Something Was Wrong - S11 E12: [Lucy] Bad Blood

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

This week survivor Lucy shares her story.*Content Warning: This episode discusses sexual assault and emotional abuse.**Sources:Ultra Violet: Facts About Violence Against Native WomenUltraViolet is a powerful and rapidly growing community of people mobilized to fight sexism and create a more inclusive world that accurately represents all women, from politics and government to media and pop culture. UltraViolet is a community of one million people that drives feminist cultural and political change. Through people power and strategic advocacy, they work to improve the lives of women and girls of all identities and backgrounds, and all people impacted by sexism, by dismantling discrimination and creating a cost for sexism.Where’s the Media Attention for Missing Indigenous Women?By Andrea González-Ramírez, Sept. 24, 2021Resources:The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, Inc. (NIWRC) is a Native-led nonprofit organization dedicated to ending violence against Native women and children. The NIWRC provides national leadership in ending gender-based violence in tribal communities by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty.NIWRC develops resources and training opportunities to support Native advocates and survivors, and tribal governments in prioritizing the safety of Native women and their children and requiring accountability of offenders and communities. Native women, their children, and Tribal nations are entitled to:-Safety from violence within their homes and in their community-Justice both on and off tribal lands-Access to culturally grounded advocacy designed by and for Native women-Safe, affordable housing, legal services, childcare, economic security, and other basic resources provided in respectful ways-Culturally-based, trauma and resiliency-informed services-Access to indigenous healing ways**Something Was Wrong’s theme song was originally composed by Glad Rags and is covered this season by Kenna and the Kings.Support and listen to Kenna and the Kings on  Spotify, YouTube , and check out their albums! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to something was wrong early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psychy Daily, I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the cold-butter killers you read about in the news. Listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast Killer Psychy Daily in the Amazon Music exclusive podcast killer psyche daily in the Amazon music app. Download the app today. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences. Episodes can discuss topics that can be triggering such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence,

suicide, and murder. I am not a therapist or a doctor. If you're in need of support, please visit something was wrong.com slash resources. For a list of nonprofit organizations that can help, some names have been changed for anonymity purposes. Opinions expressed by the guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself or audio chuck. Resources and source material are linked in the episode notes. Thank you so much for listening. at all. You don't know anybody, till you've got to move from one. Hi, I'm Lucy. I met my husband Owen when I was 17. We went to high school together and we have been together

ever since. I met him about six months before we actually started dating through friends. Friend and I went to his house in the summer. It was late and there were a bunch of other kids hanging out in his backyard. Me and my friend were playing truth and dare with some of his friends. My dare was to kiss one of his friends and my friend's dare was to kiss him.

It was all pretty innocent, but eventually we decided that we were into each other and not our friends and decided to start dating from there. During the early stages of their relationship, Owen's mom Patricia was kind towards Lucy. She kind of integrated me into the family quickly. She would ask me to run errands with my husband or my boyfriend then Owen,

like picking up the other kids from activities or babysitting Owen's younger siblings. She would also send us out on dates and pay for things and really welcomed me into her house and made me feel comfortable. Things shifted when Patricia began making insulting and inappropriate jokes at Lucy's expense. For example, when she found out that I was one of the girls

who came over during that summer where we played truth or dare, she joked that I was a late night slut. At first I tried to laugh it off, but when it became a regular nickname, I asked her to stop. She said she was just joking, but she kept doing it. Eventually, I told Owen that it hurt my feelings. She apologized and said that she wouldn't do it again. I felt like it was really inappropriate for an adult woman to say that to a kid. I was only 17 at the time and she was calling me a slut for kissing somebody. A few months into our relationship, Patricia found out that I had my belly button pierced when I was talking to Owen's little sister. Owen's sister said that she wanted to get her belly button pierced to someday, and Patricia

interrupted her and told her that those were trashy and slutty right in front of me. His mom was very controlling of him and his image. He was very athletic in high school and was really good at any sport that he played, but he didn't really like to play sports, and Patricia paid him to play high school sports. I believe she did this because she wanted the positive attention from having a child who was popular in athletic. Before I knew Owen when I was 15, I was sexually assaulted by my then boyfriend. I was really full of shame, so I acted like nothing happened, and I felt like I couldn't get help because the offender's father was a police officer, and I thought no one would

believe me. I later found out that the same guy did similar things to other girls. So I do wish that I would have said something, but at the time it wasn't something I was ready to do. After my sexual assault, I started going to church and church activities. They taught us about waiting until marriage and those kind of messages further made me feel like what happened to me was my fault and that it was something I should be ashamed of. I'm so sorry.

I imagine that dealing with something like that was incredibly isolating and there's a lot of difficult emotions attached to that. Yeah, there were a lot of difficult emotions. There still are. I'm still learning about how to identify those emotions and how to survive that really. I'm still working every day. I have a therapist and a counselor.

And if anybody else out there is thinking that something bad happened to them like that, I would encourage them also to reach out and get help because it really does lift a burden off your shoulders. I told a school counselor about it because there are also rumors going around about this assault. She basically called the offender in and told him to stop spreading the rumors and that's the only thing that happened.

So I just carried that by myself for more than 10 years. Actually listening to this podcast, I kind of started to piece together what happened to me. I was able to actually put the word sexual assault on what happened to me, and then started going to counseling, and the counselor agreed, yes, that's sexual assault. But comes in different shapes and forms, and sometimes people don't recognize that if it's not this or that even though it's not rape it's still not okay to do things when people say no I'm so sorry you experienced that how old were you at the time? I was 15 when that happened and it was my then boyfriend

So I think that adds like another level of confusion to a 15-year-olds mind, not knowing and thinking that you can trust that person and you guys are attached and everyone around you sees that you're together. I started to notice more of a change in my relationship with Patricia as Owen and I got more serious in our relationship. During our early relationship, she was really involved with us. And I didn't realize how controlling she was being. She would send us to a certain place for dinner and pay for that because she wanted us to go to this one place.

