S13 E1: [Amelia] Behind the Curtain

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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] Episodes discuss topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide, and murder.

[12] If you're in need of support, please visit Something Was Wrong .com slash resources for a list of non -profit organizations that can help.

[13] I'm not a therapist or a doctor.

[14] Most names have been changed for anonymity purposes.

[15] Opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent my views.

[16] Resources and source material are linked in the episode notes.

[17] Thank you so much for listening.

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

[19] My name is Amelia, and I met my ex -husband in 2008 on Match .com.

[20] When we first met, he was positive.

[21] He had a really good outlook on life.

[22] He seemed to be really open and honest, and I really like that about him.

[23] I was coming off of some not great relationships and relationship choices, and so it was really refreshing to come across somebody that just seemed to check all the boxes of trustworthy, not a partier, not a big drinker, loved his family, and the first interaction that we had was a telephone conversation after chatting for a little bit online, and we talked for hours.

[24] It was really nice, and our first date was really easy.

[25] I felt like when I first met him that I had known him forever, he was easy to talk to.

[26] I didn't feel uncomfortable at all around him.

[27] Just felt like I could be myself.

[28] We met for dinner and then went out to coffee after and it was a really great first date.

[29] How would you describe him as a person?

[30] Funny, charming, people that met him really liked him.

[31] He was a hard worker.

[32] He seemed to get along with a lot of people, a great sense of humor, real laid back.

[33] Finally, I found someone that checks all the boxes that I had on my mental list of things that were important to me. What did your friends and family think of him when they first met?

[34] My family really liked him when they first met him.

[35] He was real personable and easy to get along with.

[36] Thought he was a great guy.

[37] When I started my Match .com profile, I was in the process of moving back to my hometown.

[38] And my grandmother, who I was very close to, her health was failing.

[39] And I wanted to get back down to her.

[40] I started the process of looking for a job.

[41] And so when I listed where I lived on my match .com profile, I put my hometown because that's where I was in the process of moving.

[42] When we started dating and he learned where I actually lived on our first date, he kind of jokingly at first, but it became this longstanding.

[43] It felt kind of like a resentment, but he would always jab at me for being untruthful about where I actually lived.

[44] And he would bring it up to family and friends, kind of in a joking way.

[45] He never really seemed to let that go.

[46] He always helped that over my head.

[47] And even when I would explain, I was in the process of moving back and I had every intention within a couple months of making, you know, the move back down to where I grew up, he said, yeah, but you lied.

[48] After I moved back home, my grandmother passed away and I took her death very hard.

[49] She was my person.

[50] And so when she passed, I was very sad.

[51] And a couple days after she passed away, Jake actually ended up breaking up with me, saying that he couldn't handle being around somebody that was so depressed and so sad and that it wasn't working.

[52] I was devastated.

[53] And in addition to losing my grandmother, I also lost my boyfriend.

[54] After a couple months, I reactivated my Match .com profile.

[55] And I got an angry text message from him.

[56] saying, you said I was so important to you, but here you are dating again.

[57] I saw your profile reactivated.

[58] And he laid into me and berated me for being dishonest and not being a good person and how much could he actually mean to me if just after a month or two, I'm already dating again.

[59] And I felt horrible because I hadn't heard from him.

[60] And I had made it clear that, you know, I wanted things to work and he just kept blowing me off.

[61] And the minute that he sees my profile reactivated, is when he resurfaces.

[62] And so I apologized.

[63] I tried to get him to understand.

[64] He said, against his better judgment, why don't we meet for coffee and talk?

[65] And maybe he'll rethink things.

[66] When we met, he remarked on how good I looked because I had probably lost like five or ten pounds because I wasn't eating.

[67] And I remember how validated I felt when he made that comment because he would always, make comments about girls that kind of have the same build as me, or at least I interpreted them to have the same build as me. And if he saw them running, he would make comments like, she needs to run more, cutting comments.

[68] We went and got coffee and got back together.

[69] And about six or seven months later, we went on a weekend trip.

[70] And he proposed on day two of that trip.

[71] And immediately after he proposed, we were walking back to the car and he threw up, which is probably not the best sign.

[72] I interpreted it as he regretted proposing, but he said no, his stomach was just bothering him and he was just anxious and that he was really happy that we were engaged.

[73] A few months into our engagement is when the red flag started coming faster and quicker.

[74] Our engagement was difficult.

[75] He started becoming more and more distant and irritable with me. He would start isolating down in our downstairs bedroom and started sleeping longer hours.

[76] And he had a job for many years and considered the people that he worked with, very good friends of his.

[77] And when he got laid off, he took it as kind of this personal affront of, you know, how dare they?

[78] And I considered them my family and my friends and they're nothing.

[79] I took it as he was depressed and was going through a hard time.

[80] And maybe the wedding was too much stress on him.

[81] And so I would ask him, do you want to postpone the wedding?

[82] And his answer was always, no, no, no. This has nothing to do with us getting married.

[83] It has nothing to do with that.

[84] In late 2009, during Thanksgiving, he started getting very, very violently sick, throwing up and retching in pain.

[85] And so I called his family and took him to the emergency room and he was hospitalized for a few days.

[86] They did a whole bunch of endoscopy, upper endoscopy, lower endoscopy, various testing.

[87] And all of it came up in conclusive.

[88] They couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, but it eventually subsided and he was released from the hospital.

[89] I thought it was stressed.

[90] Everything that he was displaying looked like anxiety, depression, stress, the sleeping long hours, isolating in the room, being super irritable, I would come home from work and the downstairs room would be dark and you could tell he was either sleeping or playing video games in the downstairs bedroom.

[91] But when I would ask him about it, and I felt like I was asking in a very kind of walking on eggshells type of way, did you see anything that might be worth looking at?

[92] He would become very angry.

[93] And he would shut me out.

[94] And if I would push too hard, he would leave the house and wouldn't come back for hours.

