Something Was Wrong - S19 E6: [Sarah] The Color Left His Eyes

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

*Content Warning: disordered eating, anorexia, childhood neglect, substance use disorder, emotional and physical violence, sexual coercion, sexual abuse, road rage, attempted sexual assault, verbal abuse, road rage, vehicular violence. *Sources: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3): https://www.ic3.gov/ SWW S19 Artwork by the amazing Sara Stewart: Instagram.com/greaterthanokay*Resources: Stalking Prevention, Awareness, Statistics & Resource Center (SPARC): https://www.stalkingawareness.org/ Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources Something Was Wrong: somethingwaswrong.com Tiffany Reese: tiffanyreese.me Something Was Wrong on IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcastSWW on TikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast Tiffany Reese on IG: instagram.com/lookiebooSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Many put their hope in Dr. Serhat. His company was worth half a billion dollars. His research promised groundbreaking treatments for HIV and cancer. But the brilliant doctor was hiding a secret. You can listen to Dr. Death Bad Magic ad free by subscribing to Wondri Plus in the Wondri app or on Apple podcasts.

Wondri's new podcast, Blame It on the Fame, dives into one of pop music's greatest controversies. Milly Vanilly set the world on fire. But when their adoring fans learned about the infamous lip-syncing, their downfall was swift and brutal. Listen to Blame It on the Fame, Milly Vanilly, on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences, as it discusses topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, rape, and murder.

Content warnings for each episode and confidential resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes. Some survivor names have been changed for anonymity purposes. Pseudonyms are given to minors in these stories for their privacy and protection. Testimony shared by guests of the show is their own and does not necessarily reflect

the views of myself, broken cycle media, or Wondery. The podcast and any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. Thank you so much for listening. You don't know anybody until you talk to someone. Hi, I'm Sarah. I grew up in a household that my dad left when I was a baby. He left for himself because he just, I don't think, saw himself in the dad role. He was a good dad as dads go.

I mean, he paid child support and told me how much he loved me all the time, but he always chose himself over me My mom has struggled with alcohol my entire life definitely narcissistic tendencies and from a very young age I Learned that people don't want to hear what I have to say My parents told me a lot if I spoke up or tried to defend myself that I was too sensitive. I've heard I'm too sensitive my entire life. I'm too sensitive, I'm too emotional.

From a young age, if I tried to confront my mom on anything, it was zero to a hundred. We went from everything would be okay to my mom was screaming and running through the house and could never control her emotions and I think when you grow up in that situation especially when your parents struggle with addiction I never got consistency in their emotions. You just learn that you don't speak up for yourself. I've been really bad at speaking up for myself my entire life. I

have been like that with men most of my life until I got therapy and learned to but you don't speak up for yourself. I've been really bad at speaking up for myself my entire life. I have been like that with men most of my life until I got therapy and learned to work out of that. I would date these guys who would, same thing. If I told them how I was feeling, it was Sarah, you're just so emotional. Sarah, why are you so sensitive? There was always an excuse and never any justification.

I mean, it took a long time to meet someone who justified my emotions. That's a mind fuck. When you think that the way you're feeling is because you're so sensitive, it really teaches you early on not to trust your emotions. I think I had my first boyfriend in second grade. How did I even know what a boyfriend was in second grade? And then I constantly had boyfriends because you have to have a boyfriend. You have to be with someone.

I think that always made me feel like I was only worth something. I was only good if I was attached to a man, which is such bullshit. I know now. But it absolutely ingrained deep, deep, deep. My grandmother, my father's mother, who I loved dearly, and we were at someone else in our family's wedding and she was like, you're next. And I was 13.

The mentality for so many, myself included, was that you go to school, you maybe get your high school degree, was that you go to school, you maybe get your high school degree, maybe you'll go to college, but your worth is in who you marry. You gotta marry a man, you gotta have kids. Once you do that, as a woman, you've done your job. I'm not saying I fit into that mentality,

but I still also can't deny that it was ingrained in my being, that I had to be with someone. I was raised the same way. It was very much both spoken to me and inferred my whole life leading up to around 16 when I left was your value as a woman is your physical appearance and basically what you look like determines how rich of a husband you can get and that's the best thing you can do. And thank God that's not true. Well, and not only that, but my single mother, I mean, she's never been remarried, but she

always had a boyfriend. It was like a revolving door of different boyfriends. The person that I was looking up to in life also was clearly finding a lot of her worth in the men that she was with. I constantly saw her overextending herself or putting up with shit that she should never have been putting up with because she was afraid to be alone. I think a lot of that impacted who I was and who I grew into being. I think it's really important to touch on the fact that when you are raised in a home with narcissistic parents, parents with addiction issues, it really creates codependency.

And I had a codependency. I didn't know how to be alone. And I was used to giving every bit of myself in order to get a molecule of love back. I think it's really important to understand that aspect, that when you're giving everything for the tiniest bits of love and return, you are forgetting yourself in the long run and you're forgetting friends.

I've always been the person that I try to see the good in everyone and it's too a fault. For sure, I've been burned so many times now because I give people the benefit of the doubt that they're doing things with good intentions. I don't think I knew what a boundary was until 2020 when I really started going to therapy. I didn't know what a boundary was. I didn't know how to draw that line. I think I've always tried to shield myself from being too much for people. A lot of people don't want to hear the truth. They don't want to hear how they make you feel.