Or she wanted us to go on a date in public somewhere. She would pay for that so that we would be in a specific spot. I thought she was just being really involved with her kids. One example is Patricia was a chaperone at my senior prom that I went to with Owen. Not only was she there, but she watched us the entire time we danced, which was pretty unnerving. You know, if you're a teenager and you're going to go dance with your boyfriend and then his mom is like in the corner watching

you, it was pretty weird. Our relationship kept going and our families got closer. Owen's younger sister actually got a job at the same place I worked and I would go camping with their family and be included in most of their plans. Lucy graduated a year before Owen and the two continued dating while she attended college and Owen finished high school and attended a trade school. After Owen graduated he was working for his dad as an apprentice. His dad was talking to him about a house that he had inspected and thought it would be a nice starter house for us. When we were walking the property with the realtor before putting in our offer, Patricia, Owen and the realtor were walking side by side and I was walking behind them. It was

like I wasn't even there. She really didn't want me involved in the home buying process and when we went in to put our offer, Patricia was really annoyed that I wanted my name on the paperwork too. I figured if I was going to be living there and paying for half of the mortgage and the expenses, why wouldn't I want my name legally tied to the property. It was a little concerning that she had such a problem with it. I was annoyed that she was so involved because my family wasn't involved at all, even though I was also buying this house, but she was there and inviting herself

and really wouldn't back off. I thought it was really weird that the realtor would be texting Patricia and not Owen or myself. So Owen called his mom and asked her to step back. He had the phone on speaker and she didn't realize that I was in the car with him and it was the first time I heard

what she really thought about me. She laid into him saying how ungrateful we were for all the help she'd been giving us and I was the one who was putting these ideas into his head about not wanting her to be a part of the process. I thought that was really problematic because she was controlling our first steps into adulthood. She absolutely inserted herself into the relationship in any way she could. If we were making plans or doing things she would always make it a point to know what we were doing or change our plans

anyway that she could regain control about what was going on between us. Was she like that towards her other children as well? Yes, Owen has a younger sister and a younger brother. Patricia was very much involved in their lives as well, but since they were a lot younger than us, it was easier to control them. So when she's on speaker and you finally are hearing how she feels about you, did things change a bit with the house buying experience?

Yes. Things changed a lot after that point when I heard what she was saying on the phone. And so I said, hey, I'm not trying to do anything weird. We'd want this process to be our process and I appreciate your help, but we would like to figure this out on our own. She said that she would and said that we were being ungrateful, but said she would back off and got cold to us. It started to get a little bit rocky.

That was probably the first chip in our relationship that I can pinpoint. It just started to really be like a tug of war of control. We were adults, we're getting our new home together, and yet she's still trying to play these controlling games. It was a lot to deal with, and a lot of the things that she would do were just absurd. Despite having asked Patricia to no longer involve herself in their home-buying process, Lucy learned through a new neighbor that their boundaries had once again been ignored.

Once we had bought it, we needed to renovate the house before we could move in for about six months. At this point, we finally met one of the neighbors, and he asked me if I used to be blonde. I was really confused because Patricia's blonde, but I have dark hair. He described somebody like Patricia, and he described her car and said he had seen her checking our mail since we bought the house.

She had never asked us if she could check the mail and she never gave us anything that she might have gotten out of the mailbox. To this day, I don't know if she ever got anything from the mailbox, but it's really controlling and concerning that she would do that. I would never check somebody else's mail and in fact it's a crime unless you're given permission to do so. A few months after we moved into our house together, Owen's parents Patricia and Steve and

their two friends drive up in a side-by-side, we hadn't invited them and they hadn't called us. We were a little bit surprised to see them. Patricia had been drinking and she was showing her friends who we didn't know around our property. When she got to the front door, I physically put myself in the doorway so she couldn't enter. She pushed past me and Patricia and her friend came in. She said she needed to use the bathroom. She didn't consider how intrusive

it was for me or for Owen when she just showed up unannounced and wanted to show complete strangers around our house that we were living in. I hate a pop-in, don't show up at my house, unannounced. Right. Especially now that I have kids. I'm like, I need a solid 12 hours to clean. It's so odd to me. I know different generations or different and different cultures might be different. It's not for me.

What's a side by side, by the way? That's really funny. I didn't even think that there might be like a culture else to disconnect with a side by side. It's kind of like a golf cart, but more like a four-wheeler. Okay. Okay. And they're really expensive.

They actually have two of them and they're like $20,000 apiece. After the awkward pop-in incident, things only got worse between Lucy and Patricia. Owen's cousin proposed to his girlfriend and they were going to be married. Patricia completely took control of their wedding. She renovated her backyard to host the wedding at their house and pretty much hosted every party leading up to it. Around the same time, Owen's little sister had been making rude comments to me, and getting jealous of the time I was spending with Owen.

She was around 16 at the time, and he was 19. I grew up with all brothers, so I didn't really know how to handle conflict with the little sister figure. I would try to avoid her. During the wedding, I went to Owen's room to get something that his mom asked me to get, and his little sister and her friend followed me in the room and wouldn't let me out. What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine times or fell in love with a vampire or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later, paralyzed? What would you do?