[95] Ultimately, I learned to do that dance where it was push just enough to where I wouldn't set him off, but to where I would at least have enough information.

[96] And I was looking for some glimps.

[97] of hope, be able to move forward so we could get married and start our lives.

[98] And then everything would be fine.

[99] Events didn't stress me out.

[100] Weddings didn't stress me out.

[101] And I actually loved the process.

[102] We had about a year engagement.

[103] His family was involved.

[104] My family was very involved.

[105] Because of my strained relationship with my dad, my dad didn't attend the wedding.

[106] My brother walked me down the aisle.

[107] It was a wonderful celebration.

[108] But it was definitely not your normal wedding planning process.

[109] He was very checked out.

[110] And I remember him having trouble finding a best man and getting commitments for groomsmen, which I thought was interesting because he was always surrounded by the guys that he went to high school with.

[111] They were wonderful, but they were partiers and they were drinkers.

[112] And so he wouldn't participate in a lot of the trips that they would do or a lot of the outings that they would do because he didn't like that.

[113] He didn't like to party.

[114] He didn't like to drink.

[115] And so, he was always the friend that was on the outside of the circle.

[116] And so when it came to finding a best man and finding a groomsman, he seemed to struggle.

[117] And when they came into town, they all stayed at our house.

[118] And I loved them.

[119] They're great guys.

[120] I remember making dinner for all of them.

[121] And one of his groomsmen came into the kitchen after dinner and was like clearing all the plates and washing the dishes.

[122] And I remember staring at him being like, wow.

[123] This is really nice.

[124] Like I've never experienced someone contributing in this way.

[125] And I remember thinking how super attractive that was.

[126] I remember a couple of them commenting.

[127] Hey, come and help.

[128] And he was just like, no, no, no, she's got it.

[129] It's just moments like that that you reflect on and realize all the things that you start overlooking.

[130] I was looking at the end game.

[131] And the end game was getting to the wedding and getting to starting our lives because that would put all of this other stuff behind us, other than realizing all that other stuff behind us is just going to follow us every step of the way, even after we get married.

[132] What was the honeymoon like?

[133] The understanding was that I would plan the wedding and that he would plan the honeymoon.

[134] And because he had gotten laid off and finances were kind of strained, we decided we would do like a mini -moon.

[135] And we would go up the Oregon coast.

[136] A couple days before the wedding, it became clear that he actually hadn't planned anything yet.

[137] He hadn't booked flights, booked hotels, planned any of the honeymoon.

[138] And when I became upset, you know, you had one thing to focus on for our wedding and you agreed that that would be your part.

[139] And you haven't done anything.

[140] And we're supposed to leave in two, three days.

[141] And he got angry.

[142] I got angry.

[143] His aunt, who I adored, found out.

[144] And she said, it's okay.

[145] I'm going to come over.

[146] I'm going to get Jake on the laptop.

[147] And we're going to, book everything, I'm going to help him.

[148] And they sat on the couch and booked airline tickets and booked hotels and had everything planned.

[149] And so we were good to go the evening after the wedding.

[150] We got on a flight and we flew to Oregon.

[151] Part of it would be staying in hotels.

[152] And then for part of it, we would be staying at a friend of my mom's house who had a second home in Oregon.

[153] And they offered to let us stay there for a few days.

[154] He was starting to get irritable and was real on edge.

[155] And we checked into the hotel.

[156] I asked him, what can we do that's going to make you feel better?

[157] I just want to have a good time.

[158] We were in Portland and I remember him saying there were a whole bunch of drug addicts everywhere and he didn't like the town.

[159] We were only staying in Portland for like a day.

[160] And he said, let's just go see a movie.

[161] This is our honeymoon.

[162] And I'm internally devastated that the first thing he wants to do on our honeymoon is go sit in a movie theater.

[163] But I went because I was thinking at least that would get him in a better.

[164] frame of mind.

[165] He loved movies.

[166] So we're in the movie theater and he is in his chair and he's rocking back and forth and real fidgety and couldn't seem to get comfortable.

[167] And 15, 20 minutes into the movie, he gets up and he walks out.

[168] And I think he's going to the bathroom or whatever and he doesn't come back for a long time.

[169] I get up to go look for him and he's pacing in the very back of the movie theater back and forth, back and forth.

[170] I asked him, what is wrong with you?

[171] What's going on?

[172] He's like, I just don't feel right.

[173] I don't feel right.

[174] I don't feel good.

[175] We go back to the hotel and he immediately goes into the bathroom and fills the bathtub up and sits in the bathtub for hours.

[176] I would go in and a check on him and he would tell me to leave him alone, that he wasn't feeling good, that he'd be better tomorrow.

[177] And I ended up taking a bottle of wine and went outside and sat and cried outside the hotel, drinking by myself, wondering what the hell was going on.

[178] What have I done?

[179] Was there anyone that you were able to connect with to get support?

[180] No, no, no. I didn't tell anybody.

[181] As far as family and friends were concerned, it was business as usual this whole time.

[182] I explained away his behavior to everybody.

[183] We kept trying from one hotel to the next hotel, and it was increasingly worse.

[184] And by day three, we had ended up at my mom.

[185] mom's friend's house and he wanted to be holed up and watch movies on TV all day.

[186] I couldn't fathom spending five days locked in a cabin just watching movies in the dark on my honeymoon.

[187] He was doing things that didn't feel right.

[188] He comes downstairs and for the first time he looked excited.

[189] He said, look what I found.

[190] And he shows me this box and he opens it and inside is a pipe.

[191] with pot in the box.

[192] I was like, where the heck, where did you find that?

[193] Like certainly they're not going to leave that lying around somewhere.

[194] And he's like, oh, no, I just found it in a drawer.

[195] And he's like, we should smoke it.

[196] I was so taken aback by that because this was somebody that didn't drink, didn't do drugs, didn't party.

