CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - The Psychology Behind Netflix's Documentary: Unknown Number

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

SPOILER WARNING: This episode contains major spoilers for the Netflix documentary "Unknown Number: The High School Catfish" Whitney analyzes the Netflix documentary by exploring the psychology behind extreme parental abuse and manipulation. She examines the case through the lens of child psychology, trauma bonding, and the devastating impact when a parent orchestrates elaborate schemes to control and isolate their child while positioning themselves as the sole source of comfort and support. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity⁠⁠ This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute  for professional mental health advice. 00:00 Introduction to the Unknown Number Case 08:11 The Shocking Revelation: When the Abuser Becomes the Comforter 15:27 Understanding Abusive Parents Who Don't See Themselves as Abusive 21:07 The Predatory Behavior and Hidden Motivations 23:26 Trauma Bonding and Why Children Protect Their Abusers 27:43 The Difficulty of Admitting Your Parent Harmed You Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Calling Home podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. I had recorded an emergency press conference about the unknown number documentary last week after I watched it and my mic got screwed up. So we're back again today to record this over because I cannot leave you hanging without my thoughts. Now, if you haven't seen this documentary, it's on Netflix. I, highly recommend skipping this episode if you want to watch it because there will be a lot of spoilers and I'm going to ruin it for you. But I'm going to start out by saying this is, I watch a lot of these kind of documentaries. And this one was by far one of the most shocking of my lifetime. I don't know how I didn't know about this case, especially given what I do. But this is a perfect documentary for someone who specializes in parent and child relationships, especially in adulthood, and someone like myself that is very interested in preventing and understanding child abuse and how it manifests. So without further ado, let's dive in to this

documentary. And again, many spoilers ahead. So just to give you a little bit of a background on the documentary, if you haven't seen it or if you're not familiar with the case, in this case, there was a teenage girl and a teenage boy. They're about 14, 15 years old. They live in a small town where it appears that the parents are deeply involved in the children's lives. And sort of the whole town revolves around the middle school and the high school, their sports, etc. It's very much that like small town Americana type of feel that we see a lot in like TVs and movies. And this happened in Michigan. There was a person or what they thought was maybe one person or multiple people sending text messages to

both of these students at the school, the boy and the girl. And the girl, Lauren, is dating the boy. They are boyfriend and girlfriend. They've been very good friends for a long time. Their parents know each other. And they both go to the same school. And they're receiving text messages that are really threatening, explicit, sexual things of that nature. And they start receiving more and more text messages as time goes on. And the parents start to get involved, particularly the boy's mother. And they start to be like, wow, where are these text messages coming from? Now, I personally thought that these parents did not act as quickly as maybe I would, not in a judgmental way, maybe just because of like what I do. I think they maybe thought that it was

another kid sending the messages at first. But one of the parents really tries to get the school involved. And they're trying to figure out who is sending these messages. And as time goes on, and this is going on for, I think, about 20 months in total. And it takes a full year before the FBI gets involved and police start taking this a lot more seriously. I think the school was likely trying to handle this themselves, maybe keep media attention off of it. And I think they also probably thought that this was something happening within the school. But they're getting more and more insane these messages is really only the word that I can use to describe it. And there's profanity, sexual innuendo. And the texts start to even veer into encouraging these children.

teenagers to harm themselves and to even take their own lives. And I think we're seeing in these messages some of the most like grotesque things that you can say to another person. And I felt pretty early on that these messages were not coming from another child. It was unfathomable to me that another 14 or 15 year old was coming up with these messages. They were way too explicit and way too detailed and they were happening all the time, sometimes receiving up to like 40 or 50 texts in a day. And they're way too creative and in depth. And I just really didn't think that another 14 year old could keep this up to this degree and also that they would know all of these really detailed explicit things. I started to really think that a teacher was involved

