349] But also, I did do what you would think a lot of high schoolers did, whether that's, you know, you try smoking for the first time or you go out.

[350] Leslie didn't do any of that.

[351] And then as her life started unfolding more tragedies for her sister getting hurt and running off, which is basically, like her only sense of a mother figure.

[352] I think it was hard for her and she had huge social anxiety.

[353] I was someone that never judged anybody and I still don't.

[354] It's just my personality.

[355] Leslie never felt that because she always had such low self -esteem.

[356] I think it scared her to open up to people.

[357] And I think us working day in and day out together and the fact that I was just so open and non -judgmental that she could start opening up.

[358] It just kind of blossomed from there as far as our friendship.

[359] Safety and Leslie's relationship, when I came along, they lived together and I felt like at the time Leslie still wanted to please her sister, but Leslie was having an internal battle because she was wanting to start doing more in her life.

[360] I guess she didn't know how to set boundaries with Stacey as far as she wanted to start living her life and be a little bit more independent and not worry about hurting Stacey's feelings.

[361] And I think too, part of that's fear, you know, when her sister left, it really, really hurt Leslie and I think Leslie carried that hurt.

[362] I think she didn't want to push Stacy away because she didn't want her to ever leave again.

[363] So when I first met Leslie, her and her sister's relationship was good at best.

[364] You could tell that tensions could get high or that there could be some conflict.

[365] But I think Leslie was battling how to become her own independent person and not care so much as to disappoint Stacey.

[366] That's probably the best way I can describe it.

[367] I do know she took a travel assignment.

[368] As a travel nurse, this is right before I met her.

[369] I think that was huge for her.

[370] I think that was a huge growing period for her and just doing something on her own and getting herself out there.

[371] Even having, I want to say, grown -up job, there were literally lives on the line and it was up to you most times to do something about that.

[372] And I think that can bring confidence.

[373] It's super rewarding.

[374] The beautiful thing about children, they're so resilient that the most part of working in the NICU was positive.

[375] And the really rare stuff that came through.

[376] The parents usually had heads up in utero.

[377] And so that they knew what to prepare for.

[378] So I would actually have to say the NICU is pretty positive place because babies are so resilient.

[379] Things that make it the hardest is probably the family dynamics.

[380] You have these patients and the families are just nowhere to be found and you're literally calling them and being like, you have to come see your kid.

[381] I cannot release them to go home until you come see your kid.

[382] Or if you know you're sending them home with families that basically met their criteria, but you know because they're going home with them, they're not going to have probably the best chance at life as they could.

[383] Like, those were the hardest things.

[384] I was on nights for about a year.

[385] I think a few times I got report from her or whatever, but there's really no interaction.

[386] And then after about a year of working nights, I got moved to days.

[387] Within that year, we would take care of probably the most critical baby up to date that I had taken care of.

[388] Jace came to the NICU.

[389] He was a couple months premature.

[390] He came from a drug addicted mom.

[391] His lungs weren't developed yet.

[392] He came with a lot of things that you expect from a young preterm baby and maybe even more problems, different organs at different times, whether it's the stomach or the heart or the lungs.

[393] So you can be really stressful and I think that's why in that environment you can rely on your co -workers so much because they're what you have around you as a support system.

[394] You're just not really in it alone.

[395] You have them to kind of fall back on and no one can really understand it unless you're in that environment.

[396] I think it makes you grow extremely close.

[397] this was early with jace when we became friends she hadn't decided if she was going to adopt him I mean gosh we just wanted him to make it through our shift so we're just happy to go home after our 12 hours and nothing bad happened I really think that's where we started bonding she's real shy she can be real introverted when you first meet her and then she's the exact opposite after you get to know her but she started talking and opening up a little bit more and you know you have a critical baby like that we'd tell each other please don't let him die on my shift and that's how sickie was it just scared us I mean, even to weigh him, I remember just being so nervous, like, please make it through this wang so that I can get you back on the monitor.

[398] Through that is where our friendship really started blossoming.

[399] In 2007, my life changed for better in ways I could never imagine.

[400] My sister and I had been living together for several years by this time.

[401] And one night when I was working in the NICU, I took care of this little itty -bitty, one -and -a -half -pound baby that was born at 25 weeks.

[402] That's about five and a half months.

[403] He was obviously very sick and couldn't breathe on his own.

[404] He had a breathing tube down his throat to breathe for him as his lungs were severely underdeveloped.

