Something Was Wrong - S7 E2: The Perfect Shitstorm

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

For free mental health resources, please visit SomethingWasWrong.com/ResourcesSupport SWW on Patreon for as little as $1 a monthFollow Tiffany Reese on Instagram  Music from Glad Rags album Wonder Under Episode Sources:Sibling Bullying and Abuse: The Hidden Epidemic by Darlene Lancer, JD, LMFT 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 discuss topics that can be triggering such as emotional, physical and sexual violence,

suicide and murder. I'm not a therapist or a doctor. If you're in need of support, please visit somethingwaswrong.com slash resources for a list of nonprofit organizations that can help. Some names on the podcast have been changed for anonymity purposes. Opinions expressed by guests on the show do not necessarily represent the views of myself or this podcast. Resources, references, source material, and sponsor info can be found in the episode notes. Thank you so much for listening. Licensed Therapist Darlene Lancer, JDLMFT, writes in an article for psychology today that sibling abuse is the most common but least reported type of abuse in the family.

Prevalence is higher than spousal or child abuse combined, with consequences well into adulthood similar to parent child abuse. Up to 80% of youth experience some form of sibling maltreatment, yet it's often called the forgotten abuse. Usually the perpetrator is an older child, often the eldest, exploiting the emotional dependence and weakness of a younger sibling. Girls are at a greater risk of abuse, generally by an older brother. When a brother abuses a sister, it often involves physical or sexual abuse. Lansar continues, sibling rivalry and abuse are different. Squabbles, jealousy, unwillingness to share and competition are normal sibling behaviors.

Fighting between equals can be two. Rivalry is reciprocal and the motive is for parental attention versus harm and control. Rather than an occasional incident, abuse is a repeated pattern where one sibling takes the role of the aggressor toward another who consistently feels disempowered. It's often characterized as bullying. Typically, an older child dominates a younger

or weaker sibling who naturally wants to please them. Unlike rivalry, the motive is to establish superiority or incite fear or distress. The effects of sibling abuse mirror parent child abuse and have a long term negative impact on survivors' sense of safety, well-being, and interpersonal relationships. Victims of all ages experience internalized shame, which heightens anger, fear, anxiety, and guilt. Both victims and perpetrators often have low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Children may complain of headaches, stomach aches, and bowel, eating, and sleep disorders. Some have developmental delays or social and academic difficulties in school.

They may run away or stay for periods at friends homes. Victims may engage in substance abuse, self-harm, or delinquent behavior. Abuse causes fear of the perpetrator that may lead to PTSD and produce nightmares or phobias. I'm Tiffany Reese and this is... something was wrong. Here's Amy. They say perspective is everything and time has definitely offered me some of that. A good deal of that in digesting what happened in my family. And you know, I've had these points in time where I can look back and say, this is where you started, this type of you started, but I can look back and think,

even these fond family memories I have that I've banked are somewhat tainted in retrospect. Like mom, she loved to tell people that from a really young age, Rory had this drive to make money. And now I see it was to make money off of people, a side hustle of candy. But like even before that, at three years old, my mom must have been carrying me. Like I must have been strapped to her chest. Rory would draw treasure maps and tell her

he wanted to take them to the grocery store to sell to people. And obviously they're like fake treasure maps. They don't lead anywhere. But he had it in his very young mind. He was gonna make money off of people and basically use them in almost the most innocent way he could consider at that age.

And I don't mean to laugh because that's obviously not very funny if I'm talking about a child showing signs of manipulation super early, but I might laugh at inappropriate times, unfortunately, especially as I still digest these things, it was always about making a buck, but also at the same time it was always about putting people in their place. The number of instances of abuse are so numeral if I think back. Even in middle school, I think it's taken me time to even realize this was abuse. He forced me to, in so many words, sell playboys at school. He found like a school directory and would call kids from my classes, you know, say like

a home room on it. He would call kids from my classes or have me call them and ask boys, mind you, if they wanted to buy playboys and he would force me blackmail me again to bring them to school I did it a couple times. I never got caught. Thank God, but in retrospect it wasn't even about selling playboys. It was about getting me in trouble and now that was the dichotomy that kind of unfolded as our Lives unfolded as we grew up, you know, he could tell I was going to do everything to be, and I had to say it, not to polarize myself even more, but the good kid. And it's not that I wanted to compete with him. It was more like I wanted to be good for mom. I wanted to make parenting

easier, because I could see what a struggle it was. If you're into true crime, the Generation Y podcast is essential listening. We started this podcast over 10 years ago to dissect some of the craziest and most notable murders, crimes, and conspiracy theories together, and we'd love for you to join us. Generation Y is one of the longest-running true crime podcasts out there, and we are still at it, unraveling a new case every week. We break down infamous cases like the Evil Genius Bank robbery, and lesser known cases like the case of Kimberly Rico.

