S18 E3: (2/7) [Karissa] Just Vibing

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

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[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.

[11] It discusses topics that can be upsetting and triggering, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide, child abuse, and murder.

[12] Content warnings for each episode are at the top of episode notes.

[13] And confidential and free resources for survivors can be found linked in our episode notes, as well as on our website, something was wrong .com slash resources.

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

[15] Testimony shared by guests on the show is their own and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself, something was wrong, broken cycle media, or wondering.

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[17] Thank you so much for listening.

[18] You think you know me, you don't know me well.

[19] This is like two hours after I had just dropped her off back at home from the hospital.

[20] So I'm like, okay, I'm on my way.

[21] I drive to her house and she's standing outside waiting at the end of the driveway.

[22] and I can see she has a black eye.

[23] And I'm like, what the hell?

[24] So she gets in the car and I'm like, what the hell, what happened, what's going on?

[25] Her brother doesn't live with her.

[26] Her brother lives an hour or two away.

[27] And I'm like, why did he come?

[28] What's going on?

[29] She goes on to say that he came to pick up their other sister's car.

[30] I guess he was borrowing it or something and came in the house and realized that it was just her and was pissed off about something and she just kept saying he hurt me and then she tells me that he hit her but he also did sexual things I was like okay obviously you don't need to go into detail but do we need to go to the hospital do we need to like call the cops tell me enough that I know how to help you basically the whole time she's just kind of shooting the shit making jokes being so light -hearted about this and it's heavy for me. I don't have any sort of trauma in that area.

[31] It's sitting heavy.

[32] So I'm like, this is her way of coping because the amount of jokes she's making, the amount of chit -chatting she's doing, I don't know how she's doing it.

[33] So we get to the hospital.

[34] She signs in, does whatever she needs to do.

[35] And the waiting room is packed, jam -packed.

[36] She comes walking over to me. She's just talking.

[37] at a loud volume, she makes a comment, they're going to bring me into a private room so that I don't have to wait out here.

[38] She says there's another couple that are also getting a private room because they're having a miscarriage.

[39] And she says this out loud in this small waiting room full of people.

[40] Like everybody is shoulder to shoulder.

[41] When it's time for us to get this private room, they call Caitlin's name and they call the name of another woman who then stands up with her husband and walks to where they're calling her and now everybody in this room knows why this poor woman is here and I am appalled I shot daggers at her when she said it and I was like shut your fucking mouth she looked at me and I was like you need to lower your voice we get in this room and I am not saying anything to her.

[42] I am just quietly sitting there.

[43] I'm on my phone.

[44] I'm doing everything to keep my own emotions under control.

[45] And she is just chit -chatting, scrolling through her phone, laughing, non -stop talking.

[46] And I have not said a single word.

[47] And again, I'm like, okay, this is how she's coping.

[48] She's clearly going through it.

[49] I don't know how I would be in that situation.

[50] I don't know how I would react.

[51] So I'm excusing all of this behavior.

[52] Doctors are trickling.

[53] in a lot of time is going between visits of doctors and nurses.

[54] But because she has this catheter in, they have to do all these other tests and make sure that she's okay.

[55] They were doing some scans and stuff because she said she was hit as well.

[56] They have to do x -rays and make sure that everything is okay.

[57] And then they call whoever is on call for the sexual assault center and then she has to come.

[58] So we're waiting.

[59] We're just sitting here.

[60] Hours are going by.

[61] So finally, she gets there and brings Caitlin to another room where they do the kit.

[62] And obviously, this lady, she was lovely, but she was like asking Caitlin if she wanted me in the room.

[63] Caitlin said yes.

[64] And then the lady was like, okay, if there are any points where you want her to leave, That's totally your call.

[65] I'm sitting listening to this and it's devastating.

[66] My heart goes out to anybody who has ever had to deal with this.

[67] It's excruciating.

[68] It's just awful.

[69] But as the night goes on, we're going through this, getting all the evidence, asking all the questions.

[70] And there was a few times where Caitlin asked me to leave the room.

[71] And it was when she was giving details of what actually happened.

[72] And now looking back, I do wonder if it's because I would see holes in the story where the nurse or doctor wouldn't.

[73] Basically everything that she had already told me, which is that her brother came in and was angry and hit her and assaulted her.

[74] She did go into some details of what he did, but she wouldn't say with me in the room, how, it happened.

[75] All I know is she told me her brother assaulted her.

[76] That has not changed.

[77] But now knowing what I know, is it true?

[78] Well, you have to look at the whole picture of the person.

[79] This is a pattern.

[80] False reporting is an uncomfortable truth.

[81] This is a podcast about uncomfortable truths.