I'm Whit Missaldine, the creator of this is actually happening, a podcast from Wondry that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events, told by the people who lived them. From a young man that dunes his entire future with one choice, to a woman who survived a notorious serial killer, you'll hear their first-person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances. Each episode is an exploration of the human spirit and personal discovery. These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually happening. Follow this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen She was saying really nasty things, calling me a slut and telling me I shouldn't be around,

and I just wanted to leave, but her friend and her were standing in front of the door. I finally made my way out of the room and ran downstairs to find Owen. I was really upset by what was going on. His sister followed me and was repeating the same things in front of the wedding guests and in front of Patricia. Instead of figuring out what was going on, Patricia kicked me out of the house in front of all the guests. I felt really betrayed from that point forward in our relationship. I was really confused and shocked by it because I wasn't expecting to have a conflict with anybody, even though I was 19 at the time you expect the adults in your life to be the ones within reason

and not do things irrational or kick people out. I would definitely say that Patricia was influencing the cousin's wife and also his sister. I've reconnected with both of them since then and they both told me that Patricia would put things in their head or talk trash about me. These girls were also really young and impressionable and they would go along with it. Why would they have reason to think something different when this grown woman is telling

them these things? It definitely seems like Patricia is someone who uses triangulation a lot, using other people to hurt you, if she can, using other people to hurt you, if she can't be the one to hurt you. That has absolutely come up and counseling before. She absolutely uses triangulation as a way to isolate or to control situations. She definitely tries to play every angle

that she can to control whatever situation she wants to control. After getting settled in their new home, Lucy and Owen got engaged. We began planning our wedding 13 months before our actual wedding date. My parents didn't have a lot of money, so we were going to pay for a lot of the wedding ourselves. I was excited to plan my wedding. I even thought about being an events planner

when I was younger, so planning my own wedding was something I was really, really excited about. Patricia wanted to be involved with a lot of things, but at that point, we didn't have a great relationship, and I saw how she took over Owen's cousin's wedding, and I didn't want her to do that to mine. About nine months from our actual wedding date, we asked my parents and Owen's parents to make us a list of who they'd like to invite to the wedding. I told them that we would invite immediate family. I also asked them to put their list in order of importance because we weren't sure how many people we could afford to invite yet. My mom wanted me to invite three people and my dad only had one person. Patricia handed me a three-page list of all the people she wanted at our wedding. The people on Patricia's list were friends of the family, like Patricia's friends and her cousins,

not Owen's cousins, Patricia's cousins. Most of these people on the list were people that Owen didn't know or had only met once in his life. She told me that some of the people might not even show up, but they would still send presents. I was a little shocked that she used gifts as a reason for inviting people. I told her I wasn't getting married for the gifts. She continued to insist that we invite everybody on the list and gave me the reason that weddings are a good time for families to get together.

And I told her that maybe she should have a family reunion. Instead, she really felt offended that she couldn't just control who would be there. It was a little bit scary to try to stand up to her at times. The closer it got to the wedding, the more Patricia tried to be involved. She contacted my maid of honor and asked to take over the responsibility of the bridal shower and did so. So that was one more way of Patricia gaining control about what was happening.

Patricia also hosted the rehearsal dinner at her house the night before the wedding. I was surprised to find that she had invited a bunch of her friends. The guest list I had made was just family. It would be the first time for our families to meet each other before the wedding for some of our extended family. I noticed some of my family that I was expecting to see there didn't make it even though I knew they were in town. I found out later that Patricia had purposely not invited them. In fact, she hadn't invited any of my family. Some of my family showed up because they had talked to me, but Patricia just didn't send out invites to any of my side of the guest list.

I really think that she did this out of spite and to be vengeful and to hurt me the best way that she could, which was to not have my family be involved in the wedding. I'm so sorry, that's so hurtful. Did you ever talk about it later? We never talked about it, and at this point, our relationship was already in the gutter. This is so hurtful and weird, and so I let it go because the day had already passed, and the next day was the wedding. On the actual day of our wedding, it was mostly a blur, probably like most people's weddings.

I found out later that Patricia had not shown up to help Owen get in his tux. It was on the timetable that I had passed out and also most mothers would want to be involved with their son getting ready for their wedding day. I've brought it up to her before in the safety of a counseling session, and she said that she was just mad because she didn't get to invite who she wanted. So that was her way of punishing me, but really it was punishing her son

because he's the one that missed out on having that special moment and special connection with his mother before our wedding ceremony. After the ceremony, we started to take pictures in the church. Stephen Patricia showed up but didn't get the rest of their family so Owen had no pictures on his wedding day with his side of the family. No pictures with his aunts, uncles, cousins, or even grandparents, because Patricia decided not to help round up the family members. At the reception, a lady I've never met before came up to me and introduced herself. She said, I'm one of Patricia's cousins, you know, the one that you didn't invite.

I was so shocked that somebody would have the audacity to be so nasty to somebody on their wedding day. I was also appalled that Patricia would go behind our backs and invite somebody, even though we had made it clear who was on the guest list and who was not. I believe she did this again out of vengeance and to have a little dig at us. And again, I believe that she used triangulation and was telling this cousin whatever she wanted to about me and this cousin must have believed it enough to come up to me and say something so rude on my wedding day. During Owen's mother Sundance, Patricia was super emotional. She was bawling and holding him the entire time

It was really over the top and a lot of people commented on how Dramatic it was it almost seemed like she was seeking a lot more attention than What was due for the time? It seemed like there was a theme that Patricia would almost overact in order to get attention on herself and a lot of times it was in inappropriate times to do so. I'd also like to note that the entire time during our whole wedding day and night, Patricia did not speak to me once. She never said congratulations, she never came up and gave me a hug.

She never shook my hand or even looked at me. It was really strange because when you picture your wedding day as a small person, you think of how happy it would be. And even before we got married, I never imagined that she would be so spiteful and so hurt over a guest list that she would not even extend a congratulations to me. In the pictures of our ceremony while everyone was smiling, the photographer captured Patricia visibly frowning in the pews. And I thought that was really telling to see where her mind was because everybody, all the other guests were smiling and clapping and her face just looks like she was in pain.

When Lucy and Owen returned from their honeymoon, they realized that their marriage certificate had gone missing. Somehow Patricia had gotten a hold of it. We're not sure how. When we asked her where she put it, she said she took it back to the church because the officiant hadn't signed it and the church said they didn't have it.

