Something Was Wrong - S23 Ep18: BTS with BCM - Case & Community Updates with The BCM Production Team (Part 2)

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

*Content warning: fraud, harassment, catfishing, stalking, sexual abuse, troubled teen industry, childhood abuse, and industrialized child abuse.*Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources   Season 20 of Something Was Wrong:https://wondery.com/shows/something-was-wrong/season/20/Season 22 of Something Was Wrong:https://wondery.com/shows/something-was-wrong/season/22/Season 23 of Something Was Wrong:https://wondery.com/shows/something-was-wrong/season/23/Submit Your Story to Something Was Wrong:https://somethingwaswrong.com/submissions/Moms Advocating For MomsS23 survivors Markeda, Kristen and Amanda have created a nonprofit, Moms Advocating for Moms, in hopes to create a future where maternal well-being is prioritized, disparities are addressed, and every mother has the resources and support she needs to thrive: https://www.momsadvocatingformoms.org/take-actionhttps://linktr.ee/momsadvocatingformoms Malik's Law https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB4553 M.A.M.A. has helped file a Texas bill called Malik's Law, which is intended to implement requirements for midwives in Texas to report birth outcomes in hopes of improving transparency and data collection in the midwifery field in partnership with Senator Claudia Ordaz. *SWW S23 Theme Song & Artwork: Thank you so much to Emily Wolfe for covering Glad Rag’s original song, U Think U for us this season!Hear more from Emily Wolfe:On SpotifyOn Apple Musichttps://www.emilywolfemusic.com/instagram.com/emilywolfemusicGlad Rags: https://www.gladragsmusic.com/ The S23 cover art is by the Amazing Sara StewartFollow Something Was Wrong: Website: somethingwaswrong.com  IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcast TikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast  Follow Tiffany Reese: Website: tiffanyreese.me  IG: instagram.com/lookieboo

If you're serious about growing this new year, what you put into your mind actually matters. And as someone who lives and breathes careers and self-development, even I get overwhelmed trying to do it all. Between work, life, and trying to better yourself, self-care can start to feel like just another thing on the to-do list. But investing in yourself doesn't have to be complicated. And with Audible, it isn't. It's time to take care of you. And who better to help than the top voices in well-being all in one place. With Audibles' well-being collection, you can level up your career, finances, relationships,

sleep, parenting, or mindset. Whether you want motivation, clarity, or practical advice, there is something there to support you every step of the way. I listen while I commute, clean, work, or just when I need a little bit of downtime. You'll hear from best-selling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty, Chef Jamie Oliver, finance expert Rachel Rogers, and popular parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audio book free when you sign up for a 30-day trial at outable.com. Membership is 1495 a month after 30 days. Cancel any time. There's more to imagine when you listen.

Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences. This season contains discussions of medical negligence, birth trauma, and infant loss, which may be upsetting for some listeners. For a full content warning, sources, and resources, please visit the episode notes. Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself, broken cycle media, and wondering. The podcast in any linked materials

should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is something was wrong. Jessica has this close friend who we called on the podcast Bobby Sue. Bobby Sue claimed to be a victim of Jessica's, but it's unclear and they're still friends and very much involved. Unlike the other survivors who have supported the other survivors of Jessica Polly, this particular survivor has instead taken up for Jessica Polly, so to speak, and been

quite nasty, to be honest, to the survivors. Perhaps she lied and was never actually catfished by Jessica Polly, but made up that lie to try and gain the victim's perspectives and what they knew. Or she actually was a victim and for some reason has decided that her way of grieving and dealing with that is staying best friends with Jessica and fighting her survivors. Based on the conversations that we had with people who knew her and Jess, they wouldn't be surprised, let's say, if she was involved. I think not enough people are looking into Bobby Sue still being friends with her.