Did she actually kill her husband after they took part in a murder mystery game? We cover every angle, breaking down theories, diving deep into forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case. And with over 450 episodes, there's a little something for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or every listen to podcasts, or you can listen ad free by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app. I think as we got older and we slowly grew up, become adolescents, young adults, I realized that mom was in a tough situation parenting two very very different children and she had to be two different

very very different parents to each of us and I think that's kind of something we don't really talk about in parenting I'm a parent now I get that but it's weird to think about like I kind of resented her at times because I knew that Rory got away with more things but I got more freedom. Basically, um, Rory would break things in the house and he might get grounded for a week, but he'll sweet talk her into, you know, getting TV privileges again. Or, you know, I might miss a homework assignment or, and that would get me in trouble. Um, and I think that she knew that the standard she had different standards for us because we had different capabilities. And that probably almost even though Rory was getting kind of the better end of the stick sometimes, I think he presented me even more for that and wanted to get me in

more trouble. He kind of just developed in his ways of manipulating me. He again didn't have very many friends and I think I said earlier I was a nerd, sensitive to that statement. I didn't mean it in insulting way even to myself, but my priorities were school. Number one, family number two, and friends. And I didn't have a lot, but my friends that I did have, we bonded over drama, number one, even in middle school, we were pretty open with each other. And again, he resented that. So he would find ways, one of his abuse techniques

that I realized now, he didn't have friends, so he would find ways to get included on my plans, and eventually sabotage those plans. Like, I was gonna have a play date, a play date. his he didn't have friends so he would find ways to get included on my plans and Eventually sabotage those plans like I was gonna have a play date a play date I mean I would have a sleepover With my now as a parent I say play date, but because my kids are too young But I was you know in middle school like wanting to have sleepovers and he would be like Oh have it here just so he could have the company and the female company. And obviously, I didn't want to.

That was a very, as I explained before, difficult, tenuous, stressful, like almost, situation and time for me. And he definitely, even when he couldn't take advantage of me physically, he tried to take advantage of me physically, he tried to take advantage of my friends, I guess you could say. I remember an instance where I had a girlfriend over and he told her she had a cute butt. And like, again, the 1990s, 1996, 1997, maybe 98, I guess that could slide from an older

brother and she kind of laughed at him and then he took a lighter and like lit it under her ass And of course she went home and told her parents as she should and my mom was extremely embarrassed and punished him But I'm my friend was no longer allowed over my house and at that point I think that might have been when I started seeking way more Opportunities and when I found I could seek those opportunities, mom would give me the freedom, because she was realizing that nobody should be around Rory. Nobody should be facing this kind of abuse.

Even if she didn't know the depth of the abuse I faced, she knew there was abuse going on, because she was facing it. And as his abuse towards her increased, she definitely gave me that freedom to get out even more. And that was when things got way worse. To be honest, I'm going to be birdly honest in Calabasas. Everybody's houses, you know, I was raised by a single mom. We were kind of always moving. Our house was not the house to be at anyway. So I generally didn't host many

things. I didn't want to have my friends over. I wanted to go to the fancy house with the water slide and the mom who was always willing to make a snack at any point in home all the time. So I, as much as my mom, probably had painted her to let me, you know, get out more. I probably didn't host many. And then that one or two, I was like, yeah, never again. Mom was an entertainer by nature. She loved a good party. She loved having her friends over, showing off the fruits of her labor, especially eventually when she got her dream home

and worked her ass off for it. She loved to have parties, but Rory was always this loose cannon. Who knew how he would act? He was diagnosed so early in the 90s and we know so much less about mental illness. And I pause on that because, you know, just personally, the word illness, I think, has such a big stigma to it. And when someone receives a label like that, that label in and of itself can be pretty

traumatic. And I don't even know if his labels are correct. You know, and with retrospect and perspective, it surely seems it. They weren't. But I think that mom knew with his imbalance whether it was a result of a direct diagnosis or not undiagnosed personality disorder, we just couldn't do that. She couldn't bring that joy into her space, So she let me go seek that joy outwardly And that kind of became the time you know, I started seeking myself figure out who I was and I kind of could Unfortunately our family went through a really devastating occurrence Mom had an accident at one of her schools at her school. I'm sorry

Actually oddly enough it was the day of my IQ test, now that I'm thinking about it, I was on her campus getting an IQ test when the fire trucks came up and my, the psychologist took me for a walk and years later I would find out that that walk was, so I wouldn't see the paramedics taking her away on a stretcher. She fell and tore a couple of ligaments in her, in her ankle and as a result had surgery, but that surgery they gave her a medicine. She was allergic to and she ruptured two discs in her back from throwing up for 18 hours.