[405] I was freaking terrified of taking care of him.

[406] I'm still a relatively new nurse at this point and I hadn't taken care of many babies, if at all, the sit before.

[407] His oxygen saturation, which is the number basically that determines how well your blood is being oxygenated, kept going down.

[408] No matter what I did, it just kept going down.

[409] all night.

[410] I couldn't do anything to fix it.

[411] I know this is crass, but I just kept praying to myself.

[412] Please don't die on my shift.

[413] His name was Jace Alexander.

[414] His birth mother had a problem with drug use, and Jace was her seventh child.

[415] She didn't have custody of any of her other children.

[416] She wasn't sure who the father of Jace was.

[417] He was quickly placed in child protective services.

[418] Over the next few months, he started to grow, but his body struggled.

[419] He breathed with the help of a ventilator and a tube placed down his airway for the first four months of his life.

[420] The more I took care of him, the more I started to fall in love with him.

[421] He had trouble with reflux, which is common in pre -mease, so he wasn't retaining any nutrition.

[422] So he had a surgery to place a feeding tube in his abdomen that would go directly into his stomach to be fed. With this, he finally started to grow and heal, but he still had so many obstacles.

[423] At this point, they started planning for where he would go on discharge because he was getting healthier.

[424] There were no family members that could take him.

[425] They started talking about him going to a long -term home for children with medical needs, which would be kind of like a nursing home for kids.

[426] And that just broke my heart.

[427] I could not imagine him going there.

[428] So my sister was actually a social worker, and we had kind of talked about being foster parents before, but we never really did anything about it yet.

[429] So kind of on the down low, I started looking into what I would need to do in order to become his foster mother.

[430] And before I knew it, I'm just walking around the NICU, you know, daily working and people just kind of kept coming up to me, so you're going to take J -SOM, that's great.

[431] And I'm like, oh, yeah, before I knew it, I was like, okay, I guess I'm doing this.

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[442] Jase isn't in the NICU for three or four months.

[443] Her and I took care of him a lot, but she was really filling a void in her life, and I think she was ready for something more.

[444] And Jase was graduating the NICU.

[445] He had to go to the pick you, which is a pediatric intensive care, which was upstairs.

[446] And it was so long ago, so some of the details may be a little blurred for me. But I remember she just started kind of talking about it.

[447] I remember she mentioned it to me. And I was like, Leslie, I think that would be a really good thing for you.

[448] You've gotten to know him, been through so many critical things with him.

[449] And I think this will give you a purpose.

[450] She was living with her sister.

[451] She was making money.

[452] She was a nurse.

[453] She was single.

[454] And instead of sleeping all afternoon, which she didn't want to do anymore on her days off, it would give her a purpose.

[455] And she was comfortable with Jace with his needs.

[456] He had a lot of special needs.

[457] At the time, he still couldn't eat by mouth.

[458] So he had a feeding tube.

[459] You fed him that way.

[460] And he was needing to go to physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy.

[461] You know, there's just a lot.

[462] But she was with him for all this and it's in her realm.

[463] And I think she thought, well, gosh, if anybody can take care of him, I can.

[464] And so I really encouraged her when she brought it to me because I thought, God, this would be a perfect fit.

[465] She really cares for him.

[466] And then all of a sudden, I feel like the word got out or something.

[467] So everyone in the NICU started encouraging.

[468] her.

[469] So she was kind of like, oh, my God, really?

[470] Should I do this?

[471] And so I really feel like, for the most part, it was kind of a quick decision.

[472] I remember her being a little reluctant to tell Stacey about Jace just because there was so many medical issues with him.

[473] She would be bringing him home to their home, but Stacey was right on board with that.

[474] I think Leslie was trying to develop some independence.

[475] She did the work what it took to adopt him and got everything in place at her house as far as equipment she would need and went head on with it.

[476] I brought Jay's home on December 17th, 2007.

[477] I was terrified and excited all at once.

[478] He had spent the first six months of his life in the hospital and was still sick.

[479] He would be coming home on oxygen that he required at all times.

[480] We wouldn't be able to leave the house except for doctor appointments.

[481] He was on like 10 medications, had to be fed through his feeding tube every three hours.

[482] You needed breathing treatments every four hours.

[483] And as much as the NICU saves lives, it can also.

[484] do a disservice to babies because their development essentially has to take a backstep and be put on the back burner because those ABCs come first.

[485] They're airway, breathing, and circulation.