[82] It doesn't mean we shouldn't always take it seriously when people disclose to us and support them the way that you did.

[83] You did the right.

[84] thing.

[85] We end up in the hospital for hours.

[86] We got there at maybe like 6 p .m. and we didn't leave until 4 a .m. I take her home.

[87] We had been there literally all night.

[88] The staff member who is doing the kit did ask, do you want to tell anybody else?

[89] Do you want to tell police?

[90] Caitlin said she didn't want to tell police right away and that she probably wasn't going to tell her mom who she lives with.

[91] The lady suggested that even if she doesn't want to tell her mom because she doesn't know how her mom's going to react, she should consider it because her mom lives there as well and can keep an eye out even if she doesn't necessarily believe it because that was Caitlin's thing was she won't believe me. On the way home, I'm saying to Caitlin, I'm like, hey, do you think you're going to tell anybody.

[92] I knew if I was the only one that she was telling this to, that she was going to be relying on me even more than she ever was before, and I could not handle that.

[93] Even my closest best friend, I could not be her sole support for something like this.

[94] I can't do that.

[95] I was encouraging her, like, you should probably tell somebody else, at least for your own sake of having more support.

[96] I don't think she cared about telling other people.

[97] I think she was quite fine with me being the only person who knew.

[98] I dropped her off that night and I said, text me if you need anything.

[99] Because at this point, I am the only person that she has.

[100] So I at least want her to know that if something happens again, don't hide it.

[101] that was in September.

[102] How are you walking away from that situation emotionally?

[103] Are you able to talk to somebody or have somebody in your corner to vent your frustrations to or share the intimacy of this trauma?

[104] It was a lot.

[105] I didn't expect it to sit as heavy as it did.

[106] I don't know why I wasn't expecting it to like hit me, but it was difficult.

[107] I think sitting in a hospital for anything, you leave feeling like, ugh, and for it to be something so heavy like that, I had already been without sleep because I had took her the night before, and then that morning, went home for two hours, and then I had to deal with this, and it was just a lot.

[108] And thankfully, I did have my friends that I could lean on, and I was messaging them throughout the night and giving them updates, there was also a piece of me that was so annoyed by Caitlin, by the way she was handling it, by the way she was making light of it, she wasn't really taking it seriously, and I felt like I shouldn't be feeling so heavy for a person who is taking it so lightly.

[109] I almost felt mad that I was more upset by it than she was.

[110] If she's not making jokes about it, making light of it, she does spiral a bit in her brain.

[111] Like, her thoughts are kind of going and you can tell, but it never comes across in the raw, genuine feeling.

[112] It always comes across with that layer of, this is my life.

[113] Her quote that she would say all the time was just fibing, even though you could tell behind the mask she was wearing, you could tell that she was upset, but it was always this coping mechanism of making light of it.

[114] But like never, never crying, never upset in that sort of way.

[115] How long would you estimate between this incident at ER to when she was arrested?

[116] So that was September and she got arrested.

[117] in March.

[118] And you continued to be friends up until before she got arrested in March.

[119] Yeah.

[120] It seemed like there was this pattern.

[121] This had been our whole friendship.

[122] If I didn't respond to her asking me to hang out, then all of a sudden there would be an emergency where she needed me to hang out, whether it was a nosebleed or some other health issue or she had a bad day.

[123] There was always just something that if I didn't respond to her initial ask to hang out, messages would slowly get more and more, like, an emergency.

[124] If she wasn't getting the response out of you, she was doing whatever it took to get that response, it sounds like.

[125] That's exactly what it was.

[126] Things would get more dire, and I would have to respond because then if I didn't, I would feel guilty for not responding.

[127] It seems essentially she's sending you all these dire messages.

[128] They continue to grow in their emotion.

[129] And then as soon as you're like, I'm sorry, her response is typically like, oh, no, no, it's fine.

[130] It's fine.

[131] And then, oh, well, since you're not busy, let's go hang out and wouldn't talk about anything.

[132] That happened all the time throughout our entire friendship.

[133] It was just the longer we had been friends, the more the emergencies were.

[134] They started small and gradually it was just exploding.

[135] And then I would finally be like, okay, I wonder too if that's because, in the beginning, I would just hang out with her.

[136] And then by the end, she needed more reason for me to want to hang out with her and bigger excuses.

[137] That's kind of how it seemed.

[138] Anytime I would try and set a boundary with her over the year, she would lay on the guilt thick.

[139] And she would be like, I'm so sorry.

[140] I'm so annoying.

[141] You don't have to talk to me. I won't bug you anymore.

[142] I'm so sorry.