It was just like the worst Murphy's Law series of events that caused her to be disabled, bed ridden, wheelchair bound, at best, for about three years. And that was at that very time, this was when Rory left high school. You know, again, he just didn't connect with any schoolmates, he didn't connect with any teachers. And at that point, the school system, I think, just was pretty much done with him. They asked him to leave. And he worked with minimal effort to get his GED, which is,

I think, I don't remember exactly what it stands for, but you know, he could exit high school with the equivalency test. So he left. Mom had this accident, and it was the perfect shit storm for our family. She was denied benefits. She wasn't given a nurse to do basic things. She had a hospital bed in our house. It's just, I laugh again, inappropriately, but like looking back, it's just almost ridiculous

and preposterous how much was going on for us in our own little tiny world. In our little rental house in Calabases, I think mom's accent aligned and all the incorrect surgeries and everything and her per actual extreme, the most extreme points of her disability were around when Rory was 18 and I was 15 and Rory was legally old enough to get out of the house. He was angry all the fucking time, you know, us at the world. He was angry. He didn't fit in school.

He was angry. He missed out on things. He was angry about everything. And this is probably around the time when he started collecting weapons. He started getting into, you know, he started to try to get a job, try to start his life. He would take a couple classes at the local community college, but he couldn't really sit in class and listen.

He'd always be like, I'm smarter than the professor. Um, the professor doesn't know anything or, or he would make excuses every, every semester, and drop out or complete a class and then nothing else. So he would try jobs, nothing but stick. I think he had one job in his entire life that lasted over a year and that was when he was like 16 at a movie theater. He couldn't hold anything down,

he couldn't make any money to pay mom rent, he was punching holes in walls, he couldn't fix any of the things, he was destroying our home, destroying our home life. And mom had no way of caring for herself and they were kind of stuck in this disgusting nurse ratchet misery type of situation where Rory had to take care of her. If he wasn't taking care for her during the day, he had to be home, he had nowhere else to go, he had no job, no car, no

license, he had to do things to take care of her or he was out. But when he did that, he did them miserably and mainly. And I think he started resenting mom even more at that point because it was like her disability, the limits that she was facing, they became hurt his limits too in a way. Not because they had to be, you know, I guess he could have gotten a job. Mom could have figured it out, but I don't know. He tried to get SSI, which is insurance from the government to help if you can't take a job. And he, he was deemed competent enough, so to work. So it was just this triple-edged, quadruple-edged, sorted situation where nothing was working for us. Meanwhile, mom still trying to find him outlets, like therapists. She even found him like a Tourette's camp to go to to find community.

He got kicked out of that. I don't, I think it was for relatively abusive language, you know, directed at people. Meanwhile, here I was, you know, I spent my four years in high school donating 3,000 hours of my time to the Sheriff's Department in Calabasis. And I guess I suppose I was always compensating to a certain extent, trying to get out of the house, and also compensating for my brother's inability to prove himself, perhaps. That was when the abuse got bad, but also Rory turned to, you know, he realized he wasn't gonna make it in the world by doing things the way we all do them or by following, you know, societies rules, if you will. And he started trying to just basically run scams. Now, if you can remember, when Craigslist was first popular man, like people were like, whoa, you can use it for this. And that was what he did, you know, he would find swords, he would find guns. I don't know if any of his guns were real.

He definitely shot me with a BB gun at one point. But he had means of getting anything he wanted. And now in retrospect, that scares the shit out of me. I definitely think that he, especially with all the animosity that was building inside of him, he kind of became that kid who, you know, he was only 18, 19 at this point, that kid who would have shot up a movie theater or a school. It's kind of mind-blowing to think about. So many people ask, well, what type of parents did those kids have?

