Welcome to Fit to Be Real and a little extra.
This is Carly's favorite day because it is all about her.
Yes, but yes, but yes.
Ooh, no, it's all about her, but it's like not necessarily like a lighthearted story, right?
I'm going to make it lighthearted.
I'm going to make it like, yeah, coping mechanism is to use laughter.
Yeah, that's good.
Yeah, we'll laugh through it.
Yeah, laugh through the pain.
Keeps from crying, you know, she doesn't like to do that.
So a few episodes ago, Carly volunteered both of us to give an inside scoop and spill the tea.
Spill in the tea.
I did my history of wrong guys.
So now we are on Carly's big tea, little tea, definitely big tea that you won't admit trauma.
It's because it's not, I won't admit it because it's not trauma.
I think you save the trauma for your mama.
See how I'm starting off real strong.
All the drama.
Yeah.
It's just something that happened that, you know, I haven't gotten over yet.
On that note.
I'm Victoria.
Hey guys, I'm Carly.
Hello listeners.
Is it annoying that we laugh every time?
Every single time.
Because I think, I think that it's going to change and I net and it just comes out the same every single time.
So then I think it's funny.
Oh good.
Well, at least we all now know how the process works.
Carly, this is your moment to shine.
Oh, we're going all the way back to 2001.
Graduates in eighth grade in 2000.
No, this is 2004.
Correct.
Believe it or not.
It was the year before I met Andrew.
Isn't that crazy?
What?
I met Andrew in 2005.
This was my senior year of high school 2004.
You were 19 in 2005.
Yeah.
The next summer I met Andrew.
The next summer.
After my senior year of summer, I met Andrew the next summer.
Yeah.
And that, which is the same year.
Yeah.
Time is weird.
Isn't that crazy?
That, that does feel a little bit crazy because I was this to me feels like a high school memory for you.
But Andrew doesn't feel like a high school memory.
No, but he was around.
Well, I'll get to that later, but he was around for the aftermath of it.
Oh, a teaser.
I'm laughing because no, I'm alive.
And I did not get physically harmed.
Right.
So I can laugh about it now.
While I was going through it, we were not laughing.
It was not funny.
And it was very scary.
But I, so I don't want you to think that I'm like making it a joke.
It's, well, time has passed and things are different.
Yeah.
And what you just described is a trauma.
So thank you.
Thank you so much.
Wonderful.
It all was 2004.
I was just saying, I was just going to say it all begins.
We listen to a lot of murder podcasts and I don't know what came before the chicken or the egg.
Like, I don't know if I became obsessed with murder podcasts after this happened.
Like, or murder in general.
Like, you know how I've always said to you, I know how I'm going to die.
I'm going to get killed and everyone's like, stop saying it because it'll come true.
I don't know if I started saying that before this or after.
I don't know.
It was after this, but not directly.
Like all of a sudden you were, I don't know.
I don't know.
It was a little bit after we always watched law and order SVU.
We did.
We always watched those things separately together.
I was big into murder.
She wrote when I was like eight sitting in the living room pop up.
So like mystery was always my thing.
I was into Oprah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Very different.
And then it switched.
But I would, I would venture to say it was after.
Yeah.
I hate to tell you, but it's called a symptom of trauma.
You know, you know, I mean, who doesn't think they're going to get killed?
That, that is, that is, I think my number one, number one and two fear.
My number one fear, I think I'm going to get murdered.
My number two fear is that I'm going to fall off a bridge and drown.
We've talked about that.
So none of your fears have to do with your children.
Well, being murdered, I mean, you know, I have a lot of doors on my house and I have a lot of cameras.
So that doesn't have anything to do with my kids, but I am prepared if somebody does come in.
Yeah.
And after this story, you're going to hear how that makes sense.
And she's avoiding it because she is anxious, avoidant, but we digress.
Yeah.
All right.
The year was 2004.
I was a senior in high school, living my best life.
Super popular as a theater show kid could be.
Okay.
No, for a, for a, no, I mean, that's true.
I was as popular as a theater kid could ever be.
You were in all the groups.
You were friendly.
Yes.
I was on student council.
I had friends.
I in more or less words was popular to each group.
I wasn't best friends with all the popular kids, but they liked me.
I liked them.
We didn't hang out, but you know, whatever.
I was popular-ish, but you were also friends or friendly with all the non-popular kids.
Sure.
You went to prom with one of them.
I went to prom with a few of them.
I was like, what's that called?