I'm not sure what happened, but eventually it got back to us. I 100% feel like she was actively trying to make my life harder than it needed to be. If I wasn't doing exactly what she wanted, I was going to be punished for that. Passive aggressive things to make our lives harder. After the wedding, it was a little bit of a awkward transition. I'm sure that we were invited over to dinner and I went over there and there's small talk and so we just left it at that

and I tried to not rock the boat because this is now my mother-in-law and I really just want to keep the piece as much as possible. During this time Owen's cousin who started working for Patricia and Steve a few years before became the new favorite at their work. Patricia would favor his wife over me, which was not surprising, but they would treat Owen's cousin, their nephew, and his wife more like a son and daughter than they would treat us. They would take them on special trips or buy them things, and I really

feel like it was because Owen's cousin would allow them to control them, and they didn't mind it as long as they were getting motorcycles or trips or concert tickets in exchange. I was already past the point of seeing the love bombing and knowing that that's not what I wanted and I would rather be in control of my life than to have material things. Steve and Patricia also gave Owen's cousin special treatment at work even though he was less experienced than Owen. They offered him special opportunities to go to training and to get certified in special areas. I thought that was a dig at Owen because they weren't giving him

opportunities and I feel like it was to get back at me. I started to withdraw from family functions because I didn't like how controlling Patricia is. Owen would still go to family functions without me, which was fine and I encouraged it because I wanted him to still have a relationship with his parents. I never wanted to be the person to step in between him or to make him choose myself or his parents. I always wanted him to be able to have a relationship with everybody. Patricia started to talk to Owen about our family issues while at work.

This was really hard on Owen because she would do this at work so I wouldn't be there to defend myself or to say this wasn't right. If he ever would stick up for me or tell her that something she was saying wasn't true, she would shorten his hours or give him undesirable jobs as punishment and shortening his work hours would mean getting paid less for the week. Shortly after we got married Owen had an accident at work. He was hurt but not hurt bad

enough to go to the hospital, but I realized that Patricia hadn't been giving Owen workers confidence, which is illegal. Owen tried to talk to her about it but couldn't get anywhere. I talked to her and she told me to butt out of their family business, but eventually agreed when I sent her a copy of the law. I thought it was incredibly concerning that she would rather be right than to protect her son if he got her at work. Lucy would often hear from the other employees that Patricia would tell anyone who would listen about how much she did not like her. She became concerned when she also

learned that her in-laws were breaking more labor laws. During busy times when Steve and Patricia's employees would work overtime, Patricia would put anything they worked over 40 hours in a vacation bank for them to use for time-off during their slow months. Their employees found out that Patricia was putting the bank time in as straight time instead of the time in a half. If an employee would break something at work, they would have to pay for it out of their own pocket, even though it should have been coming out of the business insurance. Again, the roles just did not seem to apply to Patricia. If an employee messed up on a job, Steve would require them to go to the job and fix it on their own time, quote unquote, meaning he would ask them to work for free to go fix the job.

Owen had asked Patricia if she would consider offering the employees the ability to buy vision or dental insurance. She had said that was a waste of money because she's never had a problem paying for those kinds of services. It should be noted that Patricia came from a very wealthy family that supported her and she wouldn't have ever had to pay for any of that kind of thing on her own. So it was again her inability to see other people's points of view or to be caring about other people. Customers would leave reviews about how Patricia is ignorant and overbearing and Patricia would always deny these people were real customers. She would reply to their reviews and flat out say that she doesn't

know who they are. When I got pregnant around 2017, we told everybody that we were expecting and Steve and Patricia were being very nice and supportive. I think that everybody wanted our relationship to just get back to being okay even though it hadn't been okay for about six years at this point. Right before our gender reveal Owen and I went to the doctor to find out the sex of the baby. Patricia was very insistent on finding out the baby's sex first and having us be surprised with everybody else at the party. We didn't want that. We found out at the ultrasound and wanted to surprise our guests. Patricia was really annoyed with us that she didn't get the

special privilege of finding out first. During the gender reveal party, the only thing Patricia said to me was, you better send me the picture of the ultrasound, which I thought was weird because we were at this party celebrating about halfway into the pregnancy and I thought that she would have more things to say than just demanding pictures. As Lucy's due date grew closer, Patricia asked if she could be in the delivery room. As you can imagine, under no circumstances what I want that at all, I had not gotten along with Patricia for about six years, and this was my first baby, and I made it very clear that Owen and I would be the only ones in the delivery room. She continued to ask me the rest of my pregnancy, and after we told them I was in labor, she was still asking.

She really couldn't stand the fact that she would have to wait like everyone else in the waiting room to meet the baby. In her mind, she felt like she was more important and should be the first person to meet the baby, besides myself and Owen. Owen, at work, was now their longest working employee, but they refused to let him move up in the company. They hired a foreman to bid and manage jobs, and Owen warned them that the guy they hired was doing a terrible job, but they wouldn't listen to him. Owen was sent to complete a job, and when his parents realized that they would be losing money on this project, they asked Owen and another employee to, quote unquote, donate their time, which again would mean work

for free. And this was especially upsetting to me. They had done this in the past, but they actually did this one week before I was due to have my baby. It just kind of goes to show how they don't think of others when they do that kind of thing. Steve and Patricia would ask their employees to go without pay when they would be losing money on a project. That was kind of standard practice for them. But it should be noted that Steve and Patricia

would have multiple projects going on at once, generating them income. They were not hurting for money. So I really think it goes to show how they would exploit their employees to save them a couple of dimes, even though their employees would be going for a week without their regular pay. A few days after Lucy gave birth Patricia called and asked if she could come over. I was exhausted and I was determined to breastfeed so I was only sleeping for about one to two hours

at a time which really messes with you. We would invite people over in groups to shorten the length of visiting hours. We would have five people come over at once to see the baby for an hour or two, and then they would all leave at once so that it wasn't people trickling in all day. And I started noticing in these groups, Patricia would kind of hog the baby. She would even do this with her own family and my family, and she would even do this with her own family and my family and she would even do this with her own mom. She could never understand that she was not the center of attention, especially with her elderly mother. She wasn't giving her mother and her great grandson the opportunity to have that bonding time because she wanted bonding time. I think that speaks volumes about how

toxic and controlling she is. When their baby was about 10 days old, Patricia repeatedly called Owen asking if she could come over to their house to remove a tree stump from their front yard. We were confused why she would want to do that at that time, and we told her no multiple times. She kept persisting and eventually Owen agreed, and she and an employee came over to get the stump out. I had a doctor's appointment with the babies, so when I got home, I immediately went inside to feed him.