And that's been a really hard lesson to learn, but I've also learned that it's not because I'm too much. It's just because people don't want to have a mirror held in front of them to reflect on their shitty behavior. I think that's what I struggled with. Thank you so much for sharing. I relate so much to what you say. I know you do. Your story inspires me.

Well, same. That's a different kind of example, but one that I think a lot of people can relate to if you grew up in a very neglectful household. It's similar to that. It's like you just stop sharing your feelings, too. Until you, like you said, get some help and with time and recovery and safety from those situations, you're able to process those things and see them of course. But when you're in survival mode, it's completely different.

When you grow up in a situation where you don't get a lot of positive attention and that's your experience through life, it's like when people give you the positive attention then it is a drug. It's a boost of serotonin and these chemicals in your brain that you're not used to feeling. It's 100% addicting to finally get positive attention from someone. Sometimes I let myself go through the bad stuff because when I was getting the good, it felt so good. I was a single mother to my daughter. She was born in 2015. I always say that I was time-shared into a baby because I was working in an industry where I worked

with a lot of time-sharing people and one of the sales reps was just trying to woo me and did everything he possibly could, which I had never experienced from a man in my life. We're talking spa packages, flowers, and the whole nine yards. Kicker was that he was engaged. So I said no. That was definitely a boundary I wasn't willing to cross. Until one day he came to me and said that he left this woman.

So I agreed to give it a go. We were on a traveling team so we were in a different city every week and he was still going all out dinners the whole nine yards. He really wants to make a go of this. He's telling me every day that I'm the love of his life, that he knew when he met me. I was the perfect woman. Mind you, most of the men I've dated in my life, I have to pay their bills. I've just never experienced this type of love bombing. After a little bit, it was October of 2014. I gave in. We were at a Halloween pub crawl, there was a one night stand situation and I got pregnant.

I was actually told for a lot of my life that I would never be able to have kids. So this was actually kind of a miracle for me, thinking that I was never going to be able to have children. And I jumped at the possibility of being able to do this with a person who was literally screaming from the rooftops about how much he loved me. We went all in. He told me he supported me either way. If we wanted to keep the child, if we didn't, he was going to be supportive. I felt loved. I felt like this might be the only chance I have to get pregnant. But halfway through my pregnancy, I found out that this man did not leave the woman. She just moved back to Texas. They were still trying to make it work behind the scenes. About Easter of 2015, I found out that he was still very much with her and he told me that he

was going to leave me to be with her. Which was heartbreaking because I also never wanted to be a single parent and I was not financially secure enough to be a single parent either. So it was a very traumatizing moment in my life. But we made it through my daughter. It was the light of my life. She was born July of 2015. I was young. I was 27 when I had my daughter.

My very best friend in the entire world, she came and stayed with me for a while and would stay up so I could get some sleep. My best friend was in my corner the whole time. She did everything for me. She threw me a baby shower. She was by my side the entire time. But my daughter's dad came back in the picture. Right about the time that she was about to be born, I think that he was having some trouble at home. I was getting phone calls from this other woman because she blamed me for everything that had happened. I was the whore. I was all the things wrong even though this man had totally convinced me that he left her and wanted to be with me, she would call me and put me on

speakerphone and ask him like, did you ever love her and I'd have to hear all this while I was six months pregnant. It was traumatizing, it was awful. I did not enjoy any part of being pregnant. I cried pretty much every day. I was a wreck. I lost 15 to 20 pounds before I even started putting on weight. But I think if there's one thing to know about me right off the bat, it's that if someone tells me I can't do something or if a hurdle's put in my way, I'm gonna find a way to do it out of spite. I called him when I went into labor and he hopped on a plane and was in the delivery room with me.

I think seeing his child spark something in him. into labor and he hopped on a plane and was in the delivery room with me. I think seeing his child spark something in him. He decided that he wanted to be around and he moved in with us and started making me feel like I was going to be with him again. He was still in this timeshare business, so he would come and stay for a couple days and then he would go on the road and travel and leave me alone again. For my birthday, he actually got me a ring and a whole jewelry set and was very much putting on these like, okay, we're going to be a family. But then

not even two months later, he was like, no, I'm going to go marry this other woman. And they did, they got married and had two kids of their own. I did not wanna raise this child without a father. Being vulnerable, I was pretty quickly on all the dating apps. I had no successes. It was kind of one flub after another. But in August of 2016, I was swiping on Tinder and this man comes up on my screen who looks like the most incredible total package, especially for me. I'm from very small

town, conservative Springfield, Missouri. It's the buckle of the Bible Belt. I was always the black sheep of my environment. Did not fit in with a lot of crowds. I did not have guns. I did not hunt. I'm not conservative. I have tattoos. I never aligned with any of these values surrounding me. Here this guy is, he's got a big full beard

and he's covered in tattoos and he has kids in his photos. He talked about being a good Christian, which I'm not religious, but to me it still painted this picture of like, oh I can trust this man. He went by Doug. His profile is gold star. This is the profile that women want to come across, especially women who are single mothers. At least in Springfield, Missouri, it does not get better than this. I was so excited. We swiped,

we matched right away and immediately started having text conversations. Or I think we did the basic bullshit conversation that you have on Tinder. We ended up after a day or so deciding we have enough in common, let's get each other's numbers. I had happened to just be going to Vegas for a week with a girlfriend and we exchanged pictures the whole time and he was very complimentary. Like right off the bat he lifted me up like you're so beautiful always said the right thing. He was always sending me pictures with his children. He would send me pictures of him snuggling with his boys on the couch and it was just like oh this man is so perfect. He has three kids biologically. He at the time said that he had three

kids too biologically. One was adopted. His oldest was already a teenager and had been a high school thing that happened. Those two never ended up getting married, but they just managed to co-parent. He was married. He gave me the rigmarole of she was crazy, which should have been a red flag right away. They got married and she was crazy and jealous and they were always fighting. He did say a couple times it got really heated, but it was always very surface level. Definitely though painting the woman as crazy. Monitored my location and never let me have any freedom and he was just very unhappy. So they ended up getting a divorce, but before then they had another son together and she had a boy already who he says is his adopted son. He was taking care of these kids all the time and wanted to spend as much time with them as possible.