Like a serial date.
A serial prom date.
I would go to proms before, like I sometimes I didn't even know the guy that I went to
until the night of the prom because somebody's friend would be like, oh, you need a date.
Oh, Carly, I'll go with you at different schools, at different schools.
And I would just borrow friends, dresses, and I would go to prom with them.
Like I was very friendly.
I knew everybody's name that wasn't popular.
Just like I started them now, I'm like, oh, would you do this weekend?
Like I know where everybody was every weekend.
You're the stalker, but it's fine.
That's totally fine.
I real quick tidbit about this prom.
Oh, shut up.
I know what you're going to say.
Series.
I know exactly what you're going to say.
Was he Bonner?
He was Bonner.
So a local parochial boy school, I can see you in your dress and I can see your early
2000s hair slicked back in an up and down with two tendrils right at your eyes.
Like I remember being like, oh my gosh, she got her hair straightened.
Oh my gosh.
And she shut up.
We're all standing or sitting or in the living room at the bottom of the stairwell,
obviously, and he, this kid who's like not talking, super quiet, super shy, very awkward,
which is like, as you would as a walking into a house of people you don't know with a date
you've never met.
Yeah.
And Carly trips down the stairs and lands at the on the floor on her knees next to him.
Like in her dress, everyone stopped breathing.
Like there was a moment of like, and then we didn't know the reaction you would have
and you looked up and you were like, hi, I'm Carly.
Oh my gosh.
That's where it comes from.
Oh my gosh.
I literally was like, hi, Mike, I'm Carly.
Oh my God, that's right.
That's where it started.
The awkward, like I just tumbled.
I mean, I am so lucky.
I did not break my ankle, break my face.
Like it was bad, but like solid on both knees.
No phones at this point.
I was like a sophomore in high school when I went when I did that.
I didn't have a phone, no phones, no like cameras, nothing.
Just the memory.
And it's so vivid.
It's so vivid for me too.
I mean, I took one step down our steps at mom's house and I held on to the banister
for dear life and just tumbled and slid down the steps and was like, oh my God, oh my God.
I looked up and I literally said, hey, Mike, I'm Carly.
And everyone held their breath.
That's right.
Yeah, that happened.
I was like, I'm a very intentional icebreaker, but that is Carly's like M.O.
Unintentional awkward icebreakers to make everyone else feel comfortable while she's dying on the inside.
Yep.
Oh, I died on the inside for sure.
So in any case, this was that same year.
No, no, that was sophomore year.
This happened senior year.
So it was 2004.
Oh my God.
I think we got it.
So we've gotten to the point.
I'm friends with everybody.
Everybody knows me.
I was freshman to senior year, whatever.
And you are very well integrated into the musical theater shows.
Yes.
So I was one of the leads in the theater show.
I got along with all of the stage crew, a stage crew or my friends.
And then our pop gave me a Nokia phone.
That's our grandfather.
Our grandfather gave us gave me a Nokia phone my senior year, like the brick.
Think of Saved by the Bell.
It was huge.
You could only play Snake on it.
It was blue, right?
No, it was red.
Because he got a new cell phone.
So he gave me that.
And that was my first cell phone at 18 at 18.
Because I got my cell phone at 18 because my mom was begging me to drive.
She was like, I will give you a cell phone if you get your license.
Because I hated driving.
So I was like, fine.
So I was like, 12.
I was like, I'm out of here driving.
I hated it so much.
So he gave me a cell phone.
I had my cell phone my senior year.
And all of a sudden I started getting these text messages from a number I didn't know.
Which is new.
You sing was new and you had to pay her letter.
50 cents a text message.
Yes.
Yeah.
So like you only really texted, hey, I need to be picked up.
Hey, there's an emergency stuff like that.
It wasn't like it is now.
And that's how you who were not alive at the time.
But that's the only reason I was allowed to have a phone if I drove because it was for emergencies only.
Right.
And you really weren't even allowed to have it in school.
So I didn't bring it to school.
Yeah.
So I was getting these text messages and for those of you who don't realize this, sometimes you get a text message with like 97 numbers.
It'd be like 1111127 blah, blah, blah.
So it wasn't from a person.
It was from something or a computer or whatever.
But it would tell me what I was doing at that exact moment.
Right.
And I would be like looking around like I'd be at home.
And I would get this text message saying, I really love what you're wearing right now.
And I would see what she was wearing.
So it didn't make sense.
Grandfather sweaters and like, it was rough.