Patricia invited herself inside and sat next to me on the couch. My boo was out and my kid was eating, so she walked around my house and made some phone calls in my living room and then eventually slammed the door and left. I thought that was really strange behavior that she would insist on coming over to somebody's house. And I feel like she used the stump removal as an excuse to come over. And then when I was clearly feeding the baby, she was annoyed that I wouldn't stop trying to nurse the baby so that she could hold him.

And she stormed out. It just seemed totally irrational to me that you would expect a 10-day old baby to have to wait to eat so that you could hold him. At about 16 days old, we went over to Patricia and Steve's house and her sister was there. The baby was still not sleeping that great. The baby was asleep in his car seat. I decided to let him sleep and had him in his seat and I was sitting next to him so I could make sure that he was okay. When Patricia asked me to take him out and I said no, he was sleeping.

She yelled, this is fucking bullshit and stormed out of her house. She was just really upset that I would not wake up a baby. And again to me, this is irrational that a grown woman felt that her need of holding a baby was more important than that two-week-old baby taking an app. After that incident, she had left me a voicemail saying that I needed to be nicer to her and I needed to really make more of an effort to send her pictures of the baby and to have her over. And again, I don't even think the baby was three weeks old at this time. I decided to reply with a text and I explained my side of the story how I really felt like

it was important that I let my baby sleep if he's sleeping and not wake him up when people want to hold him. And she replied with an email to me. Patricia's letter said, I'm so sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable the day I came over, the day we were working on the stump removal. I was just hoping to see the baby. He's so adorable and we're so happy for you and Owen. I sat down trying to make small talk and could see he was sleeping in your arms. You say he was nursing but as a mom of three myself, I could see he was passed out sleeping. Your body language and very few words indicated to

me, you were not welcome here. So I left hurt and upset with how rude you are to me. All you would have to say to me is, I'm trying to sleep or now is not a good moment for us to visit, and I would have left with an apology for interrupting you. I don't have to hold him, I just wanted to see him. I'm so sorry if my words to Owen were upsetting to you. I wanted him to know how I feel, brokenhearted that our son's wife is always so uninviting and unwelcoming towards us. You seem to forget about your actions towards us. Owen invited us to dinner and you stayed in your room the entire time. We were always and we're always just supposed to forgive and forget. Then when you are unfriendly again we're supposed to just understand that's how you are. It's not okay for me to keep pretending that all is okay. I'm asking for common courtesy when we see each other. Before you feel uncomfortable around me,

pause for a moment and think about the baby shower I helped host for you. Could you try to hold on to the good things I do and try to build a positive relationship? Owen's cousin's wedding prior to the event. If you and Owen would have communicated to us about not passing the baby around, that would have been a positive situation

and you could have had Owen's family support your decision. As far as someone saying I was upset about it, you should only listen to the words from my mouth and not other speculation. I already knew that if you didn't allow me to hold him in your home, surely you wouldn't allow anyone to hold him in a large group of people. I did not have that expectation. The wedding was an uncomfortable situation for me because of our other nephew being there. By the way, that other cousin was the one that left for the other business.

Anyways, Owen has been good to send us two pictures of your son. It's so strange to me that we've only seen him a couple times and foreign to me that you both wouldn't share at least more photos texted to us. It's so sad to me. Just remember in the future, your son will treat you the same way he is taught to treat his parents. At our house the other night, I came out to greet you guys and got an immediate cold shoulder from you. Again, I'm so sorry for causing you any anxiety about our dog getting out. I knew she was headed straight for your dog so I didn't sorry for causing you any anxiety about our dog getting out. I knew she was headed straight for your dog so I didn't think there would be any problem.

I was so excited just to get to see your son and again was let down by your actions towards me. It was conveyed by your body language that you didn't want anyone to hold him. It's very sad that you don't allow us to see him or hold him. Forgive us for being excited to see him. I will never give you advice about how to raise your child. I was simply stating the fact that when I had babies, I didn't mind if they were awake during the day,

as I felt it improved them going to bed at night so I could sleep. I'm working on trying to understand why you aren't excited to share the joy of this new baby with your husband's parents. I completely understand you're a new mom and protective of the baby. It feels like an unconscious way to distance Owen's family from you. I'm very confident you'll be a good mother and I know Owen will be a great father and I understand you are going to do things for your son's best interest. I appreciate you reaching out with your text, it helps me understand your perception. It's foreign to me that you don't give us the basic courtesy in our interaction by trying to be pleasant towards us.

Your entire text explanation of your side of things, not once, did you ever accept any responsibility for your actions towards me. Just an explanation of how you perceive each of those interactions. I'm not able to walk on eggshells around you, and I'm tired of being the one that apologizes for our negative interactions. You need to be accountable for your behavior towards me. It feels like you have some sort of subconscious resentment towards me. I apologize to you if I've ever hurt or offended you in any way. I will never try to tell you how to raise your child. I will never but into your relationship with Owen.