I think that's a huge issue of its own. Well, and one thing that's really interesting to note is that when I reached out to Bobby Sue, first of all, when I called her, she didn't answer and she texted me and was like, what's up Tiffany. And then we get on the phone and it was a strange conversation. And I already felt some type of way before this. Hello. Hi. Thank you so much for making the time. I know it's pretty late. So the first thing I just wanted to confirm with you was that you were also a catfish victim of some kind of Jessica Pauley's. Correct. Yeah. Okay. And then there's an incident that's mentioned about you essentially finding out about her catfishing you and your ex-boyfriend

and there was like a physical conflict between you and Jessica? Do you just want like my story? Whatever you feel comfortable sharing, I'm happy to hear. Yeah, I don't want to put you on the spot. I was just going to fact-check these items. But like if you're comfortable, I'd love to hear your perspective. Yeah, no, I'm an open book. I'm a very open-minded person.

I try to look at things from all different directions. I was 18. Jessica was 18. I met Mitchell Kent online. I met him through a friend who had added him on Facebook. I had very shallow conversations with this person. It wasn't really any conversations in the I was in a relationship at the time.

Well, the Mitchell is someone I would go to whenever him and I would fight. They were kind of my lifeline. This guy sent me flowers. I live in a very small town. We have 2,000 people, so I knew the florist. And I called up Marcia and I was like, hey, by chance to the person that sent me these flowers, sent me these flowers use a credit card and they were like yes they did uh i said what was the name on

the credit card jessica polly okay so i um found jessica polly online looked her up and then i called this person out and then um that's when the lies started like i had known at that point i was like okay, I Facebook message Jessica and I was like, hey, do you want to come to Wisconsin? Like, I want to meet you. So she's like, yeah, I would really like that. So I met her. And I was like, do you want to take a road trip with me? Like, I've always wanted to live in Tennessee. Like, do you want to ride down there with me and just like check out the area? Like, I just wanted to get the hell away from here. And she's like, yeah, no problem. After I moved in with her, I still had not called her out completely on the Mitchell thing.

So I was just letting her go. I was just letting her continue that, just kind of keeping it shallow, kind of see what she would do with it. And I had no solid proof. We worked at the same building and one day I was like, I was like, you can see this boy. It's pretty cute. And I showed a picture to one of my coworkers. And she goes, that's a...

And I was like, bingo, there's a fucking name. So she came home. And I was like, Jessica, I met me. And I have never seen someone lose the color in their face as fashion and fashion gestures. And I was like, like, I want to know why you did this. I want to know why you didn't feel comfortable enough being honest to feel you about life. Who moved out of our apartment just kind of left me high and dry.

I just left it at that. I didn't say anything. I didn't reach out to Jessica. I was like, well, that really fucking sucks. And then Monica personally messaged me back in whatever month it was. It was kind of recently January maybe. and she was filling me in more and finally I

messaged Jessica and I said talk to me what the fuck is going on and she instantly went defense mode, blocked me on everything then she and this is after like a week or two and she goes I don't know what to fuck you do anymore I don't know how to help myself

And I was like, okay, well, I need you to be honest with me and I need you to confess everything that you have done and be completely transparent. So that's kind of where we're at right now. I'm not... So are you feeling... I'm going to say this right now. I will not defend her actions. So do not ever think that... Oh, yeah.

And I don't even know that you, based off of this, fully understand all that's encompassed because we've discovered a lot of. lot in the last three months since you had the contact you had with Monica was in November. So just to like give you some insight into that, you know, um, it's bigger than catfishing. There's a lot of, you know, criminal charges potentially here. So it's, it's much more serious beyond that. Are you currently in contact with Jess? Like, would you consider yourself on good terms with her? I would, yeah.

Okay. What is there anything that I should like when you say criminal is there anything that I should be worried about? I can only say that I would never trust her with anything in my life or have my children around her or physically put my body near her. So as far as I know and I'm aware that was like the max of it was cat fishing. I obviously don't know all the details. So my mindset was the trauma she suffered as a child, she found this coping mechanism. And although it's a very fucked up coping mechanism and it's not a normal one, she took it too far many times.