But so I would get these text messages more and more often that were very specific to what I was doing at the time.
So if somebody wasn't watching me or knew my schedule or knew me, I mean, I thought somebody was like watching me.
Yeah.
That's all I could think.
So all of a sudden this started happening to this other girl in the show.
She was on stage crew.
I mean, I was friends with her, but she didn't have many friends.
Well, she was like that was she the stage manager.
She was the stage manager.
So she was.
Yeah, she was like the big man on campus for those who don't know like the hierarchy of theater.
She she ran the show.
She was in charge of putting the microphones away at the end of the night, putting the microphones on the actors before the show, taking them off of the actors after the show.
And kind of like the director's pet.
Yeah.
That's what a stage manager is.
And that's who this this girl was.
Yeah.
And so we became friends and she started getting text messages to when she would show me and it would be from the same like random 12 digit number that didn't really exist.
And she was getting these text messages that said like, oh, when you walk down the hall today, I noticed that you had blah, blah, blah in your hair.
And we'd be like, what?
So we spent a lot of time together.
We got really close.
Well, you were going through the same thing at the same time.
I mean, frightening.
The administration at our school got involved.
Detectives got involved.
The police got involved and nobody could track where these text messages were coming from.
I remember the show is Oklahoma because I was in this squad as a freshman.
Oklahoma, for those of you don't know, it is like country.
It's obviously a musical, but it's it's in Oklahoma.
So it was a period piece.
There were guns.
There were there was a lot of things involved.
And I remember the priest at the time who was no longer a priest, actually, he left the priesthood.
No way.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Well, this makes sense.
Yeah.
And in the gym, assembling before like a show or a school performance, I honestly don't
remember.
And he had the show gun in his hand, which is a fake gun, but it makes a noise when it's
clicked.
So you still have to be like really safe with it.
And he put it up.
He said something like, once we find who this is.
Because everybody knew about it.
He like put the gun in the air and he shot it.
Uh huh.
Everyone was rallying against this person to like find them and find justice.
Everybody knew about it because prom had the lights off.
No, it was snowball.
Snowball had the lights on on because we got a text message saying, you look so beautiful
in your black and gold dress right now and you're standing next to my date who was Pat.
You guys look so good together.
So I had to run up.
I think about this.
Another text said you could have hugged them better or that hug could have been a little
bit better.
Mm hmm.
So like creepy things, like creepy things.
And so I had to run and tell one of the teachers, they turned the lights on.
I mean, I had police walk me to my classes and the other girl had to be walked to classes
because it was somebody in school.
They could see.
And to the car.
And they, we had, I had a police escort backstage after I would come off of stage and I had
to like switch my mics or get changed.
There was a police officer standing off the stage because we had a detective involved
and the scary part back then was they couldn't trace where the messages were coming from
because they were coming from a Yahoo account.
So Yahoo like doesn't really exist anymore.
I don't know.
Like Yahoo.com or whatever.
Yahoo.
That's what it sounded like.
I know.
So you could send messages through an email account and it will never be traced.
You can't do that anymore, but you could back then because it was so new.
They didn't have the technology to it.
So they couldn't trace it.
So all they could do was follow me around.
So I was getting walked to English class.
I was getting walked to this class.
I was getting walked to the car off stage.
Like it was all day, all night getting these text messages.
We both were.
So yeah, the lights were on at snowball.
Unfortunately for my whole senior class because they, the person was there.
They were like, Carly, not again.
But all of the administration was, you know, trying to help me because I was.
So then my grades started failing.
Like I started failing English and because I was nervous.
I'm sitting in class waiting for my phone to ring to say that the person can see me
in English class.
Like, yeah, it's not a trauma though, you know.
So then time came for us to go to Kyros for anybody that doesn't know what Kyros is.
It's a religious retreat where you go away for three days.
You are not allowed to have cell phones and you basically bond with your, your class,
your senior class, which is mixed of people that you probably wouldn't have really been
friends with.
And then what I understand, I didn't go on it, but.
So I, oh, that's right.
Football players are friends with like the band kids and everybody's mixed and you just
like bond to whatever happens in Kyros.
Yeah.
And you come home from Kyros and like your best friends with exactly like the football
quarterback and you are the horn player of the band and it and people just accept that
and it's awesome.
It's a great thing for kids to go on.
So as we're about to go on, they said, you have to bring your cell phone.
You are not allowed to leave it.
You, the police said me and the girl had to bring our cell phones in case of emergency
because we were getting texts nonstop.
