rSlash - r/Offmychest I Was Kidnapped as a Kid

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

0:00 Intro 0:07 Kidnapped 4:14 Lie 6:54 Bully 12:04 Not equal 15:48 Blackmail Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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When I was 14, my father hired two large men to take me from the bed in the middle of the night without warning. They threatened me with physical force and restraints if I didn't come with them. These men brought me to a wilderness therapy program, in rural Georgia where I lived completely outside for eight weeks, among a group of other kids, ages 11 to 14. We slept under tarps on the ground in the dirt, ate cold, hydrated rice and pasta when we couldn't make a fire with sticks, hiked several miles a day with heavy packs bigger than us in the summer heat and couldn't bathe. We had to do things as primitive as dig

holes to go to the bathroom and then carry our used toilet paper in our packs. At one point, I broke my nose and received no prompt medical care that resulted in requiring surgeries in the following years to fix it. As part of the program, we participated in therapy led by young adults with no clinical training or even college degrees. Each of us had to go on a solo, which was a period of prolonged isolation for days alone in the woods. Through all of this, there was no contact with the outside world, and we never knew what

time it was, what day it was, or where we were. were. Everything about this experience was meticulously designed to psychologically manipulate and break us to be agreeable and compliant with our parent no matter what. Why was I sent there? My parents were in the middle of a custody dispute and my father, a prominent and powerful attorney, was winning. He used his assumed credibility and vast advantage of resources over my mother to get his way and remove me from my life with her. I knew it was unjust, and reacted by not wanting to talk or have any relationship with him. I never acted out or had any issues in school or socially, etc. After about a year trapped in my father and stepmother's home,

when the court was about to rule in my mother's favor, my father took me against my will to the wilderness therapy program as a failsape to continue to keep me away from her. When I returned, I could go to my mother's home again finally before hitting to a boarding school. If I didn't comply with that, I was threatened with another program or a therapeutic boarding school. I have the court documents and my medical records from the time, and they reaffirmed what I already knew. I didn't have any mental health issues or actual reason to be institutionalized. The true issue was that I preferred living with my mom and I resisted my father's control. Rather than reflecting on that and looking inwards at why, he turned it into an external problem that needed to be fixed. That was

15 years ago, and I'm an adult now. I consider myself one of the lucky ones who got out and lived a normal life. Sadly, many others don't share the same story. These kinds of places, wilderness therapy programs, and therapeutic boarding schools are bigger than ever today, and over a hundred thousand kids reside in them at any given time year round. Kids are sent there for legitimate reasons, or simply because a parent wants to do it. All it takes is thanking up a reason and writing a check. I can tell you firsthand they don't help kids. They turn difficult situations into unmitigated disasters and ruin lives. They are widely documented as abusive, yet are allowed to continue to operate with minimal oversight.

It's called the troubled teen industry, and the general public doesn't know what's going on in the shadows. A few programs in schools have been closed, but nothing's really changed. The parents who do this to their kids are never held accountable. I stopped blocking this out recently and started to unravel what happened to me, and I want to do something to help. The program I went to is still running the exact same way, just with a new name. It's shocking. It's been 15 years, and I'm done staying quiet about it. I'm considering all my options as an adult through the proper channels to seek remedies and share my story. Our next Reddit post is from Phantom Heartbeat.

I've been living the stupidest possible lie for 15 years. I can smell, okay? I can smell just fine. God, I told a little white lie when I was like 11 to seem quirky and different. And I insisted it was true for so long that everyone I've known for at least five years believes this. My whole family, my oldest friends. I told them I can't smell. I insisted that I couldn't smell. Why? Good question. No clue. Every time someone would offer me something to sniff like a candle, or a scented spray or some kind of food, my little baby teen self would be like, um, I can't smell. And everyone would go, oh, right, duh, I forgot, sorry. People would go, ew, do you smell that? And I'd hold a poker face and go, um, no.

Even my parents would say, if you can't smell, how can you taste? And I went, um, I don't know, my body's just weird. And I insisted upon this for so long that I convinced them. Because why would I insist this for so long if it wasn't true? I don't know. It's not. I can't react if something stinks. I can't give cues if I smell something out of place. I can't buy candles in front of people.