And that was of course wonderful for me and my eyes. At the time when I met Doug, I was working for Planned Parenthood in Springfield, Missouri as a navigator of the Affordable Care Act. Basically I helped teach people about the Affordable Care Act and helped them enroll in insurance. I was stationed in St. Louis, Missouri. That's where our headquarters were. It was the biggest city and it was the only city where it was still legal to get an abortion. That clinic that was headquarters there, it was because it was a medical center, like

a surgical center. Every once in a while, I'd have to go to St. Louis to do trainings or team meetings. He also had a good career. He was an ER trauma nurse. He had stents at both of the major hospitals in Springfield. It seemed like he had a long, both of the major hospitals in Springfield. It seemed like he had a long reputable career from what he told me. And then he was getting ready to get into travel nursing. I don't know if you know much about travel nursing, but I didn't at the time.

And now I've learned it has a reputation for being four people who don't really like to be tied down to anything. They like to be able to go anywhere they want and they get a great paycheck because it pays to travel and do these stints in hospitals that are away from your home. How does that work schedule-wise? Is it like you're gone for a month and then you're home for a week? What is that like? So typically, yeah, you sign these contracts for... Sometimes it's like three months at a time. It just depends on the contract. I think you can do it as long or short as you want.

But he always picked contracts that were close enough to home for his kids, he would say. He could go do like a week on and then he would come home for the weekends. And so I thought that was all very cool too because we were going to get the opportunity of meeting and getting to know one another without being on top of one another. And so I thought that was all very cool too because we were going to get the opportunity of beating and getting to know one another without being on top of one another. It was a way to take it slow because he was about to start traveling and we'd have our time, but also we'd each have our time to focus on our children and our careers. Our first date coincidentally takes part in St. Louis when I'm there for work and he's there on an assignment and he's like let's go out. We did a very basic restaurant

but it was a cool restaurant. There was an outdoor patio and it was very artsy. There was different mediums of art everywhere and it was kind of very interactive which I do love and he's an artist. So he was very much into it too. He definitely had majority of the conversation all the time. He would tell really great stories that would catch your attention and keep you hooked. I do remember after a couple of drinks,

I went into the bathroom and I text my friend, I think this is really gonna be the perfect guy. He was just doing everything right. He paid for my meal and my drinks, which is rare. He brought a ukulele out and serenaded me on our first date. We were walking through a park. He was telling me how beautiful I was.

There were fireworks, there was chemistry, there was a kiss. I left at the end of the night and I couldn't wait to see him again. A lot of it was phone conversation between that date and I couldn't tell you when the next one was because he was away in travel assignment and I was a busy working mom. Sometimes he would come home and he'd say he was spending the weekend with his kids so we did a lot of text or FaceTime conversations in the beginning. We decided very early we weren't gonna introduce

our kids to one another until we were certain that we wanted to take it somewhere. That was in August of 2016, mid September 2016. He was back from St. Louis. He reached out to me in the middle of the day to say, hey, I am going to go look at a car. Do you want to come with me? And I was like, okay, this is perfect because my daughter was in school.

I didn't have work to do and it was just going to be another opportunity to get together. So I jumped on it and he pulled up in my driveway to take me to go look at this car and his youngest son was in the back seat which kind of took me by surprise because this is just mid-september and we had already had that conversation about not introducing one another to our kids until we knew it was going to be a thing so either he didn't mean that or it meant that he really liked me and was ready to introduce me to his kids already. So I got in and we went to this car lot and when we got there he asked me to wait in the car with his son which should have been red flag. Looking back now I couldn't see that he just really invited me so I could watch his child while he

handled business. I later found out he had already had this car picked out and paid for he just really invited me so I could watch his child while he handled business. I later found out he had already had this car picked out and paid for. He just had to go sign the paperwork and I was just a babysitter for him. But his son was adorable and he knew that I, as a mother, was gonna attach to a tiny cute child. And I did. I fell in love with his son right away.

We had a bond. We were laughing and playing and it was really wonderful. He was a cute kid. This car that he was going to pick out was a giant jacked up black Jeep. Was it lifted? Oh yeah. Did it have balls that dangled from the end?

Didn't have that. I'm kind of surprised, but almost there. Not that, I'm kind of surprised, but all my hosts there. Listeners, we have a new show that we think you're going to love. From Wondery and hosted by Laura Beale, the critically acclaimed Doctor Death is back with a new season. Doctor Death, Bad Magic. A story of miraculous cures, magic, and murder. When a charismatic hot shot doctor announced revolutionary

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money, and sex collide in a game of life and death. Follow Academy on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Academy early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Looking back now, I don't think he has loved anything in his life as much as he loved that car. Like he would do anything for that vehicle. He definitely couldn't afford the vehicle. I didn't find that out until later, but he was scrimping by to make payments on that vehicle. But it was definitely a show, like a look at me. Everything that Doug did was very much a statement. He wanted to be noticed.