So then my detective called my mom and said, I want you to, because this girl and I was
supposed to room together to protect ourselves and stay close.
She asked for it.
She requested to room with you from what I remember.
So the detective said, she's, you know, me, we are not to room together.
You guys need to separate.
I have a bad feeling.
I want you to room with somebody else and I want you to keep yourself on close.
So this girl was not happy about that.
That's right.
Isn't that crazy?
And so that got me nervous because this girl that I have been like hugging and being like,
we're so scared.
We're so scared.
All of a sudden I'm not allowed to be with her.
The detective has a bad feeling.
She a senior.
She was a senior and police had to come to Kyros with me, but I'm also making a lot of
friends that I'd never really talked to and they are, I'm talking about this.
Everybody knows about it.
We're becoming very close.
Everybody on Kyros was like, we're going to find this person.
We're going to, you know, it was 2004.
We're going to egg their house.
We come back.
I get very sick.
I stay home from school and Victoria.
So I'm a freshman and it was the auditions for the senior spring show and I was, I had
to go in later because I had to, you want to audition?
Yeah.
You were, yeah, you were taken ill, but I had a note that was in my locker that said,
your sister's going to die today.
And I took her right down to the disciplinarian office and they fingerprinted it and turns
out mine were on it.
Victoria.
It was me.
It was Victoria.
No, it was the other girl that this was happening to.
Now we're going to call her Betty.
Betty.
Now you would think that we should have known that it was Betty all along because Kyros
up until Kyros, we didn't have an inkling, not even a little bit.
I mean, our parents were, we were all crying together every day.
Her dad was a police officer.
So I forgot about that.
So we had so many police involved where together all the time, the more text messages we got,
the more we were together, right?
At the police station, at school, we were, we were just put group together.
So when Kyros happened and we were told to separate because our detective had a feeling,
it started to unravel.
She got angry.
Yeah.
Like she got very angry because then I got nervous because they put it in my head that
it was her.
Yeah.
Thank God.
I started to pull away.
I wasn't at school.
So she put it in Victoria's locker.
The only reason they caught her was because of the fingerprints.
From the note.
So nobody had told me yet.
So I auditioned.
I crushed it.
I mean, crushed it and I'm sick and I'm like, this is my seat.
This is what I've been working towards.
What show is it?
Do you remember?
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcatcher.
And I was like, this is my time.
Like this, I have paid my narrator.
Yeah.
I've paid my dues.
This is my time.
My director knows this.
Like this is the varsity basketball that I put in my work for.
And the director had coach, you had gone through a lot to put your name in the running.
For sure.
To keep going with like the up and up on getting leads and stuff.
But as it turns out, the person that did this to me, Betty, was his right hand man.
Yeah.
Girl.
So I got an ensemble and I couldn't believe it.
Not only did we find out who it was, but I got pushed down the ranks to girl from the
left.
And I was like, I am going to New York to do this for a living.
Like, are you kidding me?
And I'm a freaking amazing.
But it wasn't just that.
It was the fact that everyone in the administration had rallied behind you and us and everyone
that was affected by this.
And then when they found out that it was the director's little pet, they, oh, what?
It's not a big deal.
The detectives came and interrogated her.
No.
The detectives came.
She got taken out of school.
To school right away.
Yeah.
She got taken to the police station and I, and she was back the next day in school.
She was supposed to be suspended.
She wasn't allowed to walk at graduation.
So like these were, that was all.
She was supposed to be suspended for a specific amount of time that was lengthy and she would
miss a few things that was within their suspension.
She wasn't allowed to walk at graduation.
And no prom.
And no senior prom.
She came back within three days to school.
She went to prom.
She walked with everyone.
It was like it never happened.
Like it never happened.
Brushed under the rug and you're going to tell me this isn't a trauma.
Listen to what you're saying.
Well, I think I'm traumatized.
I left the school.
Yeah.
Victoria left the school because she was so angry.
I went public.
I went to public school.
It was amazing.
Oh, you, I'm so jealous though, because you had such a great high school experience.
But yeah, she was back and I, after getting walked to class by police officers, it was,
there she was in the hallway again and there I was and I was scared to death.
I mean, yeah, what happened?
I like, imagine if you got a note that saying that you were going to die after all this
togetherness, all this like, and then it turns out to be your friend.
And then they, I remember them asking her, why did you do this?
And she said, because she gets everything and I get nothing.
I don't remember that.