And I kind of compared it to like a drug addiction is what I did. Now I'm a little concerned that that's not what's going on here. I already felt some type of way before this. But part of her story, which we have on video, that she told to the survivors, was that Jessica Polly had catfished her and Bobby Sue punched Jessica in the face. I found her to be an inconsistent person just by listening to those videos that she had sent to the survivors about her account of what had happened. I always begin from a place of believing, but when facts aren't lining up and people are saying

one thing and doing another, noticing inconsistencies, like that also is really important and can't be ignored. We all deal with trauma differently, but I think that there's something very fishy going on. Some screenshots were sent to us of Bobby Sue posting something about catfishing and like, can a girl just have hobbies? And Jessica, like, responding in the comments, laughing it up, like, this is the funniest shit ever. And if this is their sick little pastime, that's really fucked up. We had had a lot of people also reach out and say, is there a season 20 document? coming. We hope so. That's really all I can share at this juncture. But we agree it needs to be

made and there's more victims. There's just a lot more, whether it's Bobby Sue or some of the other elements we've learned about that we haven't shared in the public yet. So fingers crossed. Another thing that we can talk about, I think it says a lot that all these people are either meeting with Jess on dating apps or meeting her in person and very quickly Googling her and finding everything. Because how often do you realistically meet somebody on a dating app and Google them? Some red flag has to go off. A hundred percent. And that's a good point. Since the podcast began airing, we still get people who will match with Jessica, who is still very active on dating apps. And they, just from

interacting with her, feel something is off. Google her. and then typically end up contacting us. I think Lauren is making it a really good point, which is there's obviously something off about this person, the fact that people who are even meeting and interacting with them for just a short amount of time feeling like this overwhelming sensation to Google her. Trying to put myself in her shoes. Maybe dating apps and technology is like not for you.

Maybe part of your healing journey should be in-person speed dating or going to church, which I know you're a huge proponent. of. Practice what you preach. Get off technology and go like work on yourself. It's clear that there's still a lot of work to be done. I think there's still a lot about her we don't know. And unfortunately, she's been a perpetrator for a long time.

So we continue to learn more all the time about her past behavior and her continued behavior. Hopefully we'll be bringing you more updates about a documentary or more information in the future. But I appreciate, Lauren, you being willing to speak from your service. survivor's perspective, I think it's important for the community to understand that like Amy, your guys' journey continues and you're still having to battle putting up those boundaries between you and your abuser. I appreciate you giving me this space to talk about it because it's not, once again, just catfishing. It's so, so much more. And that's one thing that documentary girl talked about a lot was like, it's not just catfishing. It's emotional abuse. It's sexual abuse.

It's stalking. There's just so much more to it. You just have to, like, sit and listen to it and actually realize the manipulation and the evil that goes into what she did. One thing about America is, like, we're going to make some tragic shit into a fucking buzzword term, like catfishing or, quote, revenge porn. There's so many terms for shit. Even season 24, the, quote, troubled teen industry.

Get the fuck out of here. Even the language itself is victim blaming in a way. and I'm just over that shit. Just because things aren't prosecuted also doesn't mean that they're not a crime. Unfortunately, so many crimes that happen, especially when they're related to women and children, are not prosecuted. That's one of the reasons that we highlight those types of cases on something was wrong,

because the majority of these victims often see no fucking justice. No one makes a podcast for them. No one returns their call. no one answers their pleas. That's the majority of survivors' experience. America loves a euphemism. They love to make something packageable and digestible. And I also just want to highlight the fact that what you're saying,

Lauren, and what you can attest to is why it's so important that the dating apps create legislation and more protections for users because people like Jessica do abuse them. and there's such an accessibility to them that perpetrators are going to keep using them until the apps, better their security. I had the survivor on what came next that was like, we have AI that can recognize people's faces.