He wanted attention. He put it all over his Instagram. It was a whole thing. That was the second time that we ever hung out. Doug always had a gun in his center console. He had this military grade little backpack that he carried around with him everywhere. It was his medic kit, just in case there was ever like a wound out in the field that he had to fix on the fly.

He would carry his gun in that. Because he's an ER trauma nurse, he had condoms in there always. Why do you need those? Towards the end of September, I was going to DC for a big conference. He was still in St. Louis. I was flying out of St. Louis. He said, you can stay with me while you're here. We'll go out, have a nice dinner, do a date night, and then you'll fly out the next day. I was really excited. He took me to a museum. There's a ferris wheel on top of the museum and there's slides everywhere. It's interactive and you crawl through jungle gyms and it was very fun. No one has ever taken me to do anything like this

either and it showed a very adventurous side of someone that I was deeply attracted to. It was like, oh, he's an adult, he's a dad and has this job, but he also is like a kid at heart and is full of adventure. That was very endearing to me at the time. We had a great time. We went to dinner that night, and then the next morning I flew out to Washington, DC. I had never been to DC before, and I was really excited. I was still

a very young mom and I was getting to travel by myself. I knew my daughter was taking care of back home and I was getting to adventure and see a new place. I get to DC and before my conference I had a day to waste. Before this conference started, I just wanted to walk around and see all the things that you're supposed to see, all the monuments, the White House, the whole nine yards. And while I was walking around by myself, I think I had my earbuds in, listening to music, just enjoying the beautiful weather. A young guy approached me and he said,

hey, it looks like you're probably a tourist doing the same thing I am walking around, seeing the sights. Do you mind if I walk with you? Normally, I would actually say no to these kinds of things because I definitely air on the side of being cautious, but I wanted to meet someone new and just live a little bit. So I said, sure, why not? And I let this guy walk with me around to see the monuments

and we were having good conversation. He was visiting on a student visa from Asia. It was his story and he was so excited to be in Washington, DC. We walked probably until dusk. The sun was starting to go down and I, the whole time was sending pictures to Doug, like look at these beautiful sights and he was not responding to me.

I didn't hear from him at all, and I was just thinking, well, he's working, I'm sure, and I know he's busy, so it wasn't anything, especially this early in our relationship, to worry about. But I walked with this guy until dusk, and then I said, hey, it's getting dark, I think I'm gonna walk back to my hotel now, I have an early start tomorrow.

And he asked if he could walk me back to the hotel which I didn't feel great about but I also am a millennial woman who was just raised to be nice all the time. I didn't want to be mean and offend this guy by telling him no so I said sure why not and I let him walk me back to my hotel which you should never do because now this guy knows where I am staying And he asks if he can come in and we get drinks and I was like I'm not drinking I had like a 6 a.m. Start time the next day. He was begging. Please let me come in I'm not ready to go home So again, I was nice and broke down and said okay I'll have a Diet Coke with you in the lobby at this point

Starting to get a little nervous because I didn't know how I was going to lose this guy. He just kept talking about himself. He was just talking and talking about how rich he was and how his dad was some kind of ambassador in Asia kept rambling and rambling. And so finally I was like, hey, it was great to meet you, but I've got to go to bed. He was like, okay, well, I'm going to walk you to the elevator. I was like, no, I don't think that's appropriate. At this point, I'm just starting to walk away from him because he's not taking no for an answer. I don't know what else to say to get away from him.

I just start walking towards the elevator and he pushes himself on me in the elevator, completely full body, comes at me aggressive, trying to kiss me and I have to scream and physically hike up my foot and kick him off of me in this elevator. I was screaming to try to get people's attention in the lobby to hopefully scare this man away, trying to close the doors as fast as possible.

And I get up to my floor and run to my room and then I just sit there scared for the rest of the night because I don't know if he saw what floor I went to. It's just really scary and I remember calling Doug again at this point in time. It was late. It was probably seven or eight. I don't think he was working at all anymore, but he was still ignoring me and I was texting him about the situation. I thought at this point he cared enough about me to like be concerned that I was going through this experience, but I didn't hear from him all night long. It was just a very traumatizing experience and I felt very alone. And then here's this new guy who I'm supposed to be dating and getting to know. And

he can't even respond to me while I'm in this stressful situation. So that was really unfortunate. But I got over it. I bought into whatever excuse that he told me that he was doing that evening. And so that was at the end of September, between the end of September and somewhere in the first couple of weeks in October, I had this pretty good group of friends that we wanted to go out and let off some steam one weekend. I got a sitter and we were out at a bar. I had told Doug that I was going out to see if he wanted to come because he was back in

town from St. Louis. But he told me that night that he had his kids. He couldn't come and join us. Totally fine. I was good being just with my friends. We were drinking at this bar where we frequented often. It was probably the most popular bar in downtown Springfield. Doug also frequented this bar a lot. Just drinking, having a good time, and he walked by. He just walked by the bar, even though he had told me that he had his kids. And so it's like, oh, maybe something happened.