And I was like, you took, and because she said that, that's why I didn't get the lead.
That's why I didn't get the lead because they started taking things away from me.
I started getting punished.
I got the lead of my senior year taken away from me.
I had, I ended up quitting choir.
Like it was one of those things where I like went into a depression and I stopped showing
up for things.
I was so angry and hurt that the people that I looked to to take care of me in this situation
completely abandoned me.
Like my whole high school just stopped.
Yeah.
And then so I quit the choir.
I quit the show.
I did two things that I loved.
And these sound, it sounds very small scale.
When you say choir and the show, but as a senior of four years of putting in your dues
and creating a name for yourself in, I mean, would you do it to the quarterback?
Would you take away the final game?
Would you take away his seat because he was a victim to something like it was just such
a, such a shock that the administration and the police.
Yeah, and the police did nothing because her dad was a police officer.
And but the art, so the detective was a friend of ours.
Yes.
And she was the reason why this stopped.
And she was the reason why this was found.
And I think she did everything she could do.
She did.
But because the high school was not in Springfield where we lived, where her jurisdiction is,
she could not do when her hands were tied.
It was marble.
Oh, wow.
So she could, she did everything she could, but she was like, I can't like, do you want
her arrested?
I remember her saying, do you want her arrested?
I'll arrest her.
And I was like, no, because then it makes me look like the bad person, but like, here
she is walking down the hallways and I'm freaking out ducking into classrooms.
Yeah.
You know, so then my grade started failing.
I had gotten into temple.
This is why she can't count in class, guys.
So be a little nicer when she can't count, pass four or on the beat.
This is why.
This is why I am the way I am.
I had to have our state representative write me a letter to college that I had gotten accepted
to because my grades dropped from A's to C's.
I stopped going to class.
I was in the, you know, like hiding in different rooms.
I stopped studying because I was like, I just was so upset.
Well, you were nothing mattered anymore.
No, I didn't care.
Everything I had worked for my whole life up until this point was taken away from me
because somebody else did something to me, but I got punished.
So the state representative wrote me a letter to say, tell me like vouch for me and say,
I know what her grades look like right now.
She's been through something.
Please don't.
What is it?
Like I have not.
I have not.
I've analyzed her for.
Yeah, because I had just gotten in.
I hadn't gone yet, but so that's the only reason I got into college was because he had
to be like, this isn't really a reflection of her.
So she was like, let's see if I can do this six more colleges and get it.
So she did.
But if you ever went to, if you ever went to high school, you know how important like
the last mass is or the events, like even if you're not Catholic, you have like the
barbecue or the big like the quiet.
Like for me, it was the choir, we sang at the mass and we all got solos, nothing.
I got all my solos taken away from me.
I got, um, she got to walk at graduation.
So it was just like a very sad time for me.
And the people in charge could have cared less when they found out who it was.
Had it been anybody else, there would, it would have been issue, but they found out
who it was.
It was dead silence.
Literally like they turned around and walked away and I never spoke to them again.
And Victoria ended up leaving the high school.
I'll never forget walking into the office with mom to tell them I was done, which I
can't really believe that that happened.
But I remember walking in and sitting down and he looked at me and he said, I know why
you're here.
And I just started crying.
And I think there was obviously a full conversation after that, but I don't remember one word
that happened.
It just was, I lost faith in this place.
Yeah, because it nobody was protecting us.
I like all of those people, all of my friends.
I kept one.
What's up, Colleen?
And but it's not about me.
Like that was, it just was such a ripple effect to how big of a deal this was.
Yeah, is the only reason I'm a part of the story.
And I mean, I remember being scared when I got the note that you were going to die.
Yeah.
I mean, oh my God.
Also, I remember being in our basement with Pat and we were like watching something on
TV or we're singing karaoke and I would get a text message.
My phone would light up and my heart would stop when it would light up green because
it wasn't okay with like light up green and my heart would stop because I knew I knew
who it was.
No one else next to her.
That's exactly right.
I didn't know who it was, but I knew it was something bad and it was like, I hope you're
enjoying your time with Pat right now.
And I'd be like, oh my God, I was like, Pat, look in the like we would run out of the house,
get my mom, look all around like the windows.
But it was because she knew I was with Pat because I would tell her, I would tell her
these things.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, Pat's coming over tonight.
Well, don't you know, she would and she in the ones in school, she timed.
So that's right through a Yahoo account.
You can time text messages.
So she would time them when she knew I was in English class, knew who I was sitting next
to and text about that.