And we always kind of want to look at the parenting to try to figure out what isolated experience created that person. But I really do think that it's just, as I said, a perfect shit storm of things. On top of obtaining illegal paraphernalia, guns, swords, knives, whatever he kind of wanted to get, I think there was like a grenade, fake or almost like used grenade he had. I don't know if that's possible or an empty grenade. Perhaps it was a replica and he just wanted me to think that it was, but part of it was instilling fear in others.

And I think that that's what people miss out on is that we always wanna look at the parents for the issue or isolate the terror and the hatred, but these people are results of a lot of things, and society enables them to a certain degree. Like, Rory, on Craigslist, I mean, he didn't hold down a job, but boy, he sure could find some opportunities on there.

Like scoring a bunch of absent. I remember one time he came home with bottles upon bottles of what he said was absent. It was labeled in a different language. And he, you know, had gotten it for cheap off of somebody from Craigslist and now was going to turn it and make a profit. Well, absent at that point was illegal. I don't think it's illegal now, but at that point, it was. And, you know, he didn't care. And he lied to mom and said something else. And the story was to me. And he like proved that it could be like on fire or whatever the test was. But

there was always a manipulation in his scam in his next scheme. I remember he brought a plant home and said he was going to grow in the back yard. He told his friends it was marijuana. He told mom it was Chinese Elm. He didn't even tell me. I found them and I remember this was not the day of the app where you could point your phone at something and figure out what it was, but I could Google at that point and I could find pictures of things and I wanted to know what he was doing this man with no green thumb and it was Chinese Elm it was not marijuana I had never seen marijuana at that point never had any experience with it but so he was actually just growing a plant that looked like it and he had planned to grow that in mom's backyard and then sell it to his friends and say it was marijuana. I know he also obtained pills somehow. Now, you know, eventually, in the MySpace days, he'd write

on his MySpace profile, you know, pharmaceutical distributor as his job. In essence, no, he was he was getting illegal drugs from Craigslist. I was actually prescription medication that he was reselling. I'm sure some of it was his to a certain degree and who's getting obtaining it, not taking it at times. And then you also just seeing what he could find on the internet, you know, the place is the deep dark place. By thinking in his head, he was thinking,

I'm gonna become this big mob man, like I'm gonna be the mob man of Calvassus. In his head, he was gonna be larger than life always, by climbing on top of other people. And when he realized he couldn't really get farther than mom's front door, you know, sometimes he'd get kicked out of it, but he'd always crawl back.

He would tell mom he was staying in his car. Now I've learned since that wasn't probably the truth. At times it was when Lauren's brother and Rory had falling out, which they both were kind of young, tough guys that had issues to pick up with each other. So that happened. Maybe he stayed in his car once or twice, but he told Mom he was always out there. And so he was always appealing to her and her heart and her heart strings. Here's Amy's close friend Lauren. I just remember at one point he wanted to go into the army and I

knew that Rory had an exceptionally high IQ and he learned how to fake a lie detector test. I don't know any normal, same person that takes the time to figure out how to fake a lie detector test. And that just really stood out to me, Hey, why would you do that? To go into the army and then he came out of the army, it's just sort of seemed like everything. He said you didn't know if it was the lie or the truth or what the truth really was. And I think that that started to be a really big red flag for me.

Here's Amy. Mom tried to involve the cops pretty early on, actually. As soon as Rory got physically stronger than she was, I would say. Now, we're all little people, but we're all kind of strong people too, from from strong stock. The first time he was arrested, I want to say, although those words are that term is very loose in the situation, was probably when he was 16, 17. You know, as I said, the violence just got worse, you know, from environmental abuse. It got physical towards us.

Again, mostly mom, but he would, if she asked him to do something around the house, you know, we were older by then. We had to pick up after ourselves. We had chores occasionally. My friends called me Cinderella because in Calabastas, I guess that wasn't quite normal to have chores, but and Rory sure resented mom for that. So you know fights would occur when a chore was asked to be done. And they would escalate because mom didn't really quite know how to diffuse the boundary or to explain to him how he wanted why he had to do chores and why she couldn't just

back down about it and he'd punch a hole in the wall. So she'd call the cops. Eventually the turmoil would became he'd shove her when they were fighting or slap her and she would call the cops and I think around that time he was taken to the Calabasas drunk take where they might take somebody who was weaving, you know, the worst tumult they were seeing was probably like a traffic violation. You know, he would get held there in the sheriff's station for a few hours, maybe half a day, a day. And because I don't, I guess, I don't even know why it wasn't worse at that point, because he was a juvenile. There was less they could do.