[143] And so then I would feel like I have to then clarify and be like, whoa, whoa, that's not what I meant.

[144] There's no need to be reacting like that.

[145] I'm just trying to set a boundary, trying to keep my peace, basically.

[146] And so I tried to not do that often because I also then didn't want to deal with the incessant apologies and talking down about herself.

[147] So it was easier to just deal with it rather than try and set these boundaries.

[148] I tried to distance myself, which made her even more clingy.

[149] After I dropped her off from the hospital, it was multiple times a day.

[150] She was like, what are you doing?

[151] What are you doing?

[152] At this point, I was honest with her and I was like, I don't have the capacity to hang out with you right now.

[153] I need a break from you.

[154] This was a lot for me and I don't have the capacity to be your sole support system right now.

[155] She was decent about me saying that.

[156] She was still like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.

[157] But she kind of accepted that.

[158] I feel like she got the hint, and things did start to, like, die down in terms of her constantly messaging me. She would still, every once in a while, message me and try and hang out.

[159] Texting was definitely getting less and less.

[160] I started ignoring her when I did not have the capacity to talk to her.

[161] I still would hang out with her every once in a while and make sure she was doing good, go grab drinks or get dinner or whatever.

[162] But it was definitely significantly less now than it was pre -incident.

[163] A couple weeks after the incident in September, she did text me and said that there had been another incident with her brother.

[164] She'd said, my brother is so stupid or something like that.

[165] And I didn't respond right away because I was at work.

[166] Then she sent another message and said, he came back, then sent another message and said, I'm so sorry, I know you're at work, I shouldn't be texting you this.

[167] And then sent another message and said, there was another incident, but it's fine, I'm fine.

[168] I finally messaged her back when I had my phone on me and I was like, I'm so sorry.

[169] I was at work, is everything okay?

[170] She was like, yep, I'm okay, don't worry about me. I'm really good, I'm okay.

[171] I'm not going to push.

[172] At this point, I've already tried to distance myself.

[173] It did a little bit feel like a call for help because I had also ignored a couple of her texts the day before asking if I wanted to hang out.

[174] So I kind of let that second incident slide.

[175] I was like, she said she's fine.

[176] I told her I'm here if she needed me. If she's saying she's good, then she's good.

[177] I didn't hear any more about that second incident.

[178] Around this time, too, was also when she started telling me that she thinks she might be gay.

[179] She told me that she switched her dating profile to women, and she was kind of exploring that.

[180] That was then something that she would try and connect with me on, I guess.

[181] She realized she does like women.

[182] That was just like one of the talking points that she would try and talk with me about.

[183] I was like, great.

[184] Love that for you.

[185] I think that's cool to explore.

[186] She also was like very easily triggered.

[187] Her triggers, she would make light of them.

[188] But you could tell that any sort of talk about relationships, about sex, about anything, she would spiral.

[189] And she would almost retract into this childlike.

[190] persona where she would give the idea of covering your ears and being like la la la la la she did not want to talk about anything sexual but she was always the one to bring it up as well it was just a weird dynamic she told me she had this date lined up i was like great have fun she didn't go on the state for whatever reason then she was talking to somebody new and nothing significant really happened with that we would talk every once in a while about her dating life or whatever But that was really about it.

[191] I tried to keep my distance as much as I could at that point from September to February.

[192] I had asked her to do me a favor because I needed to be dropped off at my car.

[193] And she said, I can't right now.

[194] I'm in the hospital in Hamilton.

[195] I'm probably getting out today, but probably not until this afternoon.

[196] I do have these texts.

[197] She said she was in the hospital for the lung thing.

[198] I was like, is everything okay?

[199] She said, I'm bleeding in my lungs.

[200] So I'm waiting to go down for a bronchoscope.

[201] I've been here since Tuesday.

[202] Except all week, she had been asking me to hang out.

[203] So that doesn't make sense.

[204] I was like, oh, damn, hope you're okay.

[205] Then a couple hours later, she was like, what are you up to this afternoon?

[206] I was like, well, I don't know yet.

[207] I need to get to my car.

[208] And she goes, okay, I'm just finishing up at the hospital.

[209] I can let you know when I'm getting discharged.

[210] And if you still need to get your car, I can take you.

[211] I was like, no worries.

[212] I have somebody else doing it for me. So then she messages me later.

[213] She's like, sorry, I didn't get out of the hospital till later.

[214] Again, I was like, no problem.

[215] That was December 30th.

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[225] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[226] she had been under the influence and she left him there.

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

[228] 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.

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[232] This was clearly an intentional act.

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

[234] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

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[236] Everyone had an opinion.

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[242] She asked me if I had New Year's Eve plans.