So she wasn't necessarily doing it in the moment for you to be like, who's looking at
me?
She, yeah.
Oh my gosh, I forgot about them being time.
And all because she was mad that I got things, that I got everything and she got nothing.
And I was like, there's more to it.
She clearly had a mental health issue, whatever that is, whether who knows if that's ever
been addressed and I know she is around.
I don't know.
But I what I was going to say is I graduated.
My mom was, I mean, my mom went out to school every single day and was like, at the very
least she better write a letter of apology.
Like something, something to say, I'm sorry for this.
Like I'm nothing.
We never heard from her parents again, who we were with every day.
Never.
It was radio silence.
Do you think they knew that it was her the whole time?
I don't think so because we were so police officer though.
But you couldn't trace it.
You couldn't trace it.
But you could time it.
Like that's absurd.
I don't know.
But you couldn't.
I remember the detective being like, we'll never find it.
We'll never.
We can't do it this way.
We got to figure out a different way.
Yeah.
But she just had a gut feeling about, about her for a bar.
Thank God.
I know.
Imagine if I had to stay in the room with her for four days.
Well, I, so something that comes back to my head when we talk about this, which we don't
usually talk about.
No, we never talk about this.
We only talk about this when people want us to be very high spirited about the school
and we don't want to be.
And then we get judged and we get kind of berated for the fact that we don't have pride in,
in this specific high school because we didn't have a good experience and we need to get
over.
Truly, we need to get over this experience.
It was so long ago.
You guys need to get over it.
I'm like, ooh, you're like, okay, yes, there's a, there's a part of growth and getting over,
which she's getting to.
But that doesn't mean you have to be like, yeah, it was a great high school.
It was a great this.
Like, I don't have to support the high school now.
No, sorry.
Don't have to.
But yeah, something that I remember is that she, yes, what if you had roomed with her
at Kyros?
She was putting your microphone down your costume.
Oh my God, I was just going to say that.
And I like that's the only way she was in a bustled dress.
You know, like you do.
And she was like up, up in your face talking to you being friendly.
I mean, for a stage manager and an actor, that's not a big deal.
It's really, it's the job.
Yeah.
And looking back and being like, she had to take my dress off.
She had to put it down my bra.
She had to do this.
And I was like, is that what she wanted?
Like, yes, was this a sexual thing?
Yeah.
Like, is that, is that why, you know, I don't know.
We don't have any answers.
She never, no, no, she, I never looked in her face or talked to her ever again.
And I had to go to high school with her for three more months.
Yeah.
So the people that did rally behind me were the kids, the 500 kids in my class.
Yeah.
Especially the ones I had made over Kyros.
Because they were like, we're going to go egg her house.
And I had to be like, no, please don't, don't, because then that makes me look even worse.
Like I was already the victim, already the one that looked like it was my fault.
Like I brought this on myself.
No, they were just telling you as your fault.
Well, yeah.
So it was just like a whole thing.
And I, she went to college.
I went to college and I happened to meet Andrew near her college.
I Andrew and I were at the mall a year later, a summer later after senior year, I went to
college.
It was the next summer.
It was the mall.
Yeah.
There's nothing to do in Shawnee other than like go to the mall.
So like we went to the mall, the Pocono mountains.
I, and guess what?
I had just met Andrew like two months before.
Now we're pretty, we're pretty close at this point.
When you're in theater and you've known somebody for two months, it's like you've been together
for two years.
Because it's a condensed time.
It's 24 hours a day for two weeks at a time, living in the same house with people you don't
know, but you meet.
So all of a sudden you're a family.
Yeah.
So he's my boyfriend.
He's 97 years old.
He didn't know it.
He didn't want it.
He didn't know it.
But all of a sudden we're at the mall and I, I literally fall to the ground and hide.
And he's like, what are you doing?
And I start screaming and I was like, hide me, hide me.
She's freaking in the mall.
So because she goes to college there and this grant.
So she, I had seen her in the mall and I never thought that I would ever react that
way.
I just thought like it was a year later, I had gotten, I thought I'd gotten over it.
And I was like, it was like I had seen a ghost or a murderer or something.
And I ducked to the floor, got my coat above my head and I was trying to hide from her.
And she, I know she saw me, but like that was the last time I ever saw her.
And Andrew was like, I'm going to marry this girl.
She's not crazy.
I was like, I have to tell you a story that happened to me last year for you to understand
what's going on right now.