[197] And the first time I see him excited on our honeymoon is when he finds marijuana.

[198] I remember him smoking a little bit of it.

[199] And then he put it back.

[200] And I was freaking out because I'm thinking, oh my God, if my mom's friends know that we found this and are they going to be mad, I'm mortified.

[201] I just wanted him to put it back.

[202] But we ended up flying home five days early.

[203] And I remember my mom asking me, who comes home five days early from their honeymoon?

[204] What happened?

[205] I told her, you know, we didn't like organ.

[206] It was boring.

[207] There was nothing to do.

[208] So we're going to be home.

[209] I explained that away.

[210] But certainly, that set up some red flags for my mom.

[211] Christmas is my holiday.

[212] If I could live in a Hallmark movie till for the end of time on Christmas day, I would sign up for that.

[213] I love Christmas.

[214] And what attracted me so much on his dating profile was that he said Christmas was his favorite time of year and went into this long explanation of why Christmas was so special to him.

[215] We decided we were going to spend it with both of our families.

[216] At this time, he had landed a job with a startup company.

[217] He was very excited and he threw himself into this new business and was working long hours and the most excited that I've seen him in quite a long time.

[218] He was reluctant to do too much over Christmas, but he said, I'm going to take my laptop with me and I'll work in between stuff.

[219] We drove to his aunt's house.

[220] I adored his family.

[221] It was all of his cousins and we stayed up late and we put the toys together for the kids.

[222] We played games and all the while he's in the backyard sitting on a chair with his hoodie pulled over his head on his laptop smoking cigarettes and would not come inside.

[223] And when his dad would go outside and check on him or his stepmom would go outside and check on him and encourage him to come inside, he would say, I have to get this done.

[224] I would say, you're missing everything.

[225] Like just come inside for an hour.

[226] and he would get mad at me and tell me you don't understand.

[227] This is super important.

[228] Christmas morning, he was pretty much checked out the whole time, but I had a good time with his family.

[229] We left in the afternoon to continue on to my mom and stepdad's house.

[230] When we were leaving, he was in the driver's seat of the car, and his stepmom came up and looked at him and said, you don't look okay.

[231] You look a little pale and your eyes are barely open.

[232] Maybe you shouldn't drive.

[233] And so we switched, and I ended up driving.

[234] and he ended up sleeping the whole way.

[235] We got to my mom and stepdad's house, his stomach started hurting.

[236] The minute that we walked through the front door and were greeted by my mom and stepdad, he immediately said hello quickly and walked up the stairs and went into the bathroom.

[237] As I'm talking with them and getting ready to open gifts with them and everything, I can see what's happening upstairs in the bathroom.

[238] And Jake is walking frantically in and out of the bathroom.

[239] At one point he walks out and he's just wearing a towel and I can hear the shower running.

[240] This fit, this pattern that he had of whenever his stomach would start hurting, he would take a bath or he would take a hot shower and he would be in there for hours at a time.

[241] I started to learn this pattern and I had this increasing anxiety of how long can this continue before my mom and stepdad are going to be like, what is happening?

[242] I went upstairs to check on him and when I get up there, he's telling me that he has severe stomach pains and diarrhea, and he's on the floor of the bathroom.

[243] The cabinets below were open, and everything has been rifled through.

[244] And he said, I know your mom just had a hysterectomy.

[245] I know she has to have pain meds for it.

[246] Where are they?

[247] You need to ask your mom for them.

[248] And I said, I'm not asking my mom for pain meds.

[249] What is happening?

[250] What is going on?

[251] I'll ask her if she has pepto.

[252] And he got really angry with me and said, no, I need pain meds.

[253] And he tells me, I need to go to the emergency room.

[254] I do not feel right.

[255] Something is wrong.

[256] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

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

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

[259] 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.

[260] What happens next?

[261] Depends on who you ask.

[262] Was it a crime of passion?

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

[264] This was clearly an intentional act.

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

[266] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

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

[268] Everyone had an opinion.

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

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

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

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

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

[274] Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught.

[275] I'm Sachi Cole.

[276] And I'm Sarah Haggy.

[277] And we're the host of scam influencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims and what's left once the facade falls away.

[278] We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment, but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit followed by Larry King, and no real product to push.

[279] He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs.

[280] To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Judice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame.

[281] Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[282] You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad -free right now on Wondry Plus.

[283] So I go downstairs and I tell my mom and she said the emergency room, is just 10 minutes down the road.

[284] Let's go.

[285] We get him in the car and by this time he is like retching in pain.

[286] He's in a bad way.

[287] We get to the emergency room and they admit him.

[288] I go back and it was actually the first time that I ever called myself his wife because they asked, what's your relationship?

[289] I sat with him as they did a whole workup on him.

[290] They hooked him up to IVs and tried to make him comfortable.

[291] He was saying his pain was at a 10 out of 10.

[292] And he was in horrific pain and had no idea what it was.

[293] We were there for probably a couple hours and I felt the energy change.

[294] The nurses started coming in less and when they would come in, they would be not as conversational with us.

[295] Then the doctor walked in and he said, Jake, tell me what's going on.

[296] The doctor said, are you telling me everything?

[297] Jake looked at him and said, yeah, I'm telling you everything.

[298] I don't know what you're.

[299] getting at.

[300] And the doctor said, okay, I'll be back.

[301] 20 minutes later, the doctor comes back and now he's holding a big stack of papers.

[302] He said, because you are from a different city, I pulled a history on you.

[303] It's called a script history.

[304] And what I'm finding is that you have a very lengthy history of seeking opiates from different physicians.

[305] And your most recent prescription filling was from a clinic in Long Beach for Suboxin.

[306] And at this point, it was like I was underwater.

[307] I had no idea what this doctor was even talking about.

[308] And I looked over at Jake and he has this unchanged face like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

[309] And he's not angry, but monotone.