You are fortunate to have Owen, who loves you. He's a great and loving supportive husband. You are also fortunate to have Steve and I as your in-laws. We are good people and we are asking you to be polite to us. That is all I'm asking for. I refuse to beg to see your son. You and Owen are responsible for the relationship you promote with your children to have with their grandparents.

We are right here waiting to be included in the love and joy. It makes me want to vomit. It was really hard reading that and I drafted so many emails wanting to freak out and say exactly what was on my mind. But when you read something like that, you know that the person that wrote that is just not logical and is not going to listen to any sort of reason. And so I just left it. I never responded. I just pretended like I never even saw it. When Owen read that letter, he immediately called his mom and kind of put it out all on the table and said, our relationship is about to go downhill if you keep doing what you're doing. You need to stop what you're doing

and change your behaviors towards myself and my wife, or this is not going to get any better. She just continued her same old ways. We actually invited Steven Patricia to my dad's birthday at my dad's house, and while we were there, there happened to be a lactation consultant there. That was a family friend. This lactation consultant was sitting on the couch with me while I was nursing the baby Patricia came in and said oh, can I steal the baby for a minute the lactation consultant before I could even say anything said no

This is really important you can wait that Set Patricia off she stormed out of that party as well in her typical fashion of being really dramatic and very emotional and almost making a show for people to know that she was upset. Everything is above and beyond. If she wants to show that she's happy and emotional, then she will go over the top in that way, like when she was crying and holding her son during their mother's son dance, or if she is mad because she can't hold the baby while he's sleeping, then she completely yells and storms out of her own house, and it just never really quite matches up with the situation. Before their child was born, Lucy and Owen decided that they

didn't want to share photos of their child online, and Lucy and Owen decided that they didn't want to share photos of their child online and asked that their family members respect this. When my son was about three months old, Owen sent a picture of our son to Patricia in his Halloween costume. About a week later we were visiting some friends and my friend mentioned how cute our kid looked in his costume. I was really confused about this because I didn't think that I had centered that picture.

When I asked her what she was talking about, she said she saw it on Patricia's Instagram page. I didn't have Patricia on social media, so I asked my friend to see her phone. The post that Patricia had was a picture of my son, and she had some hashtags that conveyed that she knew she was not supposed to be posting that picture, and that she was not sorry for posting the picture. When I saw this, my heart sank, because we were not posting pictures for our son to give

him some kind of respect. And even if she doesn't understand why we were not posting pictures of him, it was still set in stone that we had told her this is not okay. It felt like such a big stab in the back and then to also have the added insult of the hashtags that basically her saying that she knew she wasn't allowed to do that and she doesn't care she's gonna do what she wanted. It was totally inappropriate for her and it was so volatile and toxic. Owen immediately called his mother and called her out and said, what are you doing? She said, oh, sorry, I'll take it down right now. And she did. I was so betrayed

by that. I knew she didn't like me, but I never thought that she would go to the lengths to hurt my child in this way. About a week later Owen's dad Steve called Lucy and asked if he and Patricia could come over to see the baby. I told Steve that I needed Patricia to apologize to me and that we would need to go to counseling before I would feel comfortable around her. Patricia texted me, she basically said, I apologize to your husband, hope you can go to over this. About a week after

that, Steve showed up at my house, unannounced, and asked if there was any hope left. He was being a little bit dramatic and kept asking if there's anything that they can do to make this right. He even tried to manipulate me and bring in the aspects of my religion and said, well, what would Jesus do? And I think you need to be more Christ-like and forgive Patricia. This was absolutely a way to manipulate me. And it felt like spiritual abuse using my beliefs to try to manipulate the situation to get what they want.

It was so toxic and disgusting. I just stood my ground and said, I will see you in counseling if you are willing to go. After my conversation with Steve, he eventually accepted that we would need to go to counseling. The beginning of November in 2018, I had lost a step-brother to suicide and I was going through a lot of emotions. I think maybe a week later, Steve and Patricia picked a counselor. At our first meeting, it was not going well. Patricia was doing her usual thing where she's very dramatic and her emotions were really

big and all of her actions were over the top. Anytime I would bring something up that I had a problem with and be really clear about it and say, I can't do this or this really offends me when you do that or you broke this boundary, Patricia would not be able to accept any responsibility. She would immediately try to flip it back over to me. Thankfully, there was a counselor there.

The counselor would turn it back and say, no, you need to recognize that this is not an okay behavior. Patricia actually stormed out, which is her typical thing. I don't know if she knows how to just walk out of somewhere. She always storms out of places. The next session went about just as bad. I had to ask her to quit talking over me when I would try to get my points across and again the counselor would also call her out and try to get her to focus

and listen to what I was saying. She didn't storm out of that one, but she made it clear that she would not be going to counseling again. Before Christmas that year, Lucy and Owen let his parents know that they would spend Christmas Eve with them and Christmas Day with her side of the family. We also invited them to Christmas Day at my dad's house. We invited the rest of the family as well.

I was still feeling really uncomfortable around Patricia because we hadn't made any progress in counseling. Patricia yelled at me on the phone when we told her that we would not be coming on Christmas Day and said that we needed to respect our elders and show up at their house and that it was our responsibility as the parents of the baby

that we take the baby to everybody's house that wants to see him. I thought that was really irrational because if you have a baby, you know that it is a nightmare trying to go more than one place, let alone maybe like five places at once. We stuck to it and said no we will be there for Christmas Eve you're welcome to join us on Christmas Day. She was upset and hung up and this was the day before Christmas Eve. We got to see them the

next day on Christmas Eve. While we were at Steve's family's house, Patricia was acting very possessive of the baby. She wouldn't let other family members hold him, and Steve's family was there from out of town, and Patricia wouldn't allow them to have any time with the baby, which made my skin crawl as a parent when this person that keeps crossing your boundaries and you have bad blood with, and then you see them being possessive of your child. It's hard to explain but it's skin crawling. It makes you want to vomit.