But yeah, that's my, it's something that I think goes deeper than just like, oh, I was
getting text messages for four months.
You know, it was the fact that I stopped trusting anybody.
Like the people that adults that I thought were protecting me ended up abandoning me,
like abandoning me.
It's called an abandonment trauma.
Like I'm partially kidding because like we, that's what we do, but that's what it is.
So it's an abandonment that is so deeply sewn into you, something you have to work on, which
you have, you have.
Yeah.
However, you haven't because that's where, that's where like, there's so many ways to
respond to it, but like that's I think where you could only control what you can control.
But that's where some of your, what do you call it?
You're not high strung, but like you are a reactive person.
I'm very reactive.
It's hard for you to slow down and to breathe like all the things that we laugh about, but
it really does stem from this.
So jokes on you.
Yeah.
Jokes on me.
I think what is hard or what was hard at the time was like being walked to class by
a police officer because of the threat was so real.
And then the next day, everything was gone.
I had no police and I had no protection and I was like, Oh my God, I'm alone now.
Why you think you're going to get murdered?
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
I know that I think I'm going to get murdered from this situation.
Trauma doesn't mean abuse.
I mean, it can and for a lot of people it does unfortunately, but trauma can be abandonment.
Yeah.
That's a trauma.
I think, yeah, especially when I was only 17, 18 years old.
Yes.
And I'm like looking at these people that protect me and then nobody was and then there
she is.
I'm legit scared of her.
If I saw her today, I think I that trigger, I would duck and hide.
I think I would still.
Sure.
I would.
I think all the class one.
I yeah, I think I would still do the same reaction I had the year after it happened.
Yeah.
But no, therapy is not necessary.
Well, because I can laugh about it now and be like, oh my God, that was so scary.
I thought I was I was getting stopped and it was called cyberbullying before cyberbullying
was a thing.
It was true.
True.
I mean, if you I'm going to post a picture of my Nokia phone that it was happening on.
I was playing snake and getting stopped.
Those are the only two things that happened on that phone and we'll post the pictures
of our Oklahoma cross.
I killed it in that show, too.
But I do like to compare it to this for people that are like you you lost out on the senior
year show.
Carly, no one's reacting like that.
Like no one's going to think I'm going to speak for all of you.
Relextras out there.
No one's going to hear this and be like, this is not a big deal.
This was a big deal.
No, I know it was.
I know it was.
I mean, I know it was.
Do you know it was?
I know it was.
Oh, when you say it like that is different.
But for people that don't know theater, but they know sports, it was like I came in hot
my freshman year, like I got a part.
So it's like going in freshman year and playing for varsity.
And you're like, this chick is going to kill it once she gets a senior sophomore year,
getting parts on still in varsity junior year.
I'm playing like I am starting on the basketball team as a junior.
There's only going up from here like senior year.
I'm going to get recruited senior year.
I'm getting a scholarship senior year and then getting to senior year.
And then I don't even make the team.
Like I don't even make the.
Why?
Because someone else said she doesn't deserve to be on the team.
And they were like, oh, yeah, you're right.
She gets too much.
Everybody likes her.
It's somebody else's chance now.
So I don't even make the team.
And it's just really good analogy.
You like that?
I'm impressed.
Do you want to know something?
I'm impressed.
I've been thinking about that analogy since my senior year.
How to explain that to somebody.
Right.
I've been thinking about that and I'm like, well, nobody's going to ask me now.
It's been 20 years.
But I've been thinking about that analogy for 20 years.
And now I get to tell somebody.
Well, it's happening for a reason.
Maybe that's why I went to four colleges.
I didn't know what, like who knows?
You were honestly, you were lost.
You were lost because everyone lost you.
Like everyone let you wander once this was discovered and they were like, oh no, you're
on your own.
Like this is not a big deal.
Yeah.
Everybody diminished what happened.
I don't think I've ever been depressed, but that was like the closest to depression.
I mean, I don't, I didn't do my hair.
I didn't wear makeup.
I was just going through the motions.
I wanted to get out of there.
I wanted to get out.
Depression.
Yeah.
That's depression.
But I had Pat and Pat was like.
That's depression.
He was like, he was my best friend at the time and I was like, forget high school.
I am over this.
I just want to go to where he's going and I want to be with him.
So I went to temple and that was, and then I went to three other colleges because I shouldn't
have gone there.
But at the time I was like, I need to get out of here.
Yeah.
That's my story.