[486] He was so small in stature and his face was so puffy from all the steroids that he was on for his lungs that he looked kind of like a chipmunk.

[487] He smiled occasionally, but he couldn't track with his eyes very well.

[488] He just kind of lay there and looked off to the side staring.

[489] My family, I'm sure, thought, what the heck has she gotten us into?

[490] There was going to be a lot of work to do.

[491] He was going to need physical occupational therapy.

[492] He would need speech therapy because he also had this severe oral reversion and hated anything near his mouth.

[493] He had so many negative associations with his mouth due to having a breathing tube down his throat for four months and then having so much acid reflux.

[494] Then he never even took a pacifier, never wanted a bottle.

[495] All his nutrition would be through that feeding tube in his belly.

[496] Now, I have a great family.

[497] They took all this on with me with open arms and maybe some scared eyes.

[498] There's no way I could have done any of this alone as a single mom.

[499] Because we lived together, my sister was also his foster parent and would care for him on the weekends when I worked.

[500] My parents took care of him on the other days when I worked.

[501] That meant lugging all of his oxygen equipment, his medications, his feeding supplies across town at the butt -crack of on coming back across town to work and repeating this at the end of the day.

[502] It was so, so hard that something so beautiful happened in my family.

[503] Our family was made new.

[504] I mean, we had been close, but we didn't know that Jace was the piece of our family that we needed to be whole.

[505] My parents were the best grandparents.

[506] It's like they were born to be grandparents.

[507] Just not so much parents.

[508] I know that sounds harsh, but it's true.

[509] I never knew they were capable of so much love.

[510] my sister and jace were the best of friends and jace changed everything about me everything god had finally given me a reason to live and get out of bed in the morning i had found a newfound confidence that i had never felt before my life was no longer about me it was about him and loving him and giving him the best care he needed in order to get better and thrive and i took on that challenge with a vengeance we were at doctors every week physical therapy occupational therapy speech therapy every week.

[511] I just couldn't imagine what life was ever like without Jace.

[512] He became the focus of my entire family.

[513] On March 20th, 2009, his adoption was finalized, and I was officially his mother.

[514] It was a great day, but it didn't really feel any different to me because in my eyes, he'd always been my son.

[515] I've just never seen anything like when she blossomed when she brought Jace home.

[516] I mean, the odds were stacked against him in every way, physically, developmentally, mentally, all those things.

[517] When she brought him home, she was so brave.

[518] It lit up her face and the whole household.

[519] I mean, the entire family just rallied around that young man and brought so much joy to everybody.

[520] Jace had come to live with us at the end of 2007.

[521] He changed everything.

[522] My friend put it one way about having a child and she said, I never knew that I could love anyone that much.

[523] That's how I felt about Jace.

[524] I know that's how Leslie felt about Jace.

[525] I feel like I don't get enough credit calling myself his aunt because I raised him alongside Leslie.

[526] We were living in the same house.

[527] I took care of him all day, Saturday, like 6 .30 a .m. to 7 p .m. while she was at work all day, Sunday, as well as helped during the week.

[528] So I was his second parent.

[529] The first night he moved in, he had like an oxygen sensor machine that he was attached to.

[530] So an alarm would go off if his oxygen saturation went down.

[531] And then you have to either turn the oxygen up or find out why it's going down.

[532] Remember the first night, his oxygen kept going down and we couldn't figure it out.

[533] And so my sister had left me with him while she went to go, like, get some more tubing or something from the hospital because she thought maybe the tubing had a hole in it.

[534] And that the alarm kept going off and I was just so terrified.

[535] I mean, I just remember holding him and I was bawling because I was afraid he was about to die in my arms.

[536] He was so medically fragile, but over the next two years, his health improved.

[537] He was funny.

[538] We would watch shows together and sing the songs on the shows.

[539] We watched Veggie Tales from one of the Veggie Tales shows.

[540] He would always say, I'm a child of God.

[541] I felt like he had a special connection to God, which may sound silly, but he just really seemed to love the idea of God.

[542] He would talk about God.

[543] It almost seemed like something magical about him.

[544] All of my friends loved him.

[545] Everyone in our lives, he was very special too.

[546] I was working at a school at the time and I would bring him to school with me occasionally.

[547] Everyone there just adored him.

[548] And he always, all the time would ask to go to Stacey's school.

[549] One time I took him to an Easter egg hunt.