Like he didn't have his kids anymore. I don't know what happened, but he walked into the bar. The group that I was with went totally silent, which was very weird. Something was going on, but nobody wanted to tell me what was going on. I see one of these girls lean over

and whisper in my friend's ear and I'm like okay this is weird. I think when you grow up in traumatic environments you watch the room all the time. You feel energy, you know when energy shifts and you watch every single action from every single person because it's like you're always on guard. It's like, okay, something's up. All the energy was sucked out of the room. So I'm watching this girl whisper in my friend's ear and my friend's like, we got to go to the bathroom. She pulls me into the bathroom and explains to me that the guy that just walked in, Doug, is dating another girl that is mutual acquaintances with people in this group. I don't even think she was 21 yet. She wasn't at the bar with us because I don't think she could legally

get in. She worked in one of the Springfield hospitals. She had been dating Doug for a while at this point. So everybody in this room was very mad because I think in the situation they were a lot closer to this other girl than they were me. It was the situation where like I'm the other woman and I look like the one that is taking their friend's happiness away by being with this guy when I approached him about it in the bar because I'm not good at hiding things. If I hear that he's dating this other woman, my face changed, he knew something was up, and so I asked him about it.

What's going on? All of these people here think that you're dating their friend. And he changed. The color left his eyes, and he flipped into a totally different person, went off the rails, and started screaming at my friend, who had told me in the bathroom about all of this. I couldn't tell you everything he was saying, but it was like every name in the book he was calling her. Screaming so much that she ran out of the bar crying. I am super ashamed to say that I didn't run after her but I didn't because I was in a fog myself like I did not know what was going on.

like I did not know what was going on. I believed her, but I think also that Doug started the narrative of these people don't want you happy. We're happy. We have something here. This story is bullshit. They have their facts wrong and they don't want you happy. And so why would you listen to this? I never got a straight story. He told me that he was sleeping with this girl. He also told me that as a recreational marijuana user, he had to pass a urine test at work all the time and he could never pass the test with his own urine because he smoked weed every day. And so this girl would actually pee for him. He told me that he was just using this girl. Total red flag, shitty move, should've

definitely run in the other direction. But I didn't. I thought, okay, well I get it. She's very young and she probably thought it was a lot more than it wasn't. I understand, but I also knew it was not a great situation to be in. I fell for that hook line and sinker. It was like an excuse. I could give my brain. Also, we talk all the time. There's no way you could be living this double life. But the fact is, watching him scream at a woman like he did, knowing what I know now, and also being the person I am now, I absolutely should have run in the other direction. Growing opportunities, I suppose. It's also really important to note that I was 28. In my eye, that is still young.

I had been gaslight and traumatized by my child's father for a bit. When you survive any kind of gaslighting situation for a long time, you question your thoughts all the time. What you think in your head, it's always like, well, is that right? Is that wrong? You just never have clarity.

I've spent a lot of years now in therapy because I was always questioning, is what I know to be true right? Or is what he's saying right? I genuinely can't remember what happened after that. I didn't leave with him because I had to go home and be with my child after hanging out with my friends.

This whole event happened and I don't think he was planning any of it. He just wanted to do like an attention stroll downtown. What happened probably is he just went back to his place and we text about it or I called him when I got home and we talked about it. But I know that I forgave him pretty quickly, had a conversation with my friend, and she forgave me too for not running after her, and we were able to mend whatever had happened between us.

But I don't think that she ever looked at him in the same light after that situation. I had this group of girls in front of me, and I'm not saying that they were wrong by any means but they were not being very nice to me either. They were treating me in this situation like I was the other woman and kind of punishing me and for months after that they were very mean to me in any situation so again some of what he was saying is they just don't want you to be happy, they're jealous.

There was some clarity in my mind there too because of the way that I was being treated on the other end. In about the middle of October he picks up a new travel assignment in Memphis, Tennessee. One of the exciting parts of dating a travel nurse is I love to travel too and it was an opportunity for me to be able to go and see some of these places where he was stationed. Sometimes he would have to work over the weekend, but I would say every other weekend at least, he was coming back home to Springfield

where we could either be together or I would split our time with his kids. But I would say he was home most weekends throughout the time, but every week he was gone. He consulted me on where should I go, like where would be fun for you to come visit? And we decided it was Memphis, Tennessee. So he got his assignment there. He spent a couple weeks. He was involved in these forums on Facebook or online where you either are

meeting with a bunch of other travel nurses or people who take in travel nurses and that's how he would usually find his places to stay. So when he got this assignment in Memphis, he told me that he had found a place to stay in this community living space, where he was basically just renting a room in someone else's home, and he would pay them rent. So when we were planning for my first trip there, he said, well, I have a room,

so we're gonna have to get an Airbnb because you can't come stay in this room with me. Which I, of course, didn't think anything about. I planned the whole thing. I found the Airbnb. I paid for the Airbnb. I went above and beyond because I'm already super smitten with this guy and I'm always giving more of myself than I'm receiving at this point in my life.

I pulled into Memphis on a Friday around 5 p.m. He was working that day but he was supposed to just come straight from work to the Airbnb. It was five and he was like, yep, just about to get off of work. I was waiting and waiting and waiting and it was probably eight maybe even a little later that he finally showed up to this Airbnb when he walked up. Of course, I was excited to see him because we didn't get a ton of time face to face. Every time I did get to see him, it was electric and it was very exciting.

But the first thing I noticed is that there was bright red lipstick or makeup of some sort all over his hoodie. There was no mistake that it was definitely makeup. I didn't even point it out. I just asked what in the world took you so long? I've been waiting here for a while. He went right into defensive mode. Like why are you asking me these questions? I work hard and I work late. When I got off of work I really just wanted to shower and chill out and have some time myself because it was a really tough day. Just made me feel like I was being unreasonable for asking the question.