When we were leaving the Christmas Eve party, Steve asked us if we would see them the next day. We reiterated that they were invited to my family's house, but we wouldn't be going to their house. Patricia started screaming at me in the driveway. She was screaming that I was irrational and rude and out to ruin her life. It was very dramatic. Nobody else yelled. Everybody else stayed really calm. And in fact, I told her that I think we needed to continue counseling. And she yelled at me that I was the only one who needed counseling because I'm the only one with a problem. We got in the car, and she stood up my window while she screamed at me and we just drove away.

A few years later, when we would talk about this in different counseling sessions, she would claim not to remember this entire incident. I think that's very clever and it's manipulative that she would not remember this whole exchange. At this point, Steve and Patricia refused to go to counseling any further with us. I'm so incredibly sorry about the loss of your stepbrother and it seems like they didn't respect where you were coming from and the grief you were also experiencing simultaneously while also dealing with this bullshit behavior. Right. It was a lot to handle having a newborn baby, losing a family member, and then dealing with just the absurdity of my in-laws. That was a really hard time for me

just trying to navigate. We only saw them about once a month, and it was always very awkward and very tense. I did not feel comfortable around them at all. Patricia never apologized for screaming at me or for the things that she said. It was just always really hard to go and visit them. As my son got older, I would start having panic attacks and anxiety when we would have to go to visit them, I would stay up for nights before thinking about it or having nightmares. And I started drinking to cope with my anxiety. It started off with having a cocktail before we would leave to go see them. And then it escalated to having like three or four cocktails before I would leave to go see them. Obviously Owen was always driving during this but I felt like I

needed a buzz to relax enough to even be around her. After doing this a few times and waking up with nasty hangovers, I decided that I did not want to have to rely on alcohol to get me through a visit with my mother-in-law. Why am I putting myself through this because she can't be a nice person? I decided that I wouldn't be ruining my life because she makes me uncomfortable. When we announced our next pregnancy, Patricia didn't even acknowledge me. Patricia told Owen, congratulations. Steve said congratulations to me. Patricia acted like I wasn't even in the room. So that's about how great our relationship was going. In the middle of my pregnancy with my second child, COVID hit the world. We live in an area that is not very cautious about COVID, but with me being pregnant and everything

that was out there, we were super cautious about it. We would only see people wearing masks and social distancing and outside visits. However, Steve and Patricia didn't seem concerned at all with COVID. When I was about six months pregnant, we had a dinner with Steve and Patricia. You had to serve your food inside and then go sit outside. You had to serve your food inside and then go sit outside. I was talking to Steve and I noticed that he sounded sick and I asked him if he was sick and he said he was just tired. Later that week we found out all but three of their employees were positive for COVID and Steve and Patricia refused to get tested even though they had the symptoms first. About 15 of their employees and family members had COVID,

and I believe they chose to keep being around others even though they were sick and they would not wear masks and they refused to get tested. Patricia never got tested, and I believe she did this because she's not capable of taking responsibility of her actions. If she were to get tested and show that she was positive, then she would have known that she was responsible for giving people COVID. However, if she did not test, then nobody would know for sure if she was the one spreading around COVID.

After they had COVID, they felt that they didn't need to wear masks around us. Even after we explained to them, it was unknown how long their immunity would last and if they could still spread the virus or if they could even get it again. And they did not feel the need to be cautious around us, even though I was about seven months pregnant at this time. Around the 4th of July, they asked if they could drop off a present for our older son, and we told them no because we needed to let it sit for a few days and disinfect it because we were still being cautious. They dropped it off on our front porch anyways and it seemed like they would never take no for an answer. Patricia would still

invite herself over unannounced. It was really frustrating to deal with that and I felt disrespected and I felt like they did not care about my family's health, especially me being pregnant. We didn't know at the time how or if COVID could affect a pregnancy and it felt completely problematic that they would not respect that. After our second son was born, we were still really concerned about COVID and having a newborn. So we waited until he was a week old and then invited Stephen Patricia over for a social distance visit outside with masks on. When Stephen Patricia showed up, they immediately walked up without masks and violated those boundaries

that I had put in place before we invited them over. They also brought a present for our son, which we had previously asked them not to do so that we could disinfect it first. This is the first time they're meeting their second grandson and they are violating all these boundaries that we had already put in place. And again, new mom with a tiny baby plus a virus. My emotions

were on high. I told Patricia that she needed to back up and she got mad and left within five minutes into the visit. She did the storming off as per usual. I felt like I was standing my ground, but I knew that the situation was not going to be good. I sent her a text later to apologize for hurting her feelings, but remained vigilant that those boundaries were crossed and that that was not okay. And she didn't respond. A week later, when Owen returned to work at his parents' business, his mom let him know that she didn't

have any work for him. I was a stay at home mom, so we fully rely on Owen's income. Patricia was usually short on work coincidentally the same time she would be mad at me or wasn't getting her way with Owen. I really believe that she would not give him work as a way to punish us if she felt slided by something that we were doing. That was really hurtful because it's not just myself and Owen. Now we have these two babies that are also relying on Owen's income and she's punishing us financially by not giving Owen any work.

punishing us financially by not giving O in any work. Around 2021 I started doing personal counseling and I really got to see how volatile my relationship with Patricia was. For a long time I thought that it was my fault that Patricia didn't like me or that we weren't getting along. My counselor helped me realize that what was going on was not my fault. Up until then I had carried a lot of guilt thinking I was a bad person for everything that had happened. And Steve and Patricia continued to say that they weren't real grandparents because they

don't get to babysit the kids or don't get to be alone with them a lot. Steve has also told us that he tells everybody that he comes into contact with that they don't get to see their grandkids. I think that he does that as a way to punish us and make us look bad in the eyes of others and unfortunately they put that kind of thing on social media. The whole world is seeing that I've had mutual friends come back to me and ask me what's going on and I'm a very private person so for them to put things out there I thought it was very immature and very self-serving. We would invite Stephen Patricia to different things over the years, but if it wasn't on their terms, they would say no and tell us that we had to do what they wanted.