[550] And this is one of those huge ones where like they drop eggs out of a helicopter, just drop a bunch of eggs into a field.

[551] He really loved music and dancing.

[552] And so it was so cute.

[553] They dumped to all these eggs in the field.

[554] So there's like all these eggs full of candy, right?

[555] So the kids were all going crazy.

[556] But then they started playing music and he just completely forgot about the eggs and started dancing.

[557] And it was so cute.

[558] He was learning and growing so much and getting so much healthier.

[559] My dad was kind of a sucky dad.

[560] He wasn't very involved or didn't really know us very well.

[561] But he was awesome as a grandfather.

[562] It was really great to get to know him like that.

[563] which was pretty healing for our relationship and probably Leslie and my dad's relationship.

[564] My mom was great with him.

[565] My mom would be like down on the floor, playing with him and doing all this stuff.

[566] He was the most important thing to all of us.

[567] I think that those two and a half years with him were probably the best times of our lives.

[568] It was just very special time.

[569] I remember her saying he gives her a new purpose for living.

[570] She had to wake up in the middle night and feed him or early mornings.

[571] He wanted to watch cartoons.

[572] Her whole family, they all just just dove head first into this little boy and really just loved him unconditionally from the get -go.

[573] And it was really a cool thing to see because Leslie, she didn't get a super involved mom just because I think her mom got in a depression when they moved here from Colorado, but she said to watch her with Jace.

[574] It was just so all about him.

[575] So I was like, that's so cool.

[576] It gave her a new lease on life too, something to look forward to and love and bring happiness.

[577] It brought happiness to all of them.

[578] What I really remember is how much Jace thrived when he went home.

[579] He excelled.

[580] I mean, yeah, he did great in the hospital.

[581] He was there for a long time he got home.

[582] I don't know if it's just a constant love around him and the attention.

[583] And Leslie and her family wanting to do what it took for this little boy.

[584] It was way cool to see.

[585] I got to see, be around it quite a bit after he left.

[586] Because by time he left, I had a daughter who was nine months old and we would do things together.

[587] Jace was a little delayed for his age.

[588] So they really were a good age for each other and they could play and we'd go do things together.

[589] And And in just a short amount of time from him going home and then being around him, like, he was smiling and trying to talk.

[590] And then he eventually started walking.

[591] And it was just incredible.

[592] It was absolutely incredible.

[593] He was so loving you could tell.

[594] It makes it kind of emotional thinking about it because I just remember that big old smile.

[595] But to this point, and I think she's very open about it.

[596] She was a virgin.

[597] She hadn't really dated.

[598] I don't think she really had boyfriend.

[599] She hadn't experienced what most people in their 20s start experiencing.

[600] She was gaining, like I said, a little bit more confident.

[601] She had got healthy.

[602] She had a job that held a lot of respect.

[603] She adopted this beautiful boy, which you feel good about yourself.

[604] You have someone that loves you and you love them.

[605] And it gives you a sense of maturity and self -confidence and a new lease on life.

[606] More happiness, I would say.

[607] She worried about disappointing Stacey or if she did want to do something promiscuous, she knew she couldn't tell her because of their views on Christianity and saving yourself for marriage.

[608] And so I just think two different personalities were coming together and colliding.

[609] because I don't think they have the best communication tools with each other.

[610] Not at this time they didn't.

[611] When she did start dating, she kept a lot of it in the dark from her sister because she knew she would upset her sister or disappoint her.

[612] She don't want to be upset with Stacy all the time or anger her because she helped with Jace a lot.

[613] When you're working a 12 -hour shift, that means a lot for someone to watch your kid, especially someone that unconditionally loves him.

[614] But she started feeling good enough about herself to want to start dating.

[615] I think all of that led her to having enough confidence to try dating, but she was susceptible to guys that weren't great.

[616] Until I really started talking to Leslie about it, I hadn't really thought about the intersection between shyness and abuse.

[617] Of course, when people are perhaps naturally less assertive or less socially confident, that's going to potentially make it harder for you to see abusive behavior in people you're dating because you have less practice.

[618] And that's why young women are targeted at the highest rates is because they don't have the practice to be assertive and secure and confident without being judged.

[619] I did not have the insight into that back then.

[620] So she started dating these guys.

[621] I was always worried about it.

[622] But she didn't tell me much.

[623] She hid most of it from me. Every once in a while, I would meet one of them, and I would be like, this is not who the Lord wants you with to be with, Leslie.