[243] I didn't answer her.

[244] From Christmas till New Year's, every single day, she was texting me being like, do you have plans?

[245] Let's hang out.

[246] Do you have plans?

[247] Every single day.

[248] For five of her texts, I'm sending one.

[249] Then a couple days later, she was like, SOS, are you at work or are you busy?

[250] And I said, I'm at work, what's up?

[251] And then she was like, I was going to be discharged from the hospital today, but have no ride home.

[252] But it's okay, they're going to keep me for one more night.

[253] So I'm like, what?

[254] Nothing is making sense.

[255] Why are you asking me to hang out if you're in the hospital?

[256] You've said you were going to be discharged like three different times, but you're not.

[257] me to drive you.

[258] It didn't make any sense.

[259] And she said she was discharged, right?

[260] Exactly.

[261] So I'm like, what is happening?

[262] I said, okay, is everything all right?

[263] And she was like, debatably, I'm just having issues with my lungs.

[264] I said, do you know what the cause is?

[265] She said, no, they can't figure it out.

[266] The next day, she's like, are you busy in like an hour?

[267] And I was like, I work in an hour.

[268] she was like okay then she says her car company came and took her car without telling her and i'm like well that doesn't just happen clearly you knew that there was an issue car companies don't just come and take your car out of the blue so i'm thinking okay you weren't paying your bill which you knew they probably gave you a warning she was like oh i couldn't get any of my stuff out of it so i'm really annoyed and i'm like okay but you should be able to go into the company and still grab your things from it we're going back and forth She's being dramatic, trying to get me to help her.

[269] But at this point, nothing she's saying is making sense, and I'm over it.

[270] At this point, I'm ready to cut her out.

[271] This is from Christmas Eve till, like, January 6th.

[272] I'm getting a text from her every day being like, I need you.

[273] What are you doing?

[274] Every single day.

[275] And depending on what I answer, she's either in dire need of help at the hospital.

[276] or just wants to grab a coffee.

[277] There's no in between.

[278] So it's not making any sense at all.

[279] This is about the time where I'm like, okay, I feel like you're lying about something and I can't figure out which part if all of it or some of it.

[280] I can't figure out what it is.

[281] The rest of the week, she's still texting me, asking if I want to hang out.

[282] At one point, she texted me again, asked if I was busy after work.

[283] She says, I'm sorry to be annoying.

[284] I feel off and hoping to be in company of a homie.

[285] And I was like, I don't have the capacity, but feel free to text me. This is day after day after day, the same stuff.

[286] And I'm trying to not deal with it anymore.

[287] She ends up texting me a bunch of stuff about how she's feeling lonely and she hates that her trauma has put her in a position where she can't make connections.

[288] I'm trying to help her through it while also keeping my distance and not getting too involved.

[289] Then three more days go in a row where she asks if I'm busy after I just told her I didn't have the capacity and I ignore her.

[290] Then February, she texts me, asked me if I'm busy.

[291] I say, no, what's up?

[292] She said, is there any way you could pick me up and drop me off at the hospital?

[293] I'm having one of my jaw dislocations currently.

[294] never in the time that I have known her, has her jaw dislocated, or have I heard of her jaw dislocating?

[295] This came up out of the blue and she's talking about it as if, oh, just one of my jaw dislocations.

[296] Last month, your lungs are bleeding.

[297] This month, your jaw is dislocating.

[298] So I say no. I make up an excuse.

[299] I can't.

[300] I got to do whatever.

[301] I'm not coming to the hospital.

[302] again, for another random reason.

[303] Never, in all the times I have brought her to and from hospitals, there has never been a solution or a legitimate reason why.

[304] There has never been an explanation.

[305] There has never been like a clear, this happened because of this.

[306] It's always, oh, I'm severely dying, basically.

[307] And we have no idea why.

[308] And then a couple weeks later, it's not an issue.

[309] issue.

[310] So at this point, I was done.

[311] I was like, nope, sorry, can't.

[312] And I just left it at that.

[313] She says, okay, no worries.

[314] And then I just stopped answering her.

[315] And I think she realized that you're on your own kind of thing.

[316] Up until this point, for the last couple weeks before this, she was sending me multiple texts that I just wasn't responding to.

[317] And I typically hadn't done that before and so I think she was kind of getting the hint that like okay this isn't working on her anymore so she kind of stopped texting me as well and I would text my best friend and be like this isn't making sense this isn't adding up and I can't figure out why even she was like yeah it seems like she's a bit off I could not make sense of it because there was nothing so alarming where I was like, no, factually you are lying.

[318] There was nothing I could figure out that made it make sense, which is why I kind of let it happen because I couldn't prove it either way.