or coach definitely someone that was around these kids all the time or that was part of their lives at the school. And so it became pretty clear quickly that like this was another adult that was involved. And so as I'm watching this with my husband, the first thing that we're saying is like, why have these parents not taken away these kids' phones? Like, why haven't they shut off the phone and gotten a new number or, you know, hooked the phone up to a new number or done something like that? Like, they could not track where these calls were coming from. The person was definitely, sorry the text messages. This person was definitely using like a VPN and running it through a different IP address and they had software that would consistently change the number. But this person had

these kids' numbers. And so I think that it was obviously someone who had some sort of like tech savvy. They were able to show that things were coming from different states at different times. But as a parent, I was just like, why have you not shut the phone down? And the boys mother does end up taking his phone at some point. And I think she was like, you know, trying to keep an eye on what was going on. And so she would keep the phone and read the text messages. But the girl always had access to her phone. And maybe this is where I should have like had a little bit more of a hunch. It just seemed so far-fetched to me. But the two mothers of these kids spend a considerable amount of time together, sort of investigating this, trying to figure out

who did it, and also supporting one another with what's going on with their children. And there is a moment, I think, where the girl Lauren's mother says, like, why should I be the one that has to, like, take away their phone or get a new phone? Like, I feel like this isn't our fault and we shouldn't have to like pay the consequences. And like, okay, I get that, but also kind of a red flag. I think that they could have stopped this probably by turning off the phones or at least seeing like, how did this person get your new phone number? It would have to like follow a certain chain or process, right?

So long story short, you know, the FBI gets involved and they're tracing the numbers and they're finally able to see that this person is using a software. that makes the numbers show up differently. And once they figure out where that software is and what IP address it's being run through, they track it all back to Lauren's home. And in that moment, I'm like, oh my gosh, was Lauren actually sending the messages? And no, it was her mother. Her mother had been sending messages to both her own daughter and her mother.

and her daughter's boyfriend, subsequently ex-boyfriend, as well as his new girlfriend, over a period of 20 months. Okay. And now you can see why this is a documentary that I wanted to talk about. The first part of this that I think the police really screwed up is when they arrest this mother. They walk into the home and they call the daughter Lauren in. And they are very kind to this woman who has been committing psychological abuse,

sexual abuse has been engaging in what we would consider to be pedophilia. She has been engaging in sexually explicit texting behavior with minors over a period of two months. She has been trying to get people, including her own child, to harm themselves. and they're like really sweet with her like almost like they have been conned by her as well and they also give this information in front of her daughter and the woman's the mother's first instinct when they're telling her this is to sort of engulf her daughter with her body and she's like petting her hair and saying I need to be here with her. I need to take care of her.

And I want you to think about how absolutely manipulative and insane this is, that you have the victim of the crime, the perpetrator of the crime together in this moment. And the perpetrator is trying to comfort the victim and saying that she needs to be the one to care for her in this moment. And the police are not really doing anything. And you also have the child's father, the husband here in the room, who is now discovering all of this information and is like, what? And he's trying to keep it together and get her out of there so that he doesn't do something that he regrets or that he can't take back. And it's honestly, it's just an insane moment.

And when you look at this from the perspective of like someone who understands abuse dynamics and particularly these dynamics between a child. and their parent, there is something of such a, like, dark, insidious nature happening here in this moment where you can really see how this mother has orchestrated such a perfect web that allows her to be both abuser and caretaker for her daughter. And I'm going to get more into that because I think one of the theories about this case is very spot on about why she was doing this. So one of the theories that's presented by the documentary is that she was essentially engaging in like a Munchausen by proxy type of thing, which is now known as factitious disorder imposed on another, but many of you know the colloquial

or like more popular term of Munchausen by proxy. And one of the theories that's brought up in the documentary is that essentially she was engaging in this type of emotional abuse so that her daughter would need her and want her and come to rely on her. And throughout this period of 20 months where she is sending these text messages, you do see how her daughter is being isolated to such a degree because she does not trust anyone. She's unsure about who is sending these messages. Could it be someone around her? Could it be a friend, another person at school? People at school also don't want to get close to her because they don't want to get caught up, you know, in this mess. And she eventually really has no one. Her boyfriend, you know, they break up because this is