[624] I was not too thrilled about any of them, because they were all kind of like people without a lot of seemingly drive or ambition or character.

[625] I had the expectation at that time that the worst thing in the world you could possibly do is have sex before you're married.

[626] And all of a sudden, she has lingerie in her closet, And I saw a message on her phone.

[627] A man had said, of course I care about you.

[628] I made love to you.

[629] And I was like, oh, my gosh.

[630] I was devastated.

[631] I was so disappointed in her.

[632] And I felt like I had failed.

[633] I should have been a better influence on her and like all of this stuff.

[634] And so I'm sure I heaped shame upon her.

[635] I think probably Leslie was just kind of longing for connection or to have a relationship.

[636] where people thought she was worth something.

[637] And I think part of the problem is both of us grew up with a perception because our parents checked out that we weren't really like worth their time or worth their attention.

[638] And so I think we both went into dating relationships with that perception that we're not really worth anyone's time.

[639] So we have to earn it.

[640] We have to be funny enough or cool enough or sexual enough or things like that to earn that relationship, which is really jacked up and doesn't work and that does not attract the right kind of people.

[641] People who will let you do that are not the kind of people you want to date.

[642] Slowly but surely, Jason proved he needed less and less oxygen till he didn't need any anymore.

[643] He started catching up on some milestones.

[644] He was almost three years old now.

[645] He had blossomed into this beautiful little human that everyone loved.

[646] He went to preschool.

[647] Everywhere he went, he made a mark on someone.

[648] He had this cute little sideways glance with this cute grin.

[649] He loved to play with his belly button, and he always bit his lower lip, kind of like a chipmunk.

[650] He overcame all the obstacles in life, and nothing could stop him.

[651] He was so rambunctious.

[652] He was still working on his development and his speech and his eating, but to the average person, you would never know he had once been so sick.

[653] Life settled down and life was good.

[654] There was something missing in our lives.

[655] I'd grown into this new being, thanks to Jace, and wanted our family to be complete.

[656] I wanted to to find love and I wanted Jace to have a father.

[657] Considering my past, I'd only had one boyfriend my entire life, and that was right out of high school.

[658] I was about 28 years old now and very naive when it came to the opposite sex, because I had little to no experience, and I was still a virgin.

[659] I grew up in a Christian home.

[660] My faith was, and is very important to me, and I believe in saving myself for marriage.

[661] I would love to say that that's the only reason why I was still a virgin at the age of 28, but the reality is I was shy and scared to death the boys, and just hid reside myself to the fact that I would die alone.

[662] If I actually ever was interested in a guy, I would make sure to never make eye contact or even be in the same room with them.

[663] You could ask my husband to know about this.

[664] This is exactly what happened when he tried to meet me. I hid from him.

[665] My name is Chase Bates.

[666] I'm Leslie's husband.

[667] I met Leslie working at St. John Medical Center.

[668] I was an HVAC mechanic coming up.

[669] school, I was looking for a job, and I didn't really want to fix air conditions on homes.

[670] I come upon this job offer at a hospital, and I didn't even consider something like that when I was going through school.

[671] I thought that might be kind of fun.

[672] I'll get to see some medical stuff, too.

[673] I worked at St. John for about seven years before I met Leslie.

[674] I had seen her before, but she worked in a neonatal intensive care unit that really intimidated me, and I was assigned to work on the breast milk coolers.

[675] That was one of my most important job of testing them every day and making sure they're the right temperature, logging, the temperatures and stuff.

[676] So over the years, I kind of got to know the neonatal team quite a bit, but I was always, I wouldn't talk to them really.

[677] I didn't want to bother them.

[678] Some of those babies were as small as my hand.

[679] In fact, they would fit inside your hand, and they're alive.

[680] Something that fragile really intimidated me, So I really didn't interact with any of the girls or doctors in the NICU.

[681] I just did my job and got out of the way.

[682] For some reason, when I was assigned the NICU, at first I was like, oh, I don't know why you picked me for that.

[683] But once I started doing it, I enjoyed going to seeing the babies.

[684] I was always usually assigned to the more rowdy patients just because I was usually pretty good about calming them down, let them know I'm trying to help them.

[685] I spent a lot of time with the patients trying to make it where I'm cooler or whatever.

[686] So the babies were, that was just a nice change of pace where I could go in and do the work.

[687] Usually everybody was real friendly.

[688] The mom and dad was real happy that I'm working on that refrigerator or whatever.