Why are they not like deleting profiles where someone like, oh, they'll delete their old profile they got reported on and create a new one? Well, they are still using their damn pictures. That's how emboldened they are. And it's still with Jessica, we see her utilizing apps over and over and over again to get more victims or to fish.

we just need to better protect victims. So as much as Jessica needs to step off the apps, those people, I hate to say, they exercise no control, none. So we need to make the app controlled. Unfortunately, yeah, the dating apps want you to think that they're safe to use when we know that they're not all the time. Honestly, dating apps are causing a lot of dysfunction

for young people or all people who are trying to date overall. But when it comes to safety, I mean, it took a Netflix documentary for them to remember. move the Tinder Swindler off the apps. And we're supposed to feel good about that because they got them off the app. We hear from so many survivors about them reporting these things and the dating apps doing absolutely nothing about these predators. The technology does exist to make them safer, but we can't force the apps to care about

making them safer, which is why we have to pass more legislation, like the Take It Down Act, which forces people to do the right thing. When we asked listeners to submit questions they had for the team, a lot of people asked about season 22, Megan Stoner, and if there were any updates. There are a lot of quote updates, none of which involve accountability for Megan Stoner. And at this juncture,

I am not going to feed into her fucking bullshit anymore. The state police have essentially ghosted me myself and Tom were supposed to be getting no contact orders through the state due to Stoner's harassment of us. And then that turned into the state police just reaching out to her PO and telling her not to contact us. So thankfully, so far she has respected that for myself. I can't speak for Tom. But I think Megan Stoner is the type of person who unfortunately will not learn from her mistakes and she just wakes up every day and chooses to bullshit the same exact bullshit over and over and over again and then also tries to attack her victims or myself or other people who try to

hold her accountable. For someone who doesn't want people to laugh at her, she's a fucking joke. That's really all I can say. Anything else you guys want to add? As we're talking about all these updates, we have a lot of female perpetrators that we've covered. I just can't help but come to all these similarities with them, despite having different methods or things that attract them to perpetuating this abuse. I mean, between Caitlin, Jess, and Megan, it's a different kind of the same type of person. It just really strikes me these similarities in them. Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because we didn't really seek out that. We covered Caitlin Braun and then these other stories just ended up surfacing. But there are certainly a lot of similarities.

overlapping in these stories concerning their profile young white women early 20s to early 30s during their prime predatory or criminal years. Many of them have an older sister who is, quote, prettier and more popular. It seems like a lot of their mothers are very passive and shrug off their daughter's behavior and there doesn't seem to be a lot of information about the dads or involvement with the dads. It seems like the mothers often are very involved between these women and their survivors and it's very complex. But yeah, if we're looking at just like some of the more granular things about them, there are also just a lot of strange coincidences between Caitlin Braun, Jessica Polly, and Megan Stoner. Talk about a nightmare blunt

rotation. And I've had that nightmare. Okay. Like weekly for for months. Just kidding. And I was just speaking of nightmares, I had a dream that Megan Stoner was giving me a BBL. You know how like nurses will come and give you like an IV? It was kind of like that. Like she pulled out her packet and like started pulling out needles and stuff. And I don't even know how a BBL works. I think it's some type of surgery, but she was putting needles in my butt and it was wild. That's already one of the most dangerous surgeries, let alone coming from her. It's terrifying. I think it's pretty fitting.

So something was wrong coded. It's just wild. And that's the thing about this work is you will wind up with some crazy-ass dreams. Oh my God. I'm flashing to like a birth center vibe. Oh my God, dude. Yeah, we've gone deep into the medical stuff lately. That makes sense.

That's true. I looked down and I was like, should I trust her to do this? And I guess I did. I love slash hate that so much. I don't know if you guys remember that. trend that was going around with the doll version of you from ChatGBT. And do you remember me sending you the Megan Stoner one that she posted? And it has like the four rent sign.

No, she made it. And it had like the four rent sign. So that's another thing where she's kind of making fun of her victims because the rental scams. I picked up on that a little later on. I really was hoping the police were going to do something. But at this point, I'm not going to keep giving her any space to like think she's important or platform her bullshit any further.