That is Carly's history of why she thinks I'm going to get murdered.
Ah, why she is the way she is right now.
She's murdered at some point.
She's murdered.
But that's, okay.
Well, that's another issue for another day.
What I am being called right now to say and to twist the story or finish the story with,
just like I said, trauma doesn't have to be an abuse.
Depression doesn't have to mean that you can't get off the couch.
We all have these stigmas of what these words mean.
Anxiety doesn't mean that you are shaking at all times and you can't move around.
Everything has levels.
And if we all kind of take a moment when things like this get talked about or you're
experiencing it with somebody else in different ways, they're not scary words.
Depression, anxiety, trauma.
They're scary if you ignore it and they're scary if it gets worse because you're ignoring
it and there are levels to it.
So there's slight to extreme.
And I think yours was all somewhere in the middle, but it was real.
Yeah.
Definitely.
I think I have that kind of ripple effect of anxiety.
I am always scared that somebody's watching me.
You know this.
I always have this fear that something or somebody is watching me or maybe I do have
too much, so I want to pull it back a little bit.
Where before I felt like I was just me, but she said I had too much.
And I think I am very aware that that was not true.
I'm very aware, but there's always something in the back of my mind was like, did I?
Was I, you know, there are people that don't have the personality that I had, so they don't
get as much as that fair.
But as much as you can tell yourself that that stuff is not true, those words have always
stayed with me.
She gets everything and I get nothing.
And I'm like, oh man, I feel bad.
But why do I feel bad?
I didn't do anything.
Yeah.
I'm like, exactly.
So do you know what helps with that?
Coffee.
Wine.
No, I'm sending this to my therapist because now I need help.
Therapy.
I'm talking about it because I think, you know, it's been almost 20 years now.
So it doesn't mean it's over.
I know I am over it.
I know.
I know you're not over it.
I hate to tell you, but the more you talk about it and the more you deal with it, you
will be moving away from it for sure.
Yeah, I like to, I don't remember this specifically, but I did know Justin, our teacher Justin
at the time.
I don't know if he rallied behind me.
So maybe that's why I have this like, you know, aversion to him.
I love your stand up comedian coping mechanism to deflect and to change the subject matter
at your willy-nilly nature.
Because I'm fine.
I'm fine.
I don't like to be told to get over it.
That is one thing that really gets my, gets under my skin.
Like it's been so long just get over it.
Oh my God, that was so long ago.
So that, that does annoy me.
Well, because you don't have to get over it.
You just have to get in control of how you feel and how you are now about it.
Like, you know, therapy.
I really, I don't think I've sat down and talked about that.
I mean, I tell people, my mom loves to tell people, I'm like, mom, you can't, this isn't
a five minute story.
Cause if you just say Carly got text messages and she was stalked, but everything's fine.
You have no idea.
Like you can't just tell it in five minutes.
So I really haven't talked about it in like 20 years.
Listen, I hope, I hope Betty's doing fine.
See that was just a blip in her, you know, she was just jealous.
I don't know.
Like, I don't know.
I hope she's doing fine.
But if I see her, I will duck and run and do a little stop, drop and roll action.
And I'm going to work on letting that not be the reaction.
Yay.
So the trauma for your mama.
On that note, the real tip is talk to Carly about this and keep talking about it.
And that's her therapy.
And then maybe the trauma sounds too big.
And then when she sees her in the mall that she won't stop, drop and roll and she will
be able to confront it or just call me walk away.
Well, here's the real extra tip.
It's called don't talk to me about it.
It means don't talk to me about it.
Well, that concludes our story.
Well, here is the real extra tip.
If you ever text me and you don't think I have your number, just sign your name at the
bottom.
This is true.
That is that is a big trigger.
If I don't know who you are and you don't sign your name, number one, you're not getting
a text back.
Number two, you're getting blocked immediately.
So you said trigger small steps.
Yay.
I will not respond.
We all bear witness to that.
We hope you remember that you're always fit to be real.
Oh, and you are always allowed to be a little extra.
Even if somebody tells you that you shouldn't be, you should always be extra regardless
if you think you're going to get stopped.
Period.
For legal reasons, we have to tell you that this podcast is meant for entertainment and
educational purposes only.
We are not healthcare professionals.
For all of your health, wellness, fitness and self care needs, please refer to the
medical professional in your life, your primary care physician, your therapist, a certified
coach, whoever it may be.
And then let us know what they say because I guarantee we need to know what to do.
Okay?
Okay, bye.