He was being hospitalized in between, and I guess mom, maybe she could have pressed charges, perhaps, but I don't know if she wanted to see him away that much. I think she wanted to try and try as much as she could. So he would come back within a few hours, maybe half a day a day again. He didn't really transition to jail time until I was in college. So that was about college. So that was about, gosh, five years of just taking him in, and maybe my time is off on that, but five years taking him in, hoping he'll cool down, and then just sending him right back out to us. So we would go through this vicious cycle of, we would see in Rory, like instantaneous mood swings. He would be absolutely calm one moment

or just like walking by us and then like slap mom out of nowhere. It was almost like he was reverting into being a child. Like he was like, I'm allowed this anger. I'm allowed to just hit, you know, he just forgot all social graces in our home. I think that Rory absolutely weaponized.

And, well, he used his diagnoses in a couple ways. You know, it was interesting. I saw in his manipulation, he would have these explosions, he'd have these episodes of extreme violence and causing damage to our home or even to mom. I mean, she was disabled and he was shoving her. So it could have gotten way worse at a certain point.

And perhaps maybe some of her disability was exacerbated by a fall with him. Who knows? All I know is that he definitely used to just a crutch, when he would ask to come back, when he would say, mom, it was just, I didn't take my meds that day, I forgot, or I just thought I didn't need them,

I promise I'll take them when I come back. It was an excuse that he could use to say, look, it wasn't me, it was my bipolar disorder. Now, that's not what mental illness is. I know that, I've studied it, you know, I'm, minimally, yes, I have my VA, but just in general, part of using that, that those, you know, his bipolar disorder, his OCD, his Tourette's as, you

know, excuses, if you will. You know, mom was sensitive to it. Of course, she's his mom. I'm a mom now. I tell my children, I will love them no matter what, and they give me all these circumstances, like, even if I, yes, baby, even if you because I know I have seen the strength of a mother's love but I also know that she was an educated woman. She had her masters in education. She was a teacher. She had taught actually kindergarten through 12th grade throughout her lifetime. So she had seen every stage. She had

throughout her lifetime. So she had seen every stage, she had been present for everything even in Rory's life and in other lives and other troubled youth. And she just, she couldn't give up on him. And she, I guess, enabled, that is the word, that's the term she enabled him, you know, that six-cycle of abuse to persist. One of my biggest... I try not to live with regrets, but one of my biggest regrets is not telling my mom about the extent of the abuse I faced at Rory's hands, because I think sometimes I stop myself and think, you know, like, what if I had done that, he would, she would never have let him back in, and that would have changed everything. he would she would never have let him back in. And that would have changed everything,

changed our whole lives. But I didn't. And I can't really play what it could have showed up because that's life. I just tried to learn as mom. I think mom taught me like learning was the whole point in life. Mom, she wasn't one to mince words. She always said one of her favorite statements,

which she had a lot, but one of them was, if pardon my bluntness, but it was mom's words, but stupid people never learn from their mistake, average people learn from their mistake, and smart people learn from other people's mistakes. So Amy, learn from my mistakes. So I think that she was just always thinking she was there to be a teacher, like for me, for Rory, and she could never give up on that. It was always her purpose in life to teach us, to mentor us.

And she was kind of like that with everybody. If she took you under her wings, you would always be there, no matter what. My mom never really fell out of love with my dad even. She never dated again in my entire life if that doesn't tell you anything. Mom, she believed a parent should be a best friend. I know authoritative versus authoritarian parenting and all that kind of different. But in essence,

a parent is supposed to be a mentor, you know, someone a guide, somebody to be there as a resource and loving and kind, right? And with boundaries, that's a friend in essence as well. So mom and I were going through a lot together. And I think at that point in life, we realized we used to say the three of us were best friends, but that wasn't really true. And we, the two of us realized we were really best friends, especially because we were going through this shit, this really dark, deep shit that no one knew about, especially in our community together.

With me, she gave me more freedom. She needed, she knew I needed to get out more. So that was when I started kind of finding my own way. Like I found dance, I found this, I found that. And she supported all of those things. I remember going to my first Mosh Pit, my first concert in like maybe ninth grade and I came home with torn pants and I was like scared.

This is the person who got blackmailed for a yearbook picture and she was like, did you have fun? And then told me my dad played at the Trubador, you know, that was his first gig and that was my first concert venue. There was also a paralelarity in mom, I guess, you could say, not in moods, but in just parenting.