I've had to turn down aromatherapy stuff. It's so stupid and such a small thing, but I've learned it permeates way more situations than people think. And I know if I told anyone who believes this, they'd be baffled and ask me, why the hell I would lie about that. Because I wanted to be quirky in 2012. That's it. With people I've met in the past five years, I'm undoing it. People I've met in college, at work, online, they know I can smell. And it's just so relieving, just being able to take an effing

whiff of curry or something and go, that smells so good. Like, this is more dire than telling people I'm trans. I'm so for real. I told my conservative parents, I'm trans, but I'll take the fact that I can smell to my grave. Okay, thanks. End post. O.P., I think you're being way too uptight and worried about this. You could just tell all your friends and family that you went to the doctors, you got some procedure done, and you can smell now.

Or, I don't know, you tried some herbal medicine, and slowly your sense of smell has been returning over the past couple of months, and now you smell pretty well. You know, it's like not a big deal. Or you could just tell the truth. People think it's funny. They're not going to think you're crazy. All 11-year-olds are dumb and want to seem quirky and different. Our next Reddit post is from Upsi Dopsy.

I'm a 29-year-old woman, and I had a bully from elementary school all the way into high school, spreading rumors about me, making fun of me, trying to publicly embarrass me. One time I can think of off the top of my head is that she heard me telling a friend that I'd never kissed anyone. This, by the way, was my junior year of high school, and I came from a small town where I just didn't have an attraction to anyone. I wanted something like that to be special, someone I liked. Well, she told everyone, like it was something to be ashamed of. But high schoolers, being high schoolers, all ate it up and I was bothered about it for weeks.

One guy even tried to kiss me telling me it was out of pity. Well, as it turns out, our mothers worked together in the same office. They've become good work friends, which she asked if that was okay. Of course it was. Her mother's always been kind. she tried to apologize for her daughter, tried to fix things, was ashamed of how her daughter acted, so I've never held anything against her mom. Besides, they're a super cute middle-aged mom duo, wine and painting classes, crocheting. They even spent a whole night doing a massive puzzle,

jumping up and down like excited toddlers when it was done. It was awesome. However, my bully apparently has a daughter who herself is being bullied, a bully who had been way more ruthless than she was. She sees the damage it does. She thought about me, the things she did and said. The rumors she threw around relishing the times that I cried. Now she's filled with regrets. She told her mother she wants to apologize, to make amends. Well, her mother wasn't sure about that and talked to my mom, who informed me but told me it was in my court. My decision to make. The thing is, I don't want an apology. I don't want to hear her go through the the things she's done and hearing how she knows it was wrong to treat me how she did. Part of me wants

her to hurt selfishly. If only so it would motivate her to get her daughter help and get this bully taken care of. So this child doesn't have to go through the things that I myself went through. Not only that, but she single-handedly destroyed my self-confidence growing up. It's taken me years and counseling to finally feel good about myself. I know it's wrong, but I don't want to forgive her for that. Then three months later, OP posted an update. I told my mom to tell her mom to tell my bully, no, not interested. Today, I came home from running errands and playing at the park with my son to find my bully, Olivia, sitting on my porch swing. As I came up my steps, she tried immediately talking to me.

I told her, no, give me a minute. I took my son in, set him up in his playpen with his favorite toys, switched on my monitor, and went back out to meet her. This is pretty much how our conversation went. What are you doing here? And how'd you get my address? Oh, I just came to talk. I wanted to reconnect and apologize for everything I did growing up. Do you actually want to apologize?

Or do you just want to feel better? I heard what happened to your daughter, and I'm sorry, but this isn't going to make that go away. I already forgave you a long time ago, but I have no interest in reconnecting or being friends. Well, could you at least talk to her? Like as a former victim of bullying. Please. I think she really needs it. School is starting next week and she's terrified.

If I do, I'm not holding back. I'll tell her that you were my bully and all the things you did. How I felt. The damage you caused. Olivia was pretty speechless at that and just stared at me before saying, I don't want that. She didn't want her daughter to know that she'd been a bully. I just shrugged and said,

well, I'm not going to lie to her either, Olivia. Then I asked her to leave, never to come back or contact me, and went back inside. She sat on my porch for a few minutes before leaving. I came to find out an hour later that she had gotten my address from her mother's house. I'd invited her mother to my son's first birthday. Olivia's mother felt horrible and apologized profusely. She hadn't even thought about my address being on the invite when Olivia came over the weekend prior, though I was a bit irritated, I forgave her pretty quickly. I know her well enough by now. She wouldn't have done this on purpose. But now, I don't know what to do. I'm actually afraid that she'll show up again and bring her daughter or something. I found and blocked her on everything, and Gwen screamed at her for coming to my house.