[310] So I'm looking at him, and it's like, what is he saying about Jake?

[311] Like, clearly he's got the wrong person.

[312] But then I remember looking up at the heart rate monitor, and his heart rate was skyrocketed, but the way he looked was completely normal.

[313] And I thought, you're hooked up right now to a lie detector, and I think you're lying.

[314] And the doctor put the papers on his stomach and said, I'll be back.

[315] I want to help you.

[316] But if you're not being honest with me, I can't help you.

[317] And the doctor walked out.

[318] And Jake looked at me and said, I don't know what the hell this is.

[319] I don't know what they're talking about.

[320] You know me. I don't do anything.

[321] And he starts trying to convince me that this is wrong.

[322] And after a few minutes, I look over and he's crying, and he looked at me and he said, I'm so sorry, I have a problem.

[323] And I was trying to take care of it myself.

[324] So after essentially two months of being married to him, I found out that I was married to somebody that had a pretty severe addiction to opiates.

[325] And that was the path that we were now walking down.

[326] I tried to steady myself.

[327] I went into the area that my mom was waiting in, and my mom said, did they find out what's going on?

[328] And I said, nope, they don't know what's going on.

[329] I think we just need to get him better and go home.

[330] Once he's feeling better, I think we need to leave tomorrow morning.

[331] And that's what we did.

[332] He got stabilized.

[333] And by 10 o 'clock the next morning, we drove the nine hours back home with him passed out in the passenger seat and me crying.

[334] the whole way, but not crying too loud because I didn't want to disturb him.

[335] They pumped him full of opiates, essentially, hydrocodone to get him out of pain.

[336] By the time we got home, it was starting to wear off.

[337] And so by 10 o 'clock that night, we were right back in the emergency room in our hometown.

[338] It was the same.

[339] And by this time, I would tell them, and he would tell them he's withdrawing from opiates.

[340] Please don't pump him full of opiates again.

[341] He just wants to get clean.

[342] And the emergency room physicians would tell us we need to get him out of pain.

[343] And that's what we have to do.

[344] They would just basically get him high again.

[345] I didn't know what to do.

[346] I have a very close friend.

[347] She was active in AA and very open with her recovery.

[348] And so I called her.

[349] And she was the first person I told.

[350] I said, what am I missing?

[351] He wants help.

[352] He wants to get clean.

[353] But I don't know what to do.

[354] And she said, he needs detox.

[355] You need to find a detox place for him.

[356] The very next morning, he was in so much pain that we went back.

[357] And by this time, we were on such a hamster wheel that I told him, I have to tell your parents, I can't do this by myself.

[358] And if we need to get you into detox, I need help.

[359] Financially, we can't do it.

[360] I called his dad and his stepmom, and then I called his mom, and I filled them in all what was going on.

[361] And they said, okay, we'll be there and we'll figure out what to do.

[362] And they all rallied around me and we found a rehab to get him into, and he went into a rehab, started the process of getting clean.

[363] And by this time, it was New Year's Eve.

[364] And, yeah, I was a newlywed alone on New Year's Eve.

[365] His family took me to the movies, and that's how I spent New Year's with my husband in rehab and at a movie with his family.

[366] Were you able to visit him while he was in treatment?

[367] And what was the process like for you having a partner who's in treatment for 30 days?

[368] It was hard.

[369] He went to detox and was there for seven to 10 days.

[370] And the next step that I learned was that he would go into a residential facility.

[371] I at the time was working at a hospital that just so happened to have a chemical dependency unit.

[372] I got him admitted there.

[373] I would be able to visit him on the weekends during what they called Family Day.

[374] And then I was able to go through Family Week there, which was half days for a whole week where the family would come in and learn about recovery and what they were going through and process some of the trauma that the family was exposed to during the wreckage of everything.

[375] He was in treatment for 30 days and was doing really well.

[376] They call it the pink cloud in recovery where he's in this euphoric state.

[377] He's been in this euphoric state.

[378] in this protective bubble for 30 days working on himself, making new friends.

[379] And certainly it's hard work and it's very emotional work, but it's a very insular world.

[380] And he was the happiest that I've really ever known him to be.

[381] And while that was nice, I was also pissed.

[382] I was super pissed and resentful and felt lied to and misled.

[383] And I was trying to work through all the feelings.

[384] It was hard for me to see him on this pink cloud when I felt exhausted and beaten up and like I was always the one left holding the world together.

[385] I was left trying to pick up the pieces of the wreckage that he caused and going through the inventory of like, was he high when we got married?

[386] Was he high when he proposed to me?

[387] I started going to Al -Anon.

[388] It was a continuing care group that we had as part of the treatment program that he went through.

[389] Every Thursday night, we would go into separate groups and I was able to process a lot of that anger and talk to people that had kind of walked the same road that I was walking now.

[390] It was a really good comfort to me. It certainly didn't take away my anger and there were moments.

[391] I would be very cutting to Jake.

[392] I could win every argument now because no matter what he said, I could pull out the Trump card of, well, you lied to me and you ruined everything.

[393] Certainly, that would always win.

[394] At the same time, I also knew holding on to that resentment was only going to completely obliterate our marriage.

[395] And so I continued to work a program to try to work through all of those anger and resentments.

[396] And he continued to work his program.

[397] But then he started to struggle because he was an atheist.

[398] And one of the big cornerstones of A .A. is believing in a power greater than yourself.

[399] And there's a lot of God in it.

[400] He took that as the literal meaning of God.

[401] And so he really struggled.

[402] I was trying to rally around him.

[403] But I always felt robbed of a honeymoon.

[404] I felt robbed of a relationship.

[405] And so I was mourning.

[406] I was feeling sorry for myself.

[407] I was feeling sorry that this was the life that I had.

[408] On Valentine's Day, I was at work and he called me. and he said, you know, I'm coming to your work right now, I need you to meet me in the parking lot.