It's all about the attention too. The more attention she gets, the more she feeds off of it. Yeah, I think her and Jessica almost enjoy it, which is very similar to like Dick's season one and some of these others who then go on like Reddit or message boards or TikTok or wherever the fuck. Their relevancy is more important than actual character and behavior. It's very telling.

Mm-hmm. It's very delusional. For some people, and I really try to talk to my kids about this a lot, being known on the internet or like digital currency, like while it can have value if people monetize it and things like that, it's not the same as being a value to like society and the people around you. Being known is not important. It almost feels like they are seeking that attention because they didn't get it as a child. They're seeking what they didn't get, what they didn't get,

whatever that might be. Yeah, it could be. Sometimes it's not about the mistake, but how you respond to the mistake. And with them, they've made huge mistakes and they've also been total dicks about it afterwards. Switching gears a bit, we're recording this in between seasons. It's currently Monday, May 26th. And I am about a week out from taking a real fucking vacation, you guys. I haven't taken, what I consider like a real break where I needed to be supported. survivors or working in some way, like actually getting to unplug vacation. And I'm doing this out of a desire and also a need. We talked a bit on season 23 about vicarious trauma that can happen to individuals who are exposed, especially for long periods of time, to other people's trauma

or stories of other people's trauma. At the top of this year, I started to recognize that I was experiencing some of these symptoms of that. I got a new therapist. I have my sole dog and my soul therapist. I was just telling the team the other day, which is absolutely life-changing. And something she and I started talking about pretty quickly was the fact that I was experiencing burnout. I'm also learning a lot about myself and neurodivergency and the things that my body needs in order to regulate itself so that I can continue to do the thing and so that I can continue to work with survivors. But all that being said, I am taking like a hard, five weeks-ish break from work, trying to unplug during that time as much as I'm able.

Honestly, I'm only able to do this because of our incredible team. The team will certainly still be bringing amazing content to your feeds, but I am very much looking forward to getting a break, and I'm very, very thankful to y'all for pitching in and showing up so that I can take this break. I think it's something we talk a lot about on the team, too, is, like listening to ourselves and our bodies when dealing with such difficult subject matter, especially when it's like triggering some of our own individual traumas or things that we may be

individually more sensitive to and how important it is to like take breaks when you can get outside and all the things that we need to do to like also put the oxygen mask on ourselves. I'm just really thankful to you guys for allowing me the opportunity to finally do this. It's really honestly been like seven years since I've taken a real responsibility break, allowing myself to like be away and be unreachable. Well, it's well deserved and I'm sure that it's going to be nice to be more in a nature-heavy environment just with your family. I'm jealous.

You're going to have an amazing time, though. Thank you. We're going to Puerto Rico. So my husband is Puerto Rican. My children are Puerto Rican. I've been to Puerto Rico. It's actually like one of the best trips I've ever. had in my life when I was a kid and I've always wanted to go back. I think it's a very spiritual,

magical place and I highly recommend if you ever get the chance to go. I always wanted to take my husband to his homeland and he is going to Puerto Rico for the first time and so are the kids. I will be taking a bit of a break, but we won't be having a content break. We won't be starting a new season until next month, but we will be bringing some summer content to your feed, including this episode, as well as a what came next episode that actually is very relevant to season 24. Be on the lookout for season 24 starting July 10th for early release listeners. We will definitely be airing some really valuable and compelling content in between. One of the episodes that we're going to be airing, I'm very honored that John Callis agreed to let us air,

was this incredible what came next episode that Amy worked on where she interviewed John Callis, who is a survivor of many things, one of them being military school. For season 24, we are going to be investigating the quote, troubled teen industry. And I think by calling it the troubled teen industry, we're placing the onus onto the children who have been harmed by these facilities when it should not be. It is absolutely alarming what we've learned. And honestly, some of the darkest shit I've ever heard of or had to sit with. And it is extremely heartbreaking while simultaneously being so important because children are still being placed into these, quote, programs and facilities on a daily basis here in the United States especially.