[319] It's almost like she was constantly trying to make you responsible for her emotions and her emotional needs with zero consideration for whether or not you even want that.

[320] Yeah.

[321] Also, all of this was happening and she's still in and out of the hospital for other reasons.

[322] But then, a couple weeks later.

[323] So this is middle of February.

[324] I get a Snapchat photo from her.

[325] And again, it's her laying down, crying with a peace sign.

[326] And the caption says, when you find out you're pregnant from your brother who assaulted you and the baby doesn't have a heartbeat.

[327] What?

[328] That's not something you send in a Snapchat in a lighthearted way.

[329] And so I message her.

[330] And so I message her back because immediately too my thought is your brother assaulted you in september it's February are you just now finding out that you're pregnant or are you just now finding out that your baby doesn't have a heartbeat there's too much time that has passed in between and for the amount of times that she goes to the hospital surely somebody would have realized hey this woman is pregnant.

[331] So I'm like, what the hell?

[332] Who sends this over a Snapchat photo?

[333] Just like a 10 -second photo that leaves your screen immediately.

[334] There's no follow -up.

[335] Who does that?

[336] But then also, my second thought is, that makes no sense.

[337] And so I say to her, did you just find out you're pregnant or did you just find out your baby doesn't have a heartbeat?

[338] And she said both.

[339] And I said, Caitlin, what?

[340] I said, was there another assault in between the last time you told me and now?

[341] And she goes, no. I'm talking about that one that we went to the hospital for.

[342] And I'm like, okay, so that was September, October, November, December, January, February, like six, seven months ago.

[343] So why are you just now finding out that you're pregnant?

[344] She goes, yeah, I don't know.

[345] It doesn't make sense to me either.

[346] I'm like, no, no. You go to the hospital like every other week.

[347] They would have found out and she goes yeah but because i have an iudian they only asked me when we did the kit and they've never asked me again and i'm like nope it's not how that works no and she goes yeah i don't get it either i'm just as confused as you are so at this point i'm texting my best friend i'm like girl this is what's happening tell me i'm not crazy in thinking that she's lying and she was like nope you are absolutely not crazy that makes no sense for the amount of times she is at the hospital they would have figured it out before now.

[348] So at this point, I just said, Caitlin, look, this isn't adding up to me. This doesn't make sense.

[349] And I think you need professional help.

[350] And she was like, yeah, I know, I'm sorry.

[351] And I also said, I also really don't appreciate that you sent me this information in a Snapchat photo instead of giving me the courtesy of an adult conversation.

[352] If you're dump that information on me. There needs to be some sort of like, hey, do you have time to talk?

[353] I have information I want to talk.

[354] Like, there needs to be some sort of warning of what's happening.

[355] Not a Snapchat photo that I open and have this information shoved in my face.

[356] I basically said, I'm removing myself from this situation.

[357] And she was like, yeah, I'm at the hospital right now.

[358] they're going to set me up with support for when I go home.

[359] She's saying doctors don't understand either.

[360] As if it's a medical miracle, everybody's just trying to figure it out.

[361] I didn't say this to her, but I'm like, you're lying and you need to see a psychiatrist.

[362] I don't understand how you're pregnant or how you're just now finding out.

[363] I'm like, okay, great.

[364] And she's like, I'm so sorry again for like sending it to you the way.

[365] did.

[366] Thank you so much.

[367] And I just didn't answer.

[368] And that was the last time her and I talked.

[369] Are you discussing this on Snap or on text?

[370] In the chat section of Snapchat, you can send photos.

[371] But they disappear, right?

[372] And the thing is you can't screenshot it.

[373] Yes.

[374] Which is why I think most of the things she tells me were on Snapchat.

[375] Is she still continuing to work during this time?

[376] Sure is.

[377] I think it was shortly before.

[378] She did get fired from the women's shelter.

[379] Then she wasn't working for a couple weeks and then she got this job one -on -one with the student, which ultimately she did get fired from there too.

[380] And then she was not working until she got arrested.

[381] I'm Dan Tiberski.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[389] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[390] Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

[391] Yeah, yeah.

[392] Well, yeah.

[393] No, it's hysteria.

[394] It's all in your head.

[395] It's not physical.

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

[397] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Sam?

[398] them?

[399] Or is it something else entirely?

[400] Something's wrong here.

[401] Something's not right.

[402] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

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

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

[405] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[406] This was about the time that I submitted my story to you guys originally because I was like, I don't know what's happening here and I don't know what is true and what isn't true, but I know that something is wrong and I know that something is off.

[407] And I just thought I'll submit the story and we'll see what happens.