[409] My first thought was, it's Valentine's Day, and he's surprising me, and I was kind of excited.

[410] But when I got into the car, when he got there, I realized it was not a good reason why he was there.

[411] When I looked at his face, he looked angry, worried, a weird look on his face, and he said, I relapsed.

[412] I found some pills in my golf bag, and I took them.

[413] And so now you can leave me. Now you have your pass to go.

[414] I started crying and I said, drive the car over to the facility.

[415] And so we drove the car over to the chemical dependency unit.

[416] We walked inside.

[417] He met with his counselor that had worked with him.

[418] He counseled both of us and he said, this is a slip.

[419] Sometimes this happens in early recovery and it's kind of to be expected.

[420] It's not the end of the world.

[421] You now have tools, Jake, to grab a hold of and you know what to do.

[422] It's expected.

[423] This is not my moment to leave.

[424] He started to struggle more.

[425] And a lot of the old behavior started back up as far as his job problem started again at the startup company.

[426] He was starting to have problems with one of the other guys in the group.

[427] They had never really gotten along, but now it was starting to escalate.

[428] Before long, he was asked to leave.

[429] They wanted to buy him out and wanted him to move on.

[430] The only difference this time was, it was a startup and he got bought out.

[431] So we had a little bit of money, not a lot, but a little bit to stay afloat for a few months until he found something else.

[432] It wasn't long after that I found out that I was pregnant.

[433] I was scared, but I was excited.

[434] It was once again that pattern of, well, now everything's going to be fine because now we're going to have a kid together and things are going to start clicking for him because he's going to finally realize how much we depend on him and having a kid surely is going to fix everything.

[435] I don't know why people think that, but that seems to be what I thought.

[436] I remember being excited to tell him, I bought this little onesie.

[437] I wrapped it up and when he came home, I gave it to him.

[438] He was sitting in the chair and he opens it and there was no reaction.

[439] He just blankly stared at it.

[440] And I said, you're not happy?

[441] and he threw it down and said, nothing I ever do is good enough for you.

[442] You can't even let me have my own emotions.

[443] And he stormed out of the house and didn't come home until the next day.

[444] I'm so sorry.

[445] How did you respond to that behavior?

[446] Did you reach out to someone?

[447] By this time, I had people that knew what was happening behind the curtain, the group that I met with every Thursday, when I would get angry or scared or spinning, I would pick up the phone and call them and talk with them through it.

[448] And when he left, I texted his phone.

[449] I called his phone and he wasn't picking up.

[450] He wasn't answering text messages.

[451] He at one point just turned his phone off because it would just start going straight to voicemail.

[452] And I was losing my mind.

[453] I would lash out at him, you know, because I was angry.

[454] How dare you take away everything that's supposed to.

[455] to be good and good moments in my life and make them garbage.

[456] I blamed him for all of that when really I chose to stay.

[457] I didn't necessarily choose to get pregnant.

[458] I chose to stay in the marriage, but I blamed him for everything.

[459] I certainly have more moments that I'm not proud of than I'm proud of, but I was learning on my feet.

[460] I was learning to kind of process a whole bunch of anger that I had towards him.

[461] That's how I looked at it.

[462] I was feeling real sorry for myself and real powerless to change my circumstances.

[463] Do you feel like you were doing the best you could at the time?

[464] Oh yeah.

[465] I certainly felt like I was doing the best I could.

[466] I came from divorced parents.

[467] My parents divorced when I was six or seven months old.

[468] They did not like each other when I was a kid.

[469] I remember being in the middle of fights when they would be yelling at each other.

[470] And I was always put in between the two of them.

[471] And he came from divorced parents.

[472] And so there was this inner drive in me of like, I am sticking it out.

[473] I made vows.

[474] I am here till the bitter end.

[475] I'm going to break that cycle.

[476] You live with the cards that you're dealt and you make the best of it.

[477] And I was trying to make the best of it and I didn't want to leave him.

[478] If he could just get his shit together, we would be fine.

[479] What was the rest of your pregnancy like?

[480] So the pregnancy was fairly lonely.

[481] He was saying he was going to meetings.

[482] I was not sure that to be true because the person I saw in front of me didn't look like the people that I had grown to know in recovery and that were working an active program.

[483] The company that he got laid off from before we got married, rehired him.

[484] By this time, I was six months pregnant.

[485] And so there would be these little moments and glimmers of hope of like, okay, things are getting back on track.

[486] How bad could it be if the company that fired him is now rehiring him.

[487] certainly he's at a different place where, you know, he's growing and getting back what he's lost.

[488] I was about seven months pregnant and we decided to fly to my mom's house.

[489] I believe it was Thanksgiving.

[490] My brother and his wife and their newborn daughter were going to be there.

[491] We decided this would be a nice trip.

[492] We flew to Oregon.

[493] Again, he was kind of standoffish, just wanted to watch movies, kind of irritable.

[494] The next morning, we were going to go to wineries.

[495] He was very upset at the fact that my family would be so insensitive to take somebody in recovery to wineries.

[496] I looked at it differently.

[497] The wineries there, they're on beautiful properties.

[498] We don't even have to go into the wine tasting room.

[499] I'm six, seven months pregnant.

[500] I'm certainly not drinking.

[501] We're just going to spend time with my family and get out of the house.

[502] And so while he was upset about it, what we had agreed to was we will drive separately.

[503] So if at any time you decide it's too much, you're uncomfortable, it's not working, you and I will go and do our own thing.

[504] We'll have a car and we'll have the freedom.

[505] And he seemed okay with that arrangement.

[506] And so we went to a winery.

[507] We hit to the first winery and we start walking around kind of the grounds, walking around the lake and having a decent time.

[508] But then he says, I'm uncomfortable.

[509] I want to leave.

[510] And I said, okay, that's the agreement.

[511] Good.

[512] So thankful that you came.

[513] I really appreciate it.

[514] Let's go.