entirely too stressful for a relationship between like two 14-year-olds. And then she's got like nobody but her mom. And so while all this is going on, her mother is her one sole source of comfort, support, friendship, empathy, all of that. It's like all she's got. This is also an extremely delicate time in a girl's life to be at this age where you're likely going through puberty, having emotional changes, body changes, feeling really confused about yourself. And you are also getting relentlessly bullied every day. And your mother is the only person that seems to be there for you and caring for you. But she's also the one that is doing it. And so I think a lot of people had this really uninformed reaction, seeing the way that Lauren was responding to this news, that her mother had been the one doing this to her. to me what I saw was a girl who was deeply traumatized, dissociative, did not know what to do or how to react. She, it's like Stockholm syndrome. Like she essentially was so deeply bonded to her mother

through all of this trauma that she had difficulty separating, you know, from like, is my mom the perpetrator or it's she my comfort and like the only person who loves and cares about? me. And I think during this period of time, her mother was very attentive and loving and caring and even smothering to her. I would bet that her mother was actually like showing her the most care and attention that she maybe had in her life. And so this is very, very confusing. And this is why I always say like if parents, if kids have to choose between an abusive parent or no parent, typically go abusive parent because they don't want to admit or feel the feelings that come along with realizing that not only does your parent maybe not love you or not able to show you

love, but they are actively engaging in this huge scheme to hurt you and hurt people that you care about and that you love. And that is extremely painful. And we have to give this girl some time and some credit to like come around to this because gosh what a realization to have spent this like year of your life and then over a year lose everyone and now be like what is happening now something i want to talk about is that i i've often said that abusive parents do not think that they are abusive and on average you know know, it's a statistically significant amount of abusive parents do not admit that they were being abusive. They describe their intentions as good or justified. And they do that for a variety of

reasons, sometimes to avoid legal consequences and other times because they truly believe that what they were doing was justified and okay. And so I want you to think about the psyche of this woman. Okay. She did all of this. It's been proven. We know that she did it. There's no doubt. She's actually admitted it. She has not said that she did all of it. She sort of makes up this story that like she only did some of it. Like somebody else started it and she continued it, which I think is bizarre. Like it's bad all around. Why say that you only did some of it makes no sense.

But again, points to her to her psychological functioning at this time. But she frames her actions as totally justified and even goes as far to say like people may think that what I did was crazy or wrong, but that's just because they don't know my story. And there is quite literally no story this woman could give me that would make me be like, huh, that makes sense why you did that to your kid. It could maybe give some context, but it's still bad. It's bad no matter how you slice it. And so she didn't send one text message. She sent text messages, edited photos, went through extensive work to do this for 20 months

to three minors so it wasn't like a one-off thing it was a long elaborate plan and she kind of gives this like loose narrative about childhood trauma and things that she was realizing and and in this moment i'm just like wow this woman feels so um like she has so much conviction in that this was okay what she did, that she decided to get on camera and talk about this publicly after she had been convicted, sentenced, and gone to prison for this, and is still not allowed to have contact with her daughter. So that is how justified she felt that some part of her thought, if I talk, people are going to get this. And there's going to be people that see this and are like, I totally get why you did that. And I think that, again, speaks to her overall

functioning. And if you as a parent cannot admit how this would have been bad for your child, I don't know if there's hope for that there. That's a tough one for me. They also ask her, you know, at some point in the documentary, like, were you worried that your daughter would end her life based on your text messages, encouraging her to do so. And she says, no, because I know her so well. And we're always talking. And so I know that she's not going to do that. And so this is the situation.

We have a parent who is sending these messages to her child. And then when her child says, look at these messages, She's then stepping in as the hero, the rescuer, to be like, would you ever do that? Talk to me about that to sort of feel even closer to her daughter. You would tell me if you were going to do that, right? And to say like, no, I could send her these threats because don't worry, I'm taking care of it on the other end. And it's like, how do you do that every day? and lay your head down at night it's it's criminal it's it's terrible it's hard to it's really hard

to think about a mother doing that to their child and i think this plays in even more to the you know munchausen by proxy theory that she was trying to sort of beat her daughter down isolate her emotionally and then be the one that could take care of her because she is like needy and afraid and alone And the more that she could do that, likely the more that her daughter relied on her. And it was just this feedback loop that I assume in some sense she became addicted to, like that feeling of being needed and wanted and being her child's best friend and being able to be there for her. And she thought, you know, when this is over, what if my child doesn't need me anymore?