[408] I submitted the story before I found out about the Dula stuff.

[409] So I submitted the story and then a week later, my friend messaged me. I was like, hey, did you hear all this stuff about the Doolahs with Caitlin?

[410] And I was like, what are you talking about?

[411] So one of my best friends, mom, used to work with Caitlin at the school that she was at that Caitlin had gotten fired from just a few weeks prior.

[412] She had texted my friend and was like, hey, did you see Caitlin this whole situation going on with the doulas?

[413] There's a bunch of people posting videos about her.

[414] My friend screenshoted that, sent it to me, and I was like, what the heck?

[415] So I searched Caitlin Dula on TikTok, and dozens of videos show up.

[416] I'm watching every single one of them trying to figure out what's happening.

[417] I'm just going to dive right into the nitty gritty of it.

[418] I work with pregnancy and infant loss.

[419] As a lost mom, it's something I often support, and I do virtual support.

[420] So I got contacted on Instagram last weekend.

[421] by a woman who claimed that she was pregnant and that she was going through a stillbirth and that she hadn't found anyone that was the right support for her, but she reached through my website and it seemed like a good fit for her and if I would be willing to talk to her.

[422] I was getting ready for work, so I said, tell me what's going on and when I get to work, I'll get back to you.

[423] And that's where this all started.

[424] Again, this comes with a content warning.

[425] So Caitlin Braun's story was that, But she was 32 weeks and two days pregnant.

[426] This was on a Saturday that she contacted me. On Wednesday, she had found out that her baby's heart had stopped beating, and she was in the hospital due to chronic medical health conditions.

[427] This baby was a byproduct of rape from a friend.

[428] She had chosen to keep this baby, and her family wasn't very supportive of that.

[429] She also was recently out in the LGBT.

[430] community and she felt that I would be able to understand her in a lot of ways.

[431] Immediately, something felt off, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was.

[432] So I kept talking to her through Instagram while I started to try and figure out what was going on.

[433] So while I was talking to Caitlin on Instagram, I truly was trying to scope things out.

[434] I searched her name on Facebook, Instagram, anywhere that I could to see if anyone else had interacted with her.

[435] My conscious couldn't figure out what was going on, but my subconscious knew something was off.

[436] And I have learned very hard to listen to my instincts.

[437] So I deep dived hard.

[438] And I couldn't find anything.

[439] I continued to talk to her.

[440] Seemed like she was actually going into labor.

[441] And I was like, shoot, if this is actually happening, I need to prepare this woman for what's about to come.

[442] So I called her.

[443] I blocked my number.

[444] I don't do that.

[445] I've never blocked my number before.

[446] But clearly something felt off.

[447] But again, didn't listen to my intuition, also didn't know how to like end a conversation.

[448] conversation at that point because she had hit every single one of my soft spots.

[449] So we continued and I continued to sport her.

[450] I was on the phone with this woman.

[451] I talked to her at first for an hour to prepare her for what birth after sexual assault might look like, what possible triggers she might have, as well as what birthing is stillborn might look like and the options that you have to create mementos i continued to text with her i ended up texting and talking with one of her friends and this was a lot of back and forth this started at 6 a m on saturday and it continued on for a very very very long time i talked to her on the phone through panic attacks while she was freaking help i heard her have contractions honestly been doing this for seven and a half years and on the phone, I very much believed that this was someone in labor and having genuine panic attacks.

[452] Her labor continued on.

[453] I would talk to her friend back and forth sometimes as Caitlin would kick everyone out of the room or she was too busy having contractions to be able to text.

[454] And I, again, talked to her friend.

[455] She had two friends there.

[456] She told me a bit about her backstory with these friends.

[457] These friends talked so highly of her and how amazing she was and how strong she was and everything that you would hear from friends supporting friends in these situations.

[458] It continued on until Caitlin was rushed to the OR because she had had a placental abruption and things were not looking good.

[459] Baby still wasn't born and she had a cervical tear and the way it was described was very much a placental abruption.

[460] So they rushed her off to the and I continued talking to her friend, thinking that this was not going to end well.

[461] None of it was true.

[462] Caitlin Braun has been targeting birth workers since June of last year, specifically in Ontario.

[463] She's extended her reach now to Alberta, New Brunswick, and possibly further.

[464] I don't know why or what she gains from this.

[465] I told her I was gifting my services.

[466] She hasn't contacted me since, thankfully.

[467] There is police involvement in this.

[468] But do this need to know about this?

[469] Birth workers need to know about this.

[470] It was very believable.

[471] Even if your intuition says something's off, she's able to bypass that.

[472] Because she is actually a social worker, and she knows how it works, and she knows how the system works, and she's able to use linguistics that click.