[515] We went back in to tell everybody that we were going to go back to the house.

[516] And my brother asked if we would take my niece, Liz, back to the house with us because it was her nap time.

[517] We took the car that had the car seat in it, got her situated, went back to my parents' house.

[518] He was driving on mountain roads.

[519] back to the house.

[520] We get back to the house.

[521] I get Liz out of the car seat, take her downstairs to put her in the crib for her nap time.

[522] And as I'm downstairs, I hear this very loud crash upstairs.

[523] I'm Dan Tversky.

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

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

[526] I'm like, stop around.

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

[528] A mystery illness, bizarre.

[529] symptoms and spreading fast.

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

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

[532] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[533] Well, you were holding something back.

[534] Intentionally.

[535] Yeah, well, yeah.

[536] No, it's hysteria.

[537] It's all in your head.

[538] It's not physical.

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

[540] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem?

[541] Or is it something else entirely?

[542] Something's wrong here.

[543] Something's not right.

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

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

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

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

[548] I immediately run upstairs and I see him lying unconscious on the floor.

[549] And I run over and I'm shaking him and I'm yelling, Jake, Jake, what the hell is going on?

[550] wake up, wake up.

[551] And he comes to, and I just start saying over and over, not again, not again, not again, this cannot be happening again.

[552] And he's saying, I don't know what you're talking about.

[553] I don't feel right.

[554] This is not drugs.

[555] This is something else.

[556] This is not drugs.

[557] And I'm just saying over and over like, do you think I'm a fucking idiot?

[558] You can't tell me this is happening again.

[559] And he said, he said, Amelia, just call your mom.

[560] We need to go to the emergency room.

[561] And I said, I threw the phone to him, and I said, I'm not calling her.

[562] You're doing it.

[563] And he calls my mom.

[564] And the immediate thing he says is, I need you to know, this isn't drugs, but something's wrong with me, and I need to go to the emergency room.

[565] They rush back home, and he's kind of not in and out of consciousness, but he's certainly not fully alert.

[566] He's very, very sleepy.

[567] My parents get back.

[568] my brother and sister -in -law were there, and immediately my mom and I and Jake get in the car, and we start rushing him to the emergency room.

[569] By this time, he's in the car, and he's slumped over and kind of passing in and out.

[570] And we get there.

[571] I jump out of the car, and I yell to whoever, like, we need a wheelchair.

[572] And they run a wheelchair out, and he's kind of unconscious.

[573] And as they start turning him around, he slumps over and falls face first into the asphalt.

[574] And I jump on him, throw him over onto his back, and I start shaking him and saying, like, please don't die.

[575] Please don't die.

[576] I remember the nurses pulling me off of him and saying, you know, you need to calm down.

[577] You're pregnant.

[578] Please don't make us sedate you.

[579] And so I calmed down and they started wheeling him back.

[580] inside I was feeling disappointed, angry, scared, sad.

[581] It was just this rush of so many different feelings.

[582] I didn't know if I was, I didn't know if I felt pissed or if I was scared out of my mind that he was going to die.

[583] The nurses were coming in and they were triaging him and they were asking him what was wrong.

[584] And I said, it's drugs.

[585] It's drugs.

[586] It's 100 % it's drugs.

[587] And he looked at me kind of incoherent, but he's shaking his head.

[588] And then the nurses looked at me like I was a monster for being so callous.

[589] I said, test him.

[590] Give him a test.

[591] He's got drugs in his systems.

[592] I guarantee you.

[593] Pump him full of hydrocodone and I guarantee you he'll come to.

[594] I went out to check on my mom and she was hanging up the phone and she was shaking her head.

[595] She had just gotten off the phone with my stepdad.

[596] He had a bottle of Vicodin in his medicine cabinet that was missing.

[597] And when he found the bottle, it was completely empty.

[598] I was pissed.

[599] And I went back to where Jake was.

[600] And I said, do you want to tell me what's really going on?

[601] And he's like, what are you talking about?

[602] And I said, do you want to tell me about how there's mysteriously a whole bottle of my stepdad's Vicodin missing?

[603] He just looked at me and he said, you know what?

[604] Fuck you.

[605] I looked at him and I said, you're on your own.

[606] And I walked out.

[607] And I told the nurse at the front when he's stable and ready to be discharged, call this number.

[608] And we went back to the house.

[609] My mom asked what I needed and I said I need a phone and a quiet room.

[610] And I immediately just started dialing every person in my continuing care group.

[611] I'm so sorry.

[612] How helpful was it for you to have that support in that moment?

[613] It was really helpful to have people to call that one knew the whole story that I didn't have to kind of hold it together and pretend everything was fine around.

[614] But I think the biggest help was that they just validated my feelings and they validated that I wasn't crazy and that I wasn't a monster for leaving him in the emergency room.

[615] By this time, I had a year of Al -Anon in my system.

[616] So all the things that I knew I was using, but it's real hard.

[617] It's hard to put up boundaries.

[618] It's hard to walk away from somebody that is actively using and choosing to use over and over again and say, I'm done.

[619] I will support you as long as you are working a program and as long as you're clean.

[620] But if you're actively using, I'm not sticking around to be part of the wreckage that you're causing.

[621] That's really hard to do.

[622] For years, it feels awful to let go of somebody that you love and let them fall.

[623] I was seven months pregnant.

[624] At this point in time, I had made up my mind to kick him out.

[625] I didn't know if I was going to have a partner.

[626] When I delivered my first child, I didn't know what was going to happen.

[627] But all I knew is that I couldn't continue on the way that it was going.

[628] I told my family, when he gets discharged, I want him out on the first plane in the morning home.

[629] I will have his family meet him on the other side.

[630] And what he needs to do is to go back into treatment.

[631] And if he doesn't, then he's not coming home.

[632] And we're done.

[633] My brother primarily was livid with rage because the reality of it was my husband had driven my newborn niece in a car high out of his mind and within five minutes of hitting the front door, passed out cold.