And I think that I was allowed just a different avenue, a different path in life. I saw, it wasn't that she allowed me that. She showed me that path, that what we were going through, there was always going to be more outside of it. And I think that's what saved me. Rory liked to tell stories. He was like my dad in the sense. You know, my dad really liked a story.

He liked to make things a little bigger than they were sometimes. Same as Rory, although most of the time, if not all of the time. So when he said he went to the military, got into boot camp. That would obviously imply he somehow lied about his mental stability, because he had diagnoses and you have to reveal them. And I think that with all of his history, not his labels, but his with all of his history, not his labels, but his police history by that point. That would have been impossible. So when he started trying to go down the route of the military, the army specifically, I just remember him going away to a hotel for a couple.

I don't even know if this is the process. I have never joined the military myself, but I remember him going away for a couple days to a hotel supposedly then flying to boot camp and Calling mom crying saying I can't stay here, you know It was almost like his phone calls not to laugh again, but his phone calls from the jail And yes, he had been in the jail and the drunk tank by then so he was still somehow Getting himself into the military, even with that history. I believe that most of it was like covered up because he was a juvenile to a certain degree

they couldn't see it. I think I don't know what they have access to. And I don't know if this is all a lie. Literally Rory could have found a woman on the internet and just took up with her and tried to live with her and then found out it failed. I have no clue, but from our perspective, he was going trying to write his life. And mom was so proud of him. You know, like he was finally just going to try something. She almost felt like the military, even though like I don't know if she would have wanted him to go there,

the danger of going into combat, she supported it because she was like anything that would have given him promise. Anything that would have given him a future that he couldn't find here with us. Obviously, we were stuck in a cycle that wasn't healthy. We all could benefit from that healing space, but it never worked. The first time he called home, I was, I believe he said he was being targeted, he's got tattoos. I can't remember them exactly. It's been a while, to be honest, but I know he has got a devil on one side, on one shoulder, and a devil on the other, as to imply he doesn't have an angel balancing anything out on him. And his devil has wings on one side, and a halo on the other.

So basically, he can fake it till he makes it, but really inside he's the devil. But he also has a Jewish star somewhere on his body. I can't remember. I think it's on his shoulder. And appealed to mom by saying, I'm being picked on for being Jewish, get me out of here, I can't stay. And whether that was true or not, mom again wanted to save him because he was getting beat up and blah, blah, blah And, you know, I don't know what the truth is and what was not, but he came home. And the abuse continued and got worse. And then he tried the military again, supposedly. Again, I don't know how you would have gotten into the military for a second time and what

kind of manipulation he would have had to do to get that or to, to, to, it's like swing that. But his story to it's like swing that. But his story to us was he went back, maybe to the Navy. I'm trying to remember. I think I remember picking him up somewhere else this time. But where he had tried the military again, gotten sick. Oh gosh, he had pneumonia this time. And Lord, his cough was so bad.

And like, oh, the medics wouldn't treat him. And oh, he was, you know, it was always like a sob story. He always had an excuse outside of himself for mom, and mom was always trying to believe that the excuse was true. So she let him back in again. And that is the cycle of abuse, the release, the sob story, the welcoming back in. As he realized he couldn't keep making his way back into our lives as openly, you know, mom started having a little bit more rigid boundaries. She started seeing the reality of her future, I think,

like if the military didn't work, well, shit, maybe nothing will. And so she started, you know, if he wanted to come back in and he was even slightly argumentative or abusive in any nature, she would kick him out hard. So he started thinking, well shit, well if I can't get it from mom, can't find a place to live there, I need a girlfriend. At that point, he was a relatively attractive guy, I guess you could say, by society standards. And he used that. He could charm somebody and talk them sweetly, and he always kind of went for women who he

targeted. I, as I stated before, I am a sexual abuse survivor, not just isolatedly in this situation, too, unfortunately. And as my therapist have helped me realize abusers, people that hunt these, you know, victims down, they look for certain people and people who have been abused before, unfortunately, and that's what they look for. People who have boundary issues, I guess you could say. And that's where the grooming can happen.