Now, I want to talk also about what she was doing. with this other young boy because I think they gloss over this part a little bit too much in the documentary, but while this woman was texting her own daughter, she was also texting her daughter's boyfriend who was 14 to 15 years old during this whole process. And she was sending him messages that were also sexually explicit and wrong. And she was sending her daughter messages about things that she needed to do sexually with this young boy. And I do think that this was predatory behavior. This falls under the category of pedophilia. I think that this woman was obsessed and romantically interested in this young boy. And it comes out later, you know,

from his mother that like there were moments that felt inappropriate with this woman. Kendra around her son that she would make some comments or she seemed really like obsessed. And I do believe that this woman wanted to break up her daughter and the boy because she was in love with him. Because when he gets another girlfriend that's in another town, goes to another school, they don't even know, she starts contacting that girl as well. And that girl ends up breaking up with him, of course, because I'm sure her parents were like, you cannot get involved in this mess.

Like this is not worth it for your 14, 15 year old relationship. And she dumps him. And so this kid's life has really also been deeply affected and ruined in some ways and very traumatic ways by this woman. To have this older woman who is an adult, the mother of your girlfriend, you know, being so sexually explicit about you and sending these types of messages and really becoming very obsessed is scary. And throughout all of this, Kendra, the mother of Lauren, is talking to the other mother

about, like, how horrible it is that this is happening to their kids and they're comparing text messages and acting like they're going at this together when she was the one sending the messages the whole time. Like, she was the one that could have made this stop. It's crazy. And so something that really stood out to me that I want to mention to all of you is just like the behavior of the daughter, Lauren, throughout this whole documentary and how she acts and sounds in the context of how difficult it is to end a relationship with a parent,

especially a parent that has shown you love and kindness and companionship and unwavering support in your time of need when other people have not. And so up until this point of this girl finding out that it was her mother, they've formed this relationship during this time that is very much built on the premise of her being alone and isolated and her mom being her only friend, the only one that is there for her and that supports her. And I think they were talking a lot during this time, spending a lot of time together. And so when the mother gets arrested, it's a big shock and change for this. young girl in that moment. And this is when we really start to see the love bombing ramp up and

happen that she is sending her so many messages from prison being like, I love you. You made me sad when you didn't say this. You're so beautiful. Like it's the kind of stuff that you would expect if you're in a relationship with a partner that like treats you bad one day and then sends you all these messages the next. Like having this happen with your mother is so jarring. And I think at this time, you've got this young girl whose mother is in jail, who has no friends, who's so isolated. Everyone's just found out that her mom has been doing this to her. No one wants to get near this girl because this is now going to be like a huge, you know, public trial in their community and everyone's talking about it.

And this has got to be the scariest and loneliest time ever for this girl. And so that is why also why a lot of people cling to their abusers in moments like, this because sometimes their abuser is the only person that they have. It's the only person that's still showing them love and kindness, even if they've done something bad to them. And the daughter is still saying, like, I would love to have a good relationship with my mom. I think my mom loves me. You know, she's deeply traumatized by this. It is so painful, you know, to see sort of the the way that she's presenting and like the the flat affect and the desire to be close to her mom. And I think that there is going to come a day where she realizes what happened and that

is going to be such a hard day. And I've seen people like firsthand go through that moment so many times. And it is it is like your world just breaks open and like splits and it's disorienting. It's overwhelming. It's traumatizing. And I hope that she has the support and the love that she needs in those moments. And what she certainly doesn't need is like people on the internet being like, I think she knew and was involved. Like that's crazy. This is like a 14 year old girl whose life was ruined over this. These are kids. It's not like a diabolical plot, you know, for this 14 year old to do this. It makes no sense. I do think that it seems like her father has stepped in and has been a good, consistent,

reliable, loving parent for her. It seems like they have a relationship that is, you know, solid what they're presenting. And I imagine that that's very helpful. I also think the father has some trauma around this. You know, he wasn't able to protect his daughter from his wife. He was also lied to a lot and had a lot of big realizations. you know, in this moment and his marriage fell apart. And so I'm sure in some ways they are bonded together by that as well. Um, but it's, it's still good that she has that in one parent at least.