For example, we were going to take the kids' trick-or-treating and go to a COVID safe event, and they said no, that they wouldn't be going to that but we needed to take the kids to their house. Almost every time we would invite them to do something in an effort to keep them involved, they would find an excuse not to do what we had invited them to do and would try to change the plans. And I really believe that it's because Patricia needed to exercise some form of control over what was going on with us.

Finally Owen told them that they needed to go to counseling with us or that was really going to be the end. That spring Owen's parents agreed to go back to family counseling with them. We've started to improve a little bit, but we're still not there. Whenever there's conflict or disagreement, Patricia falls into her old ways, and she'll do or say very malicious things to put me down if she's mad.

One example is she told me that I grew up in a dysfunctional household because my parents were divorced and I had half siblings and step-others. And again, this is a 50-55 year old woman saying these things because she's not getting her way. And it's absurd to me that somebody could be like that. In counseling, she has blamed me for everything that's wrong in her life, and she has

repeatedly told me that she can't get past the hate she has for me and says that I ruined her perfect family. My counselor shared with me about historic personality disorder because she felt like if I was able to put a name on maybe what was going on, I might be able to do more research into how to handle somebody with behaviors that coincide with that disorder. When I looked into it, I was really surprised at how many similarities there were between somebody with HPD and my mother-in-law, it has been helpful because I can understand a little bit of what she's doing. What inspired you to share this story? As a native woman, we are more likely to be sexually assaulted and abused throughout our lifetimes. With my sexual assault, I believe that I was being also abused by my mother-in-law

in similar ways, where I would continue to say no and no and no, until my boundaries were crossed, until I gave up. I think it's so important to realize that there are people out there that start out with a greater disadvantage because of the color of their skin. I think that it's important to recognize that we need to do something about our native mothers and daughters and sisters that are going missing. More than 84 percent of us will experience violence in our lifetimes and more than half of us will experience violence in our lifetimes, and more than half of us will experience sexual violence in our lifetimes. Murder rates for Indigenous women are 10 times higher than the national average, even though we only make up 2% of the population.

These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg because we actually don't know how many Indigenous women can go missing because there's no national database for it. Not only are the atrocities against Indigenous women disproportionately high, there's next to no justice for them. 96% of perpetrators against Native women are non-Native men and often face no repercussions for their actions. Their stories are not covered in the media and only about 18% actually make it into state or local news, whereas a white victim would have a 51% chance of having their story shared.

I'd like to use my opportunity in this platform to share the disparities and advocate for change. There can be no change if we aren't aware as a society. Our indigenous women, girls and two-spirit deserve to live in a safe environment with justice for wrongdoings just as much as anyone else. Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you. My inspiration for sharing my story was because I feel like it is common for people to have issues with their mother-in-laws

and a lot of times it can be abusive and it's brushed off as normal, even turned around to blame the daughter-in-laws for the abuse received. There's a lot of pressure from family members to keep peace and that makes a perfect recipe for the continuance of abuse. I also wanted to share my story because I realized through this podcast that I'm a survivor of sexual assault from my teenage years. Specifically, Kelly from season five story helped me understand this. I always knew what happened to me wasn't right,

but it wasn't until I heard her story that I was able to connect the dots and put a name on what happened. So I'm so thankful that she shared her experience. I'd like to thank you for just giving me the platform to share my story and it's been amazing to work with you. I'd also like to thank all of the survivors who have shared their stories before me. My hope is that I can help somebody heal in the way that Kelly did for me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to share your story. Thank you Tiffany, it's been a pleasure. The National Indigenous Women's Resource Center

is a native-led non-profit organization dedicated to ending violence against native women and children. They provide national leadership in ending gender-based violence in tribal communities by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty. NIWRC develops resources and training opportunities to support native advocates and survivors and tribal governments in prioritizing the safety of native women and children and requiring accountability of offenders and communities. Native women, their children and tribal nations are entitled to, safety from violence within their homes and in their community, justice, both on and

off tribal lands, access to culturally grounded advocacy designed by and for Native women, safe, affordable housing, legal services, care, economic security, and other basic resources provided in respectful ways. Culturally based trauma and resiliency informed services and access to indigenous healing ways. Visit nywrc.org for more information. Thank you again so much to each survivor who shared their story this season. Next week, we're jumping right into season 12, which is a serialized six-part story. When Kenzie first met Joe, she thought he was funny, successful, and charming. Despite many strange circumstances in Joe's personal life, it was the best relationship

Kenzie had ever had. But when her loved ones began to suspect Joe wasn't at all who he said he was, they came together to uncover his secrets and save their friend just in the nick of time. Be on the lookout for the season 12 trailer and the first episode of the series starting next Thursday March 31st. As always, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe friends. You're thinking of me, you don't know me well At all, you're thinking of me, you don't know me well You're thinking of me, you don't know me well at all You're thinking of me, you don't know me well at all I take my donut every day

I call my mother, she say Oh yeah My mother's she say They call me up on the telephone No, never on I hang up but I know it's not their fault Because they think they know me They don't know me At all I don't know me, I don't know me, I don't know Something was wrong is an audio chuck production Created and hosted by Tiffany Rees

Our theme song was originally composed by Gladracks Covered this season by Kenna and the Kings. You're thinking of me, you don't know me, yeah At all, you're thinking of me, you don't know me, yeah You're thinking of me, you don't know me well You're thinking of me, you don't know me well You're thinking of me, you don't know me well You're thinking of me, you don't know me well You don't know anybody, you don't know anybody

You talk to someone So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve? Hey, Prime members, you can listen to something was wrong early and ad-free on Amazon music. Download the app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts.

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