I was kind of scared even at that point to ask about the makeup. I think his response about that probably turned me away from even asking about the makeup right away. But we went out and had some drinks and dinner that first night. It was late, so we didn't stay out very late already because I had just been driving from Springfield, Memphis, is six to seven hours. And so I didn't want to stay out very late. We got back. He could probably tell that something was up because I could not get this thing out of my mind that I had seen this makeup on his hoodie. It just overtook all of my thoughts for the entire night and he was pressing and pressing and so finally I was like,

I can see there is some kind of makeup all over your hoodie and I can't stop thinking about it. And this response was totally different. He wasn't defensive. It was like, oh, that's just a friend. You know, I have a friend, she wears a lot of makeup and I gave her a hug. So it probably just wiped off on me. I think because of the way that he answered it so nonchalantly and didn't get defensive, like I didn't want to push it more and I didn't want to ruin our weekend. So I was just like, okay, I guess that makes sense. I think I even probably apologized that night for asking too many questions or pressing it which was pretty common if I

ask any kind of question the upset Doug I was usually the one apologizing for making him upset. That's how our weekend started. I don't really remember a lot else from that trip. We went to the zoo, we went and had a lot of food and we walked around and saw Memphis, but my brain was not clear after that. My gut knew that he was probably lying to me. This Memphis trip was probably the first time. Mind you, we met in August. This is in October and it was already a time in my mind that I was like,

maybe I got myself into something that's not great, but I knew I was addicted in a way. I didn't want to get out of it, because when I got good attention from Doug, it was great attention. It was love bombing. He was the perfect guy. I always told myself the good outweighed the bad. It was about this time in October that I started really restricting my

food intake. I have a long, long history of eating disorder. My eating disorder specifically comes from the need to control my life because I grew up in a very uncontrollable erratic household where I never felt in control and so by controlling the scale or controlling what I ate it was just the way I felt like I could have a sense of calm in my life if that makes sense. Doug was definitely a trigger for this because I started to already in October feel like there were a lot of things I couldn't control in my relationship and I didn't wanna break up with him

or end it, but at least I could go back and control my eating. There was a lot of pressure of if I'm perfect and skinny, like he's not gonna wanna leave me, he's not gonna wanna look at other women, he's just gonna wanna be with with me which is really fucked up. That leads us into Halloween 2016 Halloween is my favorite holiday of the entire year it's always a big thing for me and my friends my mom graciously

decided she would watch my daughter for me because she wasn't old enough to trick-or-treat and I went to the Springfield pub crawl for Halloween. Doug told me he couldn't join again for this because he was trick-or-treating with his kids and he was gonna get to hang out with him. And so I was like, okay fine that's great my friends and I we dressed up we were having a great time at this pub crawl. I see lo and Bold Doug walk by the bar we're in with his dog. I'm just like, you got to be kidding me. So I ran out, I was like, oh, surely he's coming to try to find me. I walk out and I was like, what are you doing?

I thought you had to be with your kids. And his kids were at the apartment. He just needed to take his dog for a walk. So he left them but he had already rubbed one of my friends wrong enough and she had been drinking enough that she also saw him and came out and basically just started to give him a verbal lashing because I had told my friends that he couldn't come out with us. Here he is once again. She's telling him, you're a narcissist, you're a liar, what are you doing out here, why would

you leave your kids? And once again, I see the color of this man's eyes just like black. He yells at her, grabs my hand and starts taking me away from my friends down the alleyway back to his loft. I went with him because I didn't know what to do and my friend is literally chasing us down this alleyway screaming, don't go with him, you don't know what you're doing. We get to his loft and he feeds me the spiel again of nobody wants us to be happy. Like everybody's out to get us. Can't you see that? All I'm doing is walking my dog. My kids are inside. And in fact, I couldn't even go inside. It was cold. It was Halloween. I was in, I was at Triceratops because I just really love pun humor.

And my name is Sarah. So I was in this little Triceratops costume, but I was freezing and he wouldn't let me go inside because he wasn't ready for me to meet all of his kids. So we just sit in his Jeep and he talks to me about how my friends don't want me to be happy, then coerces me. Doug is very much in this he has to own things or show his dominance and so then he's trying to have sex with me and his Jeep. And I'm feeling really weird because this is a dramatic, traumatic situation. My friends

just chased us down an alleyway. His kids are in the apartment and all this man has on his mind is like, I've got to have sex with this woman in my Jeep right now. He wouldn't let it go. And so I gave in. I didn't want to be mad at me. But again, another moment in my life that it's like very hard to talk about. I'm very ashamed of it. I gave in and right after he was done, he like, okay, go back to your friends. I'm done. I got to go inside. So it's just a little demoralizing. And I feel now looking back that he probably just wanted to assert his dominance in the situation. Maybe like, this is my property. Afterwards, I was a shell of a human.

I was very embarrassed. I was ashamed for sure. My friends being who they are welcomed me right back in. The friend that chased us down the alleyway, she left. But my other friends in the group, it was just kind of like back to normal. Let's pretend that didn't happen. I used to be a big runner. So I had signed up for this half marathon in early November that I'd been training for for a long time and Doug knew how excited I was. He told me he wasn't going to be able to be at the race to support me because he had his kids that weekend.

I understood, but I was still excited. The day before my race, my mother and my daughter and myself, we went to the farmer's market. Springfield has a big farmer's market that's really nice to go to in the fall. And so we were there trying to stock up on stuff and just walk around and enjoy the day. I looked over when we were in this farmers market and I see Doug with another woman.