And I guess he found girls to groom. Yeah, he started finding girlfriends, I guess you could say. And that's where the grooming can happen. And I guess he found girls to groom. Yeah, he started finding girlfriends, I guess you could say. He had one consistently long girlfriend, actually a few, now that I think about it. And they were always women with very low confidence, self-confidence, women who would give him anything immediately, basically. You know, they would give him money, they would let him live in their house. You know, they would give him money, they would let him live in their house within a week. He would tell them what they wanted to hear. I love you, you're gonna be my, you know,

my future wife and oh gosh, welcome in. And then he would treat him like shit to make them think that they didn't deserve the good behavior from anybody else. And then he'd give him the good behavior, just like us. And he found, you know, that comfort or that safe zone, I guess you could say the manipulation zone elsewhere, occasionally, when he could. He had a serious girlfriend in Arizona that he went and lived with for a bit that gave mom and I a little bit of freedom, but then he came back because

who wants to stand for getting abused physically, emotionally or verbally at all. And his hatred just grew towards women, towards people, towards the military, towards everything, and our abuse was compounded. Personally, I think how I survived those several years. Gosh, when I really like checklist it, it's just too much. But, you know, mom's disability, Rory's getting kicked out, Rory's attempts at suicide, Rory's hospitalizations, Rory's jail time. I think I found that there was so much more of a world outside of my home. My home life had been so consuming. I really used the opportunity in high school to figure out what I needed to find my own balance. So I could be the best person, you know, best person possible, but a fan fiction website. I wrote fan fiction for Corey Feldman in Night in 2000 like who does that? I you know I just did anything I threw myself into pop culture. I was picked on in

school as well to be honest you know a lot but I guess I just life had been so But I guess I just, life had been so harried already that it rolled off my back, like being picked on wasn't that big of a deal, I guess, in relation to everything else I had experienced. So I just, I found what made me happy internally. Stained glass, I found stained glass at that time. You know, I took stained glass all four years. I did whatever I could to find joy. I knew I had to cultivate it. Mom took stained glass all four years. I did whatever I could

to find joy. I knew I had to cultivate it. Mom told me it was out there, so I looked for it, and I found it everywhere I could. However, I couldn't really get that far, the nature of an abusive relationship. Even mom and I had boundary issues, too. Obviously, if I'm going to be mitigating some of that, that's a boundary issue as well, especially as I got older, I didn't even have the tools to be like, hey, this is not a role I should be taking on. I just took it on. So I couldn't really go away to college. I was limited in that.

Mom made it clear, not in a mean abusive way. And I guess in retrospect, it was probably my privilege that made me think it should be any other way. But mom said when it was college time, hey, you're paying for college yourself, have fun. You can get loans, you can apply for scholarships, you have, I had a 398 GPA, like I had worked my butt off, I had 4,000 hours of community service in the end,

I could have gone anywhere, I guess, I'm thankful I didn't, but I stayed local, I went to mom's alma mater, my dad's alma mater too, and I really just threw thankful I didn't, but you know, I stayed local. I went to mom's alma mater. My dad's alma mater too. And I really just threw myself into my studies and understanding what had just fucking happened in my past. What is Rory's life looking like at this time?

Because I imagine he sort of hated that for you. My winds were his losses. I never really thought as competition. I was never trying to beat him. It wasn't hard to beat him. Like he failed out of school. It was I was just trying to be the best me. He just represented every bit of toxic masculinity possible.

Rory's life was going nowhere. Right when I finished high school was probably around what he tried to enter the military for the first time. Now by that point, he had no driver's license. You know, he still was really limited on his freedom. So when I said he couldn't get out of our house, like he really couldn't leave much. He had a mo-ped a couple times, but he crashed that. I had my license. I had inherited. My first car was like, the last first car you'd ever want in Calabasas.

The joke is in Calabasas, the teacher parking lot is in worse shape than the student parking lot, meaning like the student cars are pristine and beamers and Mercedes and, you know, the teacher's cars are modest. And it's true, you know, there's a point of privilege, as I said, Roy didn't think he should do chores. We were being called Cinderella, for being doing chores,

you know, which is crazy to me now, as a parent who juggles a lot. So I think that from a point of privilege, you know, he was seeing these wins and he was thinking like, where am I? By the end of high school, you know, I'd gotten some honors awards. I had, I ran for like student body stuff and lost every single time, but I had grand ideas and

I attempted them and I guess I didn't let it knock me off course. And every time that happened, I guess you could say Rory allowed it to knock him off course. One instance that really slapped Rory in the face. I was 15 and he was 18, so this was actually going back a little bit, but I had just gotten my permit. And if this doesn't illustrate what type of woman my mom was, I don't know what to tell you, but she made me get all of my permit hours done in class first. Then I had to get all of my instructor driven like

hours done with the instructor in the car before I could drive with her. It was like by the book 100% all the time. So I got my permit just in time for mom to have her last surgery. And I remember driving mom and I drove her all the way to San Francisco to the specialist, you know, as a permanent driver, that was my first drive all the way to San Francisco to the specialist, you know, as a permanent driver, that was my first drive all the way to San Francisco. Rory was with us and he was just miserable and awful to us the whole time. It was like I was becoming mom's partner almost, you know, I was becoming the other adult.