[689] I always enjoyed going to that unit.

[690] Leslie is she's shy and reserved to hold back unless something lights her fire.

[691] Francis, this one time that we were at the Tulsa Fair and then she had her phone there and a bunch of these teens just stole it and took off with it.

[692] Last person in the world I expect to run and chase down teenagers is my wife, but there she goes.

[693] You better give my phone back.

[694] Sometimes she surprises me. She's very well -organized person, which is where we come in and do because I'm not.

[695] I go where the wind blows me, and I'm comfortable with that.

[696] She's got to have a plan.

[697] And I've learned that planning is important at times.

[698] At the age of 28, and yes, still a virgin, I delved into the scary world of online dating.

[699] It was relatively new at the time.

[700] Even texting was new.

[701] This was something that was made for me. I did not have to face people head on, did not have to look them in the eye.

[702] I could hide behind a screen or a text before actually meeting anyone, and so it began.

[703] What followed was a year that I am not proud of.

[704] For example, here's a story for you.

[705] I once went out with a guy that took me through a McDonald's drive -thru for our first and only date, and he made me pay.

[706] Then he asked me to borrow $40 for his fantasy football league, and I gave it to him.

[707] I mean, what in the world?

[708] Why would I do that?

[709] What's worse, he then invited me into his bedroom to listen to classical music.

[710] My naive self, I'm like, okay, sure, why not?

[711] He then proceeded to lay down on the bed, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

[712] Oh my God, he did not come in here because he wants to listen to classical music.

[713] He wants to have sex.

[714] Nope, not doing that.

[715] So instead, he invited his buddies over to play video games with him because I wouldn't sleep with him on the first day.

[716] I'm sure people have a lot of stories like that.

[717] Online dating is definitely not for the week, and it can really put your self -esteem through the ringer.

[718] I would meet these men, talk to them online, I felt like I knew them.

[719] You think you know them, but you really have no idea who they are.

[720] And I never wanted to upset anyone.

[721] I didn't know how to say no to anyone.

[722] I was the kind of girl that would start dating a guy, and in my mind I would have her whole life.

[723] lives planned out.

[724] I mean, it's so ridiculous now looking back at it, but surely I'm not the only girl that's ever done that.

[725] I was addicted to waiting by the phone, eagerly anticipating that return text.

[726] Over and over again, I would start dating someone, and then I started to pull away, I would cheapen myself and do whatever it took sexually to keep them around and interested.

[727] They would use me for whatever they needed, and then get rid of me, leaving my self -esteem shattered.

[728] This was not who I was.

[729] The men I was attracting always tended to need 50, in some kind of way.

[730] I felt sorry for them and wanted to help them.

[731] I thought I could fix whatever they were going through, but I always seemed to be the rebound girl.

[732] I don't know what this says about me, but ironically, with all the men I was involved with, they seemed to marry the next girl they met right after me. My sexuality was becoming a sore subject between my sister and me. As my mother figure, growing up in the same purity culture that I grew up in, she was not ready for me to start dressing the way I was, having sex, or going out with a lot of these guys.

[733] She did not approve.

[734] And I began to pull away from her like a teenager would pull away from their mother.

[735] I did not want to be controlled at 28 years old.

[736] But at the same time, I always cared what my sister thought about me. So I was in a headspace at this time of feeling shame and depression over how I demeaned myself, how I let these men take advantage of me, and how I disappointed my sister.

[737] My self -esteem, once again, was in the crapper.

[738] I felt like I would just never be good enough for anyone to love.

[739] I was done.

[740] I just wanted to focus on Jace.

[741] He was all I needed.

[742] And then I met Cody.

[743] That's next time on something was wrong.

[744] I felt stuck between choosing Cody and my family.

[745] My whole attitude towards Cody from the beginning, I just did not want him to exist.

[746] I just wanted him to disappear from my world.

[747] They are sly, they are cunning.

[748] They will have you believing their lies and lying for them.

[749] And if you don't think so, you're playing a dangerous game.

[750] Because a narcissist can lie and believe their own lies and it gets deep and it's scary, really.

[751] Thank you so much for listening.

[752] Until next time, stay safe, friends.

[753] Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at Something Was Wrong podcast.

[754] Our theme song was composed by Gladrags.

[755] Check out their album, Wonder Under.

[756] Thank you so much.

[757] If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

[758] Prime members can listen ad -free on Amazon Music.

[759] Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery .com slash survey.