This is such a mess. O.P., this definitely sucks, but I want to point out that you are actually in the position of power here. You shouldn't be afraid of her. She should be afraid of you. Because if you just tell her daughter that her mom is a bully, it could potentially destroy their relationship. So, O.P., I'd bet you money that if you ran into her with her daughter at the grocery store, she would snatch up her daughter and run. It's a shame that Olivia didn't learn her lesson after all these years, but people don't really change. They just get more wrinkles. Our next Reddit post is from Brooks. I wasn't even supposed to hear the conversation. I was supposed to be asleep, but I heard my mom talk with her friend through the wall. Basically, what I heard is that she's giving me a 16-year-old guy, 25% of her estate, and my brother, a 22-year-old guy,

75% of the estate. At that point, my mom's friend said, he doesn't expect it to be fair, right? And my mom said, no, he knows it's never been fair. At this point, I'm already like, what the F, but the conversation still continued. My mom explained that the 25% was so that I didn't have to take care of him. And then she went on a rant about how I have zero empathy for my brother and how I hate him because of his autism. I don't hate my brother. She just thinks I do because I don't treat him like a child anymore. I mean, the guy has two jobs, graduated high school, community college, and is now moving out of the house to transfer to college in Chicago. But yeah, God forbid I don't want to talk about movies for the 6,000th time today.

I'm so mad at my mom and my dad too for feeding into this whole thing. For my whole life, I've always tried to be the best at everything I do in order to get their attention. I've worked up to first chair and band. I've gotten straight A's. I even got a 35 on my pre-act recently. And despite all that, it still seems like I only take up 25% of my parents' hearts. I don't know what to feel or do anymore, and I don't even know if I should tell my mom that I heard her or not.

Also, I cannot emphasize this enough. I'm not upset about the money. I'm not some rich, spoiled butthole living in a gated neighborhood or something. I'm just upset about the kind of message it sent and the way that it was said. Then OP posted an update. I asked my dad today if what was said was true, and he looked really confused. He said something along the lines of, I'll have to check. I was already starting to cry at this point, so I just left and excused myself and said I was going to the gym.

I look at my phone as I'm walking to the gym, and I see I get a text from my mom. Let's talk when you get home. I overheard you talking to your dad and you misunderstood what I was telling my friend. I did say that I wished you and your brother got along better. That's no secret. I say it to you all the time. Your brother is not getting more inheritance to you. You're both equal.

I can explain what you heard and misunderstood. Lie detected. Gaslighting detected. Sorry, O.P. That sucks balls. You know, the ironic thing is that it seems like your brother is actually very successful. Graduated, going to college, has two jobs, moved out of the house. By pretty much all metrics, he's being a successful adult. Our next Reddit post is from old documents. I'm a 26-year-old woman, and I work in a mid-sized company.

Last year, we hired a 21-year-old intern for my team. He was sharp, a little too friendly, and I was going through a rough patch after a breakup. One late night after a project deadline, we stayed back, had a few drinks from the office fridge, and things happened in the conference room. It happened two more times after that. I knew it was stupid. Power difference, age gap, completely against company policy. I ended it when his internship was about to finish and told him it was a one-time mistake.

A month later, he starts messaging me screenshots of our chats, the photos I stupidly sent him, and even a short video from one of those nights. He's asking for money to stay quiet, and threatening to forward everything to HR and my manager if I don't pay. I've paid him twice already. He keeps asking for more. I can't sleep properly. I'm paranoid at work, and I don't know whether to call his bluff or keep paying.

I feel disgusting. I was his senior. I should have known better. Please tell me what I can do now. Then Opie posted an update. I finally spoke to HR this morning. They said they'll look into it and ask me to give them 24 hours. They also told me not to go to the police right now

because it could affect the company's reputation. Opie, I know you're the victim of blackmailing here. I don't want to be too harsh, but you made two big mistakes here. The first is paying a blackmail. Always stupid, never a good idea, no matter how bad the blackmail is. Because if you pay them, they'll just ask again and again and again forever and ever and ever until eventually you refuse to pay and then they just docks you anyways.

What are you going to do? Watch them delete the photos in front of you. Well, they've got them backed up somewhere else, so what's the point? The second big mistake is going to HR instead of the police. HR has nothing to do with this. He doesn't even work there anymore. This is blackmail and revenge porn. Just get the guy arrested. That was R-slash off my chest.

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