And as I got older, Rory got emotionally younger, emotionally like younger in responsibility, younger in capabilities, and it was totally his own limitations. But that's how he saw it. You know, the more not only did the world hate him, but the world receiving me well was also hating him more. And I even see that in my kids right now, you know, I have little ones at eight year old and a five year old. And I'll say, I love you to one of them. And the other one will be like, well, do you love me? And I'm like, I'm very careful to say, yes, of

course, I didn't know you heard. But my saying I love you to one doesn't mean I don't love you. It's just the moment, you know what? And mom was sure to explain that, but no matter what she said or did, Rory heard and saw what he wanted. Here's Amy's close friend, Lauren. Growing up in Calabasas, I mean, it's something that a little kid can only dream of. It's very safe. You walk to your friend's house. After school, the neighbors, all the kids would go outside and play.

We never really had to worry about that. We never worried about kidnapping. We never really worried about anything like that. It was a very nice neighborhood, a lot of money, and now it's turned into a lot of older money. Really nice communities, houses that go all the way up into $20 million. You know where the Kardashians live and just in B where lives there and Britney Spears and Kaldasas has really turned into a very elite exclusive place when Amy and I were younger. It wasn't as much, but it was a very nice place

to grow up. Here's Amy. I think that part of Rory's anger, but it was a very nice place to grow up. Here's Amy. I think that part of Rory's anger, part of his volatility, part of his just extreme displeasure with life and how things were playing out was because he felt it should be different.

He was purely entitled. Now, in retrospect, even I was entitled. Calabasis is a weird place. Like, I remember telling my momabas is a weird place. I remember telling my mom, I wanted a red beamer for my first car. And my mom just laughed. She was like, do you know how much that costs? Go look it up.

Then find out how many insurance costs. Then go, you know, and see, do you want to spend your $800 a month you make from your job to go get a red beamer? No, I don't. So coming from there, there's just no real perception of reality and what how things come much things cost, how much we should really actually be given or work for. And I think that Rory always started from a point of, I am do this. I'm so smart. He saw everybody else get everything. They didn't have to work for that hard. There is no way that where we grew up

did not have an impact on him and what he expected out of life. And what he expected from mom. I think he was angry that we came from a single parent family that his dad wasn't there in paying child support. So we didn't have the means to get everything we wanted. He was do more. paying child support. So we didn't have the means to get everything we wanted. He was do more. Even Rory's friends, again, because he targeted them, he would generally target kids who had more money, who had the flashy cars he wanted to drive in that he couldn't have himself. I think that who he chose to surround himself with were kids who probably got a lot. We're given a lot. And he kind of did that on purpose so he could get stuff out of them Clearly if he's living at Lawrence dad's house, he's getting some out of his friendships. He's using

people and he's picking people he can use because he thinks he deserves it he deserves Gosh, you know, he hasn't gotten it up until now. He should just take it from someone else. If they're willing to give it, even if he's using manipulative means. Here's Amy's close friend, Lauren. And the fact that he stayed with my dad, there was one time actually that my dad called me and he said, I don't know if Rory's on drugs or what's going on, but I'm scared of him. He seems not well. And Rory really looked at my dad as his second dad and as a father figure

because he didn't really have a father figure in his life. So from my dad to call me and say, there's something not right here that really imprinted in me that things things are wrong things are just not not right. Next time. You don't know me well. You think you know me, you don't know me well at all. Something was wrong is produced and hosted by me, Tiffany Rees. Music on this episode from Glad Rags, check out their album, Wonder Under.

If you'd like to help support the growth of something is wrong, you can help by leaving a positive review, sharing the podcast with your family, friends, and followers, and support at patreon.com slash something was wrong. Something was wrong and now has a free virtual survivor support form. At something was wrong.com, you can remain as anonymous as you need. Thank you so much for listening. Get a roll of your letter You think you know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, you don't know me, they don't need me, you don't know anybody until you don't Don't know Hey, Prime members, you can listen to something was wrong early and add free on Amazon Music.

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