My heart sank and I felt like I was gonna vomit. I was shocked but I gave him the benefit of the doubt right away. I was like, oh he's gotta have an explanation for this. I'm sure his kids are around here somewhere too. Maybe he just ran into a friend. I went and walked up to him, and when I did, his face totally fell. He looked shocked and so did hers. She was very clearly embarrassed by the fact

that I walked up and gave him a hug and a kiss, and I was like, hey babe, and she just was very taken aback. Let's say that. He pulled away and immediately pulled me away from this girl so that he could tell me the situation. And he proceeded to tell me that this girl that was with him is a girl he had met on Tinder months before he had met me on Tinder. He had been visiting his home state in Oklahoma and they had matched and she invited him to be his wedding date for a wedding in Springfield, Missouri and they were like yeah sure

why not let's give it a shot. They hadn't gone out on any dates before this was literally their first meet-up. He told me that she knew he had a girlfriend, that they had agreed the minute that she got into town that it wasn't gonna be anything except for a wedding date because he was very happy with his girlfriend and she was just gonna sleep on the couch. He lived in a very tiny tiny studio in downtown. There was a couch and then his bed was in a lofted area so I can believe that she slept on the couch. He didn't wanna tell me the truth so he told me he had his kids

because he didn't wanna lose me. If he told me the truth about all of this, that he was afraid I'd get mad on top of everything else that we had already gone through in our very short relationship, that I wouldn't trust him anymore. So he lied to me. I actually got to be pretty good friends with this girl and she did confirm that nothing happened and that he did tell her about me right away. But still, if he cared he would have never lied to me, right?

But anyway, they were going to this wedding and they invited me because I think they both felt really awkward and they invited me because I think they both felt really awkward and they were like, well, you should come crash this wedding party with us. Even though I had a half marathon the next day, I was so conflicted and worried. I was like, well, I have to go because if I don't go, then what's he gonna do? Is he gonna get drunk and do something with this woman? Is he gonna meet someone else?

I definitely didn't trust him. So I begged my mother. I was like, please will you watch my daughter so that I can go do this for a few hours. And by going and being a part of this, Doug was praising me. He was telling anyone and everyone that we saw. This is my girlfriend. He was explaining the story. They both kept saying, like, this girl's so cool. He was over the moon infatuated with me that night because I didn't get mad. I didn't blow up. I didn't break up with him. I took it on the chin and I went to that wedding party and he was like, I'm gonna be at your race

tomorrow. There's nothing that could keep me from your race tomorrow. I'll be at the finish line. So I went to the party for a little bit, went home and got sleep, did my race and then sure enough I get to the finish line and of course he's nowhere to be seen. He had drank too much the night before and could not get out of bed. That was just another instance of I totally let this guy off the hook for being the worst. After the Halloween incident, I got to meet Doug's other two children because I had already met the youngest with a car scenario. These kids were amazing.

They were great. They're mothers have done a fantastic job. But you could tell being around them, especially with the oldest, he wanted nothing to do with his dad. He was very nice to me and we talked and got to know one another. And he was just a very sweet boy watching them though because I watch everything. Like you could tell he didn't want to have anything to do with his dad. He seemed very annoyed and I think at the time I was like, well that's probably the age too, right? Because who wants to be hanging out with their parents? But you could tell in looking back now and after the conversations I've had with his oldest son's mother, he

was having none of it. He was at the age where he's like, I don't want to be a part of this again. I don't want to be a part of you bringing in another woman and introducing like I don't want to be a part of this again. I don't want to be a part of you bringing in another woman and introducing like I want to get out of here. I did not spend a lot of time with him. We quickly went into right after that he was like, okay, well let's plan another trip to Memphis. Mid to late December, we're still in 2016 and Douglas planned another trip for me

to come visit in Memphis. I was super excited. He had been kicked out of his other living situation. I think he told me that they just didn't have the room available anymore. So we had to find another living situation. And he coincidentally found himself renting another room in a woman's house. This time the house was big enough that he said we could actually stay there. He was talking her up all the time.

He told me she was in her 40s, not older, but older than us. Mid-40s had an older daughter. This was December of 2016, so Trump had been elected. The woman's march had just happened and she was a big time feminist. Had like marched through the streets of Washington, which is very much my energy and I would have been there too if I could have.

So he kept finding commonalities of making me feel like this is going to be great. You guys are going to hit it off. We're going to have such a good time. So I get to memvis and this woman is nowhere to be found. I don't think she shows herself once until the end of my trip. She's not anywhere. We have basically this house to ourself

and he's staying in this little room in the house. And we go on about our weekend. We go to Sun Studios where Elvis recorded a bunch of his albums and did a huge tour of, we went to a basketball game and just walked all around downtown Memphis and it was a great time. We had a blast, truly. But the thing about doing anything with Doug is he's on his phone all the time. He took constant photos of himself to put on Instagram.

I was never included in the photos. It was just always, oh, here we are at Sun Studios. Will you take a picture of me at this microphone? We had a good time, but it was always very much Doug on his phone posting about his adventures and not including me. So that was kind of a bummer, but all in all, it still was a great time. There was no drama until the very end. I think it was like the last day, it was a Monday,

and Doug had to wake up early to go to work. I was laying in bed maybe 7am trying to look at my phone, wake myself up, get ready to get back in the car to drive home. And this woman slams open the door. She comes in and she's like, it's time for you to go. Completely catches me off guard. you get your podcasts. Each week on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, you'll hear new stories about inexplicable encounters, shocking disappearances, true crime cases, and everything in between.