I, you know, throughout my career, I have seen some pretty egregious cases of physical abuse and neglect, but this one just was so, so bad to me because what really stood out was the amount of planning, organization, denial, manipulation, and what it took to orchestrate this over a 20-month period that we cannot underestimate the amount of damage a parent can do to their child if they are not well. And I don't know what happened in this woman's life that has led her to this place, but it's not an excuse for hurting children, your own or other people. And there are a million other decisions that this woman could have made. And there were a million times where she could have stopped this along the way.

and the fact that she got up every single morning for 20 months and sent these messages to her daughter is horrible. There's nothing that can explain it for me. I think it's especially concerning now that she is out of prison and saying, you know, I can't wait until we can connect again and have a relationship and that she doesn't seem to really have any remorse or have done anything to repair. And obviously, when her daughter is an adult, she can choose to have a relationship with her if she would like. But I don't see how that relationship could have any sense of safety. It's really hard for me to imagine what that would look like without a tremendous amount of healing and change and intervention. I think that this documentary for me really just goes to show

like how absolutely difficult it is to admit that your parent has done something that doesn't make them loving or kind or a good parent. And I think some people will fight their entire lives to not see those things because it's just too painful. And this one, is like so obvious and so glaring, but you still see how this parent, this mother has the ability to sort of trick herself into seeing her behavior a different way. And same with the daughter. It's a protective mechanism and we all do it with certain things. And you've maybe done it with a partner or a sibling, a parent, a friend. Like, no one is all bad. Some of the cruelest people can also be very kind to us. And I think that is the difficult thing to balance here.

And also seeing that, like, this mother still really sees herself as being worthy and deserving of a relationship with her child and hasn't really said much, at least not in this moment, along the lines of, like, what I did was wrong. And I shouldn't have done it. And I don't know how you move afford without that. So if you haven't watched this yet, it's on Netflix. It is called Unknown Number. And it's a difficult watch, but I think it can give you a lot of insight into what these types of parent-child relationships can look like. And I'm very curious to see how this relationship evolves in adulthood for these two people. And, you know, I know that at the time of filming, she was not allowed to resume contact with her daughter, but I assume that

that that will happen in the near future. And I hope that these kids have all of the support that they need and that maybe the airing of this story on a larger scale kind of gives them some insight into how justified they are into feeling pain and upset and trauma and hurt over all of this that happens. And I hope that it gives all of us a little bit of insight into how the people who love are supposed to love you the most can also be the ones that hurt you and how unwilling sometimes those people are to admit that any harm has been done. I will be back next Thursday with a normal Q&A episode, but I want to remind you that this September inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club, we are talking about family secrets and the things that go unsaid within families

and how those can disrupt your functioning and the overall functioning of the family. So new content will be delivered for members of the Family Cycle Breakers Club every Monday to your inbox. You get an article, worksheet, script, and video, as well as unlimited access to all of our support groups with myself and our other therapists. I am so excited to get these groups started. just had our first one on Wednesday, September 10th. So it's not too late to join. You can join the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Callinghome.com. We have a lot of people that join because listening to the podcast has kind of kicked them off on this journey of trying to repair and rebuild their family relationships or create a different family for themselves in the future.

As always, thank you so much for listening or watching. Please remember to like, leave a review. That really helps me keep the podcast going. And I am so excited to see you for another episode next week on Tuesday. Thank you all so much. Bye and have a great day. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Collincombe or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Home's terms of service linked in the show notes below.