[473] She has tweaked her story for other people and triggers for them as well.

[474] Please help us.

[475] stop her.

[476] Please get this story out so that no other doula or birth worker has to go through the trauma of this experience because it's so hard to wrap your brain around what's going on and you're supporting someone through this and it's hitting your heart on so many different levels and then you find out that none of it was real and you're trying to figure out why you feel so violated.

[477] I'm still trying to figure it out.

[478] I am far from okay.

[479] But I don't want to see anyone else get hit with this and get the trauma from this and the emotional damage because there are people that are walking away from their careers because of this.

[480] And I don't want that to happen.

[481] We need birth workers and we need good people in this world and we need to protect them.

[482] So please help me protect them too.

[483] Thank you.

[484] Well, first things first, I've had multiple of the exact same question.

[485] So yes, the police are involved.

[486] Yes, she has been reported to her governing body.

[487] Yes, you are hearing stories from other doulas on TikTok.

[488] There's at least 50 of us that we know of right now, primarily in southern Ontario and across Canada.

[489] We also have a couple that are in the States.

[490] So she DM'd me in November of 2022 asking for lost support through a stillbirth.

[491] She told me that her baby was conceived as a result of SA.

[492] She also told me that having a queer person support her was very important to her, as she had recently learned that she was queer herself or recently come to that conclusion.

[493] We know now that she changes details of her stories to kind of match with the personalities or the backgrounds of the doulas that she's working with.

[494] So I don't even know myself how much of that aspect of things is true.

[495] You'll have to excuse me if I'm jumping all over the place.

[496] The last time I told the story from start to finish was in a police station.

[497] So it's been quite right for the last couple months.

[498] Basically, what happened is it started off like any other kind of support.

[499] Things did move fairly quickly, but in my experience, that's not unusual for losses, is for things to jump all over the place and be a little bit more unexpected than the kind of typical timeline.

[500] I am not necessarily new to this either.

[501] I've been working as a doula for five years or so.

[502] I've done my share of births in person.

[503] I've done my share of virtual support throughout the pandemic.

[504] I didn't think anything of it, just like everybody else who ended up in the same spot as me. Told me that she had just found out that the baby had passed a couple days prior and that she was being induced that weekend.

[505] She messaged me on like Tuesday, night, Wednesday morning.

[506] So I scheduled a little consult with her just to kind of run through what my process looks like and kind of what to expect for us.

[507] me. So her labor started shortly after that and we were even on a FaceTime call for some of it and I watched her working through contractions similar to every other client that I've worked with where when it got more intense, she would need to focus and not be able to talk through them, breathe her way through and she was like bouncing around on a yoga ball, that type of thing.

[508] Pretty standard in my experience.

[509] So I actually brought on a colleague to help me out because I do work other jobs.

[510] I kind of came out of retirement for this.

[511] I hadn't been actively taking on clients but she messaged me directly and I couldn't say no. given her situation.

[512] So this colleague and I switched on and off, basically doing day shift and night shift, just supporting her kind of 24 -7 because we weren't able to get somebody who was closer to her to support her in person.

[513] We were both about an hour or so away from where she lived.

[514] Her labor was lasting quite a long time and was stalling and then restarting.

[515] But again, it's not out of the ordinary, especially for someone who's a trauma survivor.

[516] And this whole time, my colleague and I were on and off the phone with her, and it sounded exactly like a regular labor, moaning through contractions, breathing through them the whole bit anybody who's watched a labor or birth video you know what that sounds like between my colleague and i we have like 15 years of experience and neither was questioned a thing she kept telling us that because of the details of her situation being that she was a survivor and it was pretty complicated backstory she told us that she kept being mistreated whether it was by other doulas or by people at the hospital the way things worked out she told me that she was actually going to come to my hometown and try to deliver at the hospital there what i later found out was that she had rented an Airbnb in my city and was basically what I believe is trying to lure me into going in person because that's what she has done for multiple other doulas.

[517] She's rented Airbnbs across southern Ontario and met people in person and an in -person labor support, and I am forever grateful that I declined to go in person purely on the basis that she was too early in labor for me to go.

[518] My colleague was actually supporting her on the day that she delivered.

[519] I had to go to my day job that day.

[520] It was time to push as soon as I got off my shift, and so I joined their phone call just to kind of be there for her.

[521] And the experience of listening to her pushing and delivering a baby was exactly what I would expect.

[522] It's exactly what I have heard over the phone before for clients who did deliver babies.

[523] She went so far as to vomit during a transition phase, which is to be expected.

[524] Everything was pretty textbook as far as the birth went, and then there was some complications that she told us happened afterwards.