[634] My brother was enraged that he just risked the life of his daughter, his sister, and his unborn nephew.

[635] My mom and stepdad drove him to the airport.

[636] I returned home a day or two later.

[637] Jake agreed to go into treatment for a couple weeks.

[638] He would not go the whole time because he had been rehired back at that old company and he said, I have a kid on the way.

[639] I need to be able to support my family, and so I'll go to an intensive outpatient program.

[640] I told him that he needed to go into sober living, that I wasn't ready for him to be in our home.

[641] And he willingly lived at a sober living home.

[642] Probably about a month or a month and a half later, he was doing well.

[643] He was being really sweet, thoughtful, telling me how beautiful I was and how much he was looking forward to having a son and And for the first time, it actually felt like it clicked for him.

[644] And he was showing up as a partner.

[645] And so he moved back home and we gave birth to our first son.

[646] It was a wonderful time with him or as close to wonderful as I can remember it being.

[647] But it was real awkward with the rest of my family.

[648] I found myself starting to really throw myself into my family, my husband, my son, and we're building a life and he's finally doing well in his treatment and I started getting irritated with my family for not being able to lock step with me. They were working through their own resentments and feelings of what had transpired.

[649] Our son was probably around six or seven months old when the wheels started to come off again.

[650] Things had been good, certainly not wonderful, but definitely better than they had ever been.

[651] He loved his son.

[652] And it was the first time that I ever really got a glimmer of like, oh, this is what a family feels like.

[653] This is what it's supposed to feel like.

[654] Our youngest was probably about six, seven months old when I found out that I was pregnant again.

[655] I was a little scared to tell him, but I was so excited.

[656] By the time I found out I was pregnant, things started to get a little shaky again.

[657] He started having problems at work.

[658] again.

[659] He was starting to get more and more stressed and a little more agitated than normal, but he was still going to programs.

[660] He was still working with a sponsor.

[661] And so I told him I was pregnant, and he reacted the same way that he did the first time I told him.

[662] It was like a carbon copy.

[663] He looked disappointed, and I remarked how it didn't look like he was happy.

[664] And he got angry and said, once again, you just can't let me have my feelings.

[665] And he left.

[666] He came back a few hours later and apologized and said that he called his sponsor and worked through things with him and that he is very happy and he's just stressed because his job isn't going well.

[667] It was this pattern of I need to wait to see how he feels about things before I know how I feel about things.

[668] We told my mom and stepdad and they were not thrilled.

[669] By this time, my brother and sister -in -law were newly pregnant and I remember how my mom reacted to their news and it was very different than how she reacted to mine and I was very hurt by it.

[670] Because again, it was that feeling of like, why can't I have the moments that everybody else gets?

[671] He eventually got let go again from the job that has now let him go twice and the depression that he fell into was a lot deeper than the first time.

[672] He would sleep until noon 1, 2 o 'clock and I'm pregnant with a baby and working two jobs to make ends meet and trying to get our littlest off to daycare every day and doing it with somebody that wouldn't get off the couch.

[673] It was hard.

[674] By the time our second was born, Jake had become very distant, cold, still unemployed.

[675] He was refusing to find work.

[676] He spent very little time with either of our boys.

[677] One time, both of our boys were asleep, and I was in the kitchen, and I remember feeling so sad and so lonely and so unloved, and I fell on the kitchen floor and started crying.

[678] And I was trying not to cry too loud because I didn't want Jake to hear me. He was asleep on the couch.

[679] I must have woken him up and he walks into the kitchen to get a glass of water and he steps over me to get into the cupboard and looks down at me as I'm crying and says, what the fuck is your problem now?

[680] Gets water and leaves the kitchen.

[681] I thought, okay, I either have to be okay with never being held or comforted in my marriage and really loved or I have to move on.

[682] And I thought, no, that's okay.

[683] I can do that.

[684] I'm strong enough.

[685] I don't.

[686] need to be hugged.

[687] I don't need to be comforted.

[688] I'm strong enough to manage on my own.

[689] It's shocking to me how very little I was willing to accept in my marriage.

[690] What was driving me to stay was we have two children now.

[691] I don't want my children to come from a divorced home and endure the stuff that I had to endure as a child who came from divorced parents.

[692] And so I was hell -bent to stay.

[693] He was working a program, I thought.

[694] He was sleeping all the time.

[695] I chalked it up to depression and anxiety and a whole bunch of other stuff.

[696] And he was on disability for depression.

[697] He would always tell me if I could just be as successful or more successful than my dad, if I could just own a home, if I could just have this.

[698] There was always these qualifiers that were his barriers to happiness.

[699] And one of the big ones was owning a home.

[700] He really didn't like the fact, felt like we were behind in life because we didn't own a home.

[701] I found out that I could borrow against my 401K for a down payment.

[702] Okay, great.

[703] We now can start looking for a home and we can have that thing that is the one thing that's missing that will make you happy.

[704] And so like a good codependent box checker, I ran with that idea.

[705] If there's one thing I'm real good at, it's not letting things get in my way once I have my mind made up.

[706] And I had my mind made up that we were.

[707] going to own a home and that this was going to make it okay.

[708] And on New Year's Day, we moved into a home that was in a Stepford -Wivesy, idealic white picket fence, like straight off a movie set neighborhood.

[709] Did you see a change in his mood when you were able to achieve this goal since it was something he was so focused on?

[710] Oh, God, no, it changed nothing.

[711] While we were in escrow, the wheels were falling off.

[712] He was getting stuffed.

[713] make pains again, but it didn't match the same pattern as before.

[714] And he was like, no, this literally is just me being nervous.

[715] It has nothing to do with owning the house.

[716] And I asked him over and over again, like, if this is too much, we do not need to do this.

[717] No, it's not too much.

[718] This is all I want.

[719] I really, really want it.