Like our recent episode titled White Dust. After a middle-aged couple fail to answer their daughter's messages and calls, the daughter drives the few hours to her parents' house to check on them. But after arriving and seeing both her parents' cars in the driveway, the daughter gets an uneasy feeling and just can't stomach going inside. To hear the rest of that story and hear

hundreds more stories like it, follow Mr. Ballin podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music. She didn't say anything to me except for, it's time for you to go. There was no other word. There was no other conversation. It was so awkward. It was the most awkward moment. If looks could kill that expression, I felt it.

She did not like that I was there and basically just kicked me out of her house. And so I'm like throwing everything in my bag and running into the car to get ready and book it out of town. Super uncomfortable. But when I asked Doug about it, I was like, you will never believe what just happened. But I was kicked out of her house. She was really unfriendly to me. He was like, well, yeah, I guess I should let you know that she's jealous of you. He comes out with this story that they had been sitting in the common room together watching

a movie and she came on to him a couple weeks prior and was trying really hard to have sex with him. And he was just like, I, you know, I have a girlfriend. I, I care about her a lot. I can't. And that pissed her off. And so from then on, I guessed that I was a threat. And so it's like, okay,

well either that story is completely bullshit because you didn't tell me any of this before. And also why would you bring me into this environment if this woman thinks that I'm a threat? Or that he probably was having some kind of relationship with her and then he brings his girlfriend in. I'm sleeping in her house and I'm sure she was really uncomfortable

and couldn't wait for me to leave. But that was really awkward. He told a story and talked his way out of it that she was jealous scorned woman and I'm sure I believed it. So when he tells you this, what is your emotional response to his excuse? I was just like, well, I guess that would make sense if she had a thing for him and

he turned her down. Then, yeah, I guess I can see why. But also, you know, a little part of my gut always wonders because we didn't see her. We didn't see her the entire weekend. So I also go back and wonder, was she supposed to be out of town? And that's why we stayed there. Because she was never home until that very Monday that I was supposed to leave. So then it was like, okay, well also, did she think that they had a thing? And then she came back and there's a woman in his bed?

Because that would be really awkward too. I've never found her on social media. I cannot remember her name, but I've always been curious. What's the truth here? What's the real story? Because if she was out of town and she wasn't expecting to come back to me, I get her response. Between December of 2016 and February of 2017, there was a point where he took me to Oklahoma and I met his dad and his brother, and they were very nice. His dad was nice, but they're all very conservative, misogynistic Trump supporters.

Big time. I can kind of see why he is the way he is. Around the holidays, he was nicer to me. We would go and see shows. That was our thing. We liked music. He had a friend, Randall, who would come to town quite a bit and we loved going to listen to him live. And so we would do that a lot and we always had a good time dancing at the shows and doing that kind of thing. But when we went out, he would always be looking around. He was always scanning the room or he always knew someone. He always knew a girl in the room that he would go talk to

and he wouldn't introduce me to. I was never a priority. It was never what a relationship should be, but it was better than the shit. It was better than the bad times. I lived for those little moments. He wouldn't come back to Springfield for like two weeks in a row. If especially if he wasn't gonna see his kids, he would just stay. In Memphis, that's quite a drive. He would send me videos of him playing the ukulele and singing to me. The love bombing was unreal, especially through the phone when it wasn't person to person. I can't tell you the amount of singing videos that he would send me. For a girl like me, that's my love language.

I love music. And so I was like, okay, this guy really likes me. But I'm sure looking back now that I bet more women got those videos and it wasn't just me. Whenever he was coming back one weekend from Memphis, I get a phone call pretty frantic. The drive between Springfield and Memphis is full of very tiny winding back roads. He had bad road rage a lot.

He was always getting mad at drivers and he called me frantically from one of these times he was coming back from Memphis and he was like, Sarah, I think I'm gonna go to jail. I just ran someone off the road and he had gotten mad because there was a little car in front of him who was driving too slow and I guess he was tailing them in his big jacked up Jeep aggressively pushes this little tiny car off the road. Nobody was injured, but it was enough aggression that the cops were called, and he ended up having to go back to court in this little town because they wrote him a ticket.

Did anything happen? Absolutely not. Early December of 2017, Doug's youngest son on his birthday in a good gesture went by the apartment in the morning, like on my way to work, and dropped off donuts for his birthday, because he was turning four. He had text me and was like, oh, he loves his donuts. Thank you so much. Then later, sends me a video of his son having a good time and laughing. Like he was always sending me videos of him and his kids, right? To show me what a good dad he was. And he sends me a video of his son splashing around in the bathtub and having a great time in the background. Like I can hear his son laughing and I can hear him talking and then I hear a woman laughing. Very clearly, I hear a woman laugh

in the background. Of this video, I knew that he recorded and sent to me. I asked right away. I didn't even hold back. I was just like, hey, who is that woman? I hear a woman laughing in the background. Who's over? I thought you were like having one on one time with your son today. He said it was Wendy Williams.

Her show's on in the background. We love watching Wendy Williams. I think right away, I was like, uh-huh, okay. I played that video over and over and I was like, that's not the TV. That is a person in the bathroom standing right next to you. I know that that is a person. And I played it for other people. I was like, tell me what you hear in this.

I had a really good work friend at the time. I was like, you have to listen to this. Tell me if you think it's another woman. And she was like, yes, thought is 100% another woman. Next time on something was wrong. This woman makes a reappearance helping him stalk me around Springfield. field. Tiffany Reece. 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. Our theme song was composed by Gladrags. Check out their album Wonder Under. Thank you so much. Hey Prime members, you can listen to something was wrong early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.

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