[525] So she told us afterwards that her placenta was retained and there was some extra bleeding.

[526] So they were working on her and stuff like that, and it ended up that she needed to have a DNC.

[527] She told us that they had to do a hysterectomy.

[528] So my colleague walked her through the grieving process of being a young woman losing her uterus, immediately following a loss.

[529] And then she told us that they couldn't get the bleeding under control, and she had to be transferred to a larger medical center.

[530] Fair play, that's kind of the policy for the place she lives in the hospital that she told us she was going to.

[531] that made sense.

[532] So my colleague was on the phone with her, through the ambulance transfer.

[533] What I'm about to say sounds fully unhinged, and it absolutely is.

[534] But just keep in mind, she uses sleep deprivation as a tactic as well.

[535] She kept us supporting her around the clock.

[536] For me, it was 10 full days, basically, of 24 -7 support.

[537] And I wasn't on the phone with her 24 -7 necessarily, but I certainly wasn't getting off calls like that and then going to sleep and getting a full night's What happened is she had us convinced that because she was by herself, they were giving her more allowances to have support people over the phone, which working through COVID, that makes sense as well.

[538] Like, you know, they would bring in iPads and stuff for people to connect with family members.

[539] So basically she had her AirPods in the whole time so that she could communicate with us.

[540] So at this larger medical center, she had us on the phone with her through various procedures to try to stop the bleeding and things like that.

[541] I won't go into the full details of procedures and stuff that she was telling us she was having because she was acting out over the phone to us what she was going through and what she was experiencing.

[542] And it is very triggering for me to talk about.

[543] And I know it would be triggering to tell other people that as well, because people do go through things like this.

[544] She told us at one point that they were doing a procedure on her without anesthesia, that there wasn't time and that sort of thing, which was very, very difficult for me because I actually have had that experience of waking up under anesthesia during a procedure.

[545] So when she would tell us they were giving her extra doses of whether it was fentanyl or whatever other painkillers, her demeanor and the way she spoke to us would change to kind of match whatever drug essentially they had given her.

[546] So then after all of that happened at this second hospital, she told us that they still kind of couldn't get things under control and she was going to be airlifted to a larger center, which is kind of like the largest hospital, the most kind of trauma specialized hospital in the area.

[547] That again made sense to us, but keep in mind, we hadn't slept for days at this point.

[548] And every time we would try to take a break or we would need to step away, she would find a reason to pull us back in.

[549] At this next hospital, she tells us that similar things are happening.

[550] She still needs these procedures to stop the bleeding.

[551] She told us that she was diagnosed with a clotting disorder that kind of explained what was going on.

[552] So it got to a point where she was then accusing doctors that were working on her and stuff like that at the hospital of assaying her.

[553] There were a couple incidents where she was on the phone with us acting out being essayed.

[554] I'm sure most people can kind of imagine that listening to something like that and the panic that we felt.

[555] She was insistent that we did not call 911 because she didn't want to put herself in war danger, which makes sense to me. But when I tell you, I have not felt fear like that in my entire life.

[556] Somehow this snowballs into, they figure out the reason for her bleeding and all of her symptoms is actually she has pelvic cancer.

[557] So she goes on to basically plan her will and what she wants to do with that.

[558] We walked her through, planning her last wishes, which she, wanted to do with her baby and things like that.

[559] My family and friends at this point were getting a little bit sketched of like, yes, this is potentially happening to someone, but like the odds of all of these things happening were very obviously unlikely.

[560] But they didn't want to approach me with that right away because I was so distraught over losing a client is what I thought was happening.

[561] I thought I was listening to someone basically fade away right in front of me. There were many times where during procedures or whatever she would tell us, she was very tired, she was losing a lot of blood, she felt like she couldn't keep going.

[562] And we had a couple of moments where we fully said our goodbyes to her.

[563] Next time, on something was wrong.

[564] When this had happened, she was living with her mom, which is why she couldn't do the laboring there, which is why she kept getting these Airbnbs.

[565] And actually, her friend who came to the Airbnb cottage that we had gotten in the summer had contacted me after she was arrested and filled me in on why that night at the cottage was so weird and awkward.

[566] A Bramford woman who has been charged what police are calling doula fraud.

[567] Police alleged 24 -year -old Caitlin Braun of Bramford reached out to at least a half dozen doulas across Ontario for false pregnancies and stillbirths.

[568] Thank you so much for listening.

[569] Until next time, stay safe.

[570] friends.

[571] Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese.

[572] 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.

[573] Our theme song was composed by Gladrags.

[574] Check out their album, Wonder Under.

[575] Thank you so much.

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