[720] And so full steam ahead.

[721] And we moved in shortly after we moved in, he got a new job.

[722] Jake is so charismatic that if a door is opened for him, And he's able to sit in front of somebody and put the charisma and charm on.

[723] I knew once he got the interview, he would get the job.

[724] He was happy about it, but it fixed nothing.

[725] Things improved as far as there was at least a reason for him to get out of bed in the morning, and he wasn't sleeping all day.

[726] He would go on weekend family day trips here and there, but by and large, he would want to stay behind.

[727] We lived in our house for probably a few months.

[728] And his isolating started picking up more.

[729] But this time it wasn't just isolating.

[730] He would disappear at night.

[731] I would text him, where are you, where you?

[732] Oh, I'm just at the gas station getting cigarettes.

[733] I had to run out real quick.

[734] I'll be right back.

[735] And he wouldn't come back for hours.

[736] And when I would question where he was, he would get angry.

[737] I'm just sitting in my car smoking.

[738] I needed to get out of here for a second.

[739] And you're always on top of me. It started becoming normal.

[740] He started missing work.

[741] I would do little, codependent things.

[742] Like I would leave for work in the morning and I would take the boys and drop them off at daycare and I would text him or call him when I got to work to say, hope you have a good day or just wanted to tell you I love you because I knew if he replied, that meant that he was awake.

[743] If he didn't, that means that I need to send a couple more texts to figure out if he's still at home sleeping or if he actually made it into work.

[744] There would be days that I would have to go to work early and he would have to drop the boys off at daycare and I would always text and see where he was because in my mind I didn't know if he was still asleep at the house and the boys were running around the house or if he drove them in the car and forgot they were there and they were in the parking lot in his work like I just had all these intrusive horrible images of things happening to our kids because he was not trustworthy, eventually got so bad where he stopped showering.

[745] He was missing work.

[746] He began dumpster diving.

[747] He would disappear at night.

[748] And I would wake up the next morning.

[749] And there would be just tons of things in our garage that he found in dumpsters.

[750] And I would question him, what are you doing?

[751] And he's like, it's so much fun.

[752] But got to a point where our entire side yard was filled with crap.

[753] that he had found in dumpsters.

[754] And we were getting letters from the HOA because it was visible from the street.

[755] And they would fine us if we didn't remove it.

[756] Then it started going into the garage.

[757] Before long, we were like the shut -ins of the neighborhood.

[758] We lived in a neighborhood that was filled with kids.

[759] And when people got home from work, they would open their garages and the kids would ride their bikes and we couldn't open ours.

[760] And he would get so angry if I would open the garage even a little bit because he didn't want people to see.

[761] I would try to get him to join us on family outings and he would tell me he'd rather stay home or work.

[762] And the distance that already was pretty great between us became greater.

[763] It started to affect our kids.

[764] There were many nights where he would promise the boys, I'll put you to bed tonight.

[765] And I would hear his car driving away.

[766] And he wouldn't return until the next day.

[767] My oldest, he was two at the time, and he would cry for his dad.

[768] It broke my heart.

[769] It was the first time that I actually started considering divorce.

[770] He wasn't happy.

[771] I wasn't happy.

[772] It was around Christmas.

[773] We both agreed if you're not happy, if I'm not happy, maybe after the holidays, we should consider going our separate ways.

[774] I started thinking about divorce more seriously and started researching options.

[775] He wasn't sleeping many nights.

[776] He would be forgetful and super distant.

[777] He would sleep in our guest room and wouldn't even come to bed in our room.

[778] The final straw for me was our two boys have birthdays very close to one another and we were going to have a joint birthday party for the two of them.

[779] He would disappear almost every single night.

[780] And so I begged him, Jake, please go to bed at a good hour.

[781] We're going to have a house full of people.

[782] it's the boys's birthday.

[783] He said, yes, I'm going to go to bed.

[784] It's going to be a good day.

[785] Come 10 o 'clock that night, the night before the birthday, he disappears.

[786] I called his phone all night long, couldn't get a hold of him, sent him begging text like, please come home, please come home, you promised, you promised, nothing.

[787] So he comes home the next day.

[788] The birthday party's about to start in an hour.

[789] And I am frantically trying to get everything situated and do all the things that were on his list of things to do in addition to mine.

[790] to get our house at least in order so people don't come and realize what a train wreck our household is.

[791] Everybody starts walking through the door.

[792] I'm so done.

[793] Like, clearly you don't give a shit about your family.

[794] And whatever it is you disappear to do every night is more important.

[795] He got pissed and said, fuck you, you're always bitching about something.

[796] And I'm over it.

[797] Everyone got there and he was gone.

[798] I remember our three -year -olds, his face was glowing.

[799] And he was like, Daddy, Daddy, and he was searching the whole room for his dad.

[800] And I saw his face fall when he realized he wasn't there.

[801] I had so many moments growing up when I would have an event and my dad would be there for the beginning and then I'd look up and the chair would be empty.

[802] I knew that horrible feeling.

[803] And to know that my son was now having that same feeling, it was that moment where I was like, I'm fucking done.

[804] I'm done.

[805] I filed for a divorce the next day.

[806] Can I say fuck?

[807] You can say I prefer fuck as much as possible.

[808] Okay, good.

[809] It's a must.

[810] When it comes to our kids, for so many, that's where the line is drawn.

[811] and that catalyst for change can happen.

[812] How are you feeling?

[813] Let me know whatever you need.

[814] Yeah.

[815] I'm okay.

[816] I'm totally fine.

[817] This is certainly the part though where it starts getting real.

[818] So we'll see how I do.

[819] That's next time on Something Was Wrong.

[820] Thank you so much for listening.

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

[822] Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media production.

[823] Created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese.

[824] 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.

[825] Our theme song was composed by Gladrags.

[826] Check out their album, Wonder Under.

[827] Thank you so much.

[828] 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.

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