So having said that, we wanted to include this. special What Came Next episode that Amy recorded with Survivor John Callas. Amy, would you talk a little bit about that episode so listeners can know a bit more about what to expect? Yeah, John is an incredible director and producer from Hollywood, but his origin story is rather heartbreaking. He has overcome a lot of trauma. He spent three years in a military school in the 1950s. So this is a time when they're, and he'll explain in his episode, just regulations and the way that that these schools had oversight were much different. And then he went into boarding school where the experience was varied,

but he just struggled for a really long time. And it's a very strong episode about the trauma that he faced, but also the transformation that he made through narrative therapy, writing a book and entering Hollywood, chasing his dreams, if you will, and the power of persistence and perseverance. And it was an honor to speak to him. He was introduced to me by John Michael Lander, who we've also shared an episode.

highlighting his experiences. It's just an honor to meet these people and to know them and to support them. And he's very grateful that you're sharing his story on something was wrong as well. Well, it's an honor for us and always nice when we can platform male survivor's stories as well on something was wrong. Lily is working alongside me for season 24 as associate producer. And as I mentioned, we are interviewing survivors of the child abuse system that exists. here in America and internationally. These places are referred to as programs or behavior modification programs,

wilderness programs, therapeutic boarding schools. They go by many names, and the harm that they create is profound. Lily, I'm curious if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about your reflections as we've heard from the survivors so far and some of the parents who have lost their children as well due to these quote programs.

Yeah, definitely. Maybe similarly to other people, I came to first know of what these places were through pulp culture references. Dr. Phil has a big hand in these places for myself. Even I had a lot of students that I went to middle school and high school that were sent off to wilderness therapy and not really understanding what that meant. But then obviously after hearing, people like Paris Hilton, taking a real front row seat in trying to make legislative change. I think a lot of people came to a different understanding and are actually hearing the realities, but to now sit with people who have gone through it and not just hear it in a new cycle, it is so heartbreaking. It is so eye-opening. And to your point, Tiffany, it is still going on.

It might be happening in a different capacity than it did in the early 2000. but these are very real devastating realities. Speaking with each of the survivors who have had similar experiences in treatment, I mean, a lot of these programs are set up in similar ways and just the types of abuse they perpetuate, but what's interesting is hearing the different things that people took away from it.

Some specific parts were harder for some than others, so it's eye-opening to just hear how differently this can manifest for so many and also very alarming that these programs that are intended to help in reform, there are very alarming rates that actually people that exit them, there are heightened incarceration rates, suicide rates, addiction rates. It was really sad, but important to hear from parents that sent their kids to these places and hearing the manipulation that the parents went through at the hands of these institutions, blatant lying to them and indoctrinating them. And then also now starting to hear from a bit more experts in the field, some writers and

leading nonprofit organizations helping the cause. It has been very, very difficult to stomach, but it is so fueling and also kind of inspiring to see the community that these survivors have come together and started due to the trauma. It's a testament to their resilience and also just how important community can be. It will be a tough listen, but it's incredibly, incredibly important to put out there. Yeah. And to your point, Lily, that's what it always strikes me about not only these survivors' stories, but others like season 23, where we're interviewing survivors who have had similar experiences. Maybe there's different levels of harm and different levels of things that have happened to them. But overall, they're speaking about the ways that it impacted them. And that is

often so different individual to individual. What's so heartbreaking too about these programs is they really like broke people and harmed people in so many different ways. And what was difficult and hard for one person may have been different for someone else, depending on their prior traumas leading up to this, who they were as people, their neurodivergency, a lot of other various differences between them. And so what I hope that people will take away is not only the undeniable harm that these places cause, but the ways that trauma and CPTSD can impact us all differently and the ways that survivors of childhood abuse have to continue to fight for justice in adulthood. but also have to work to regulate themselves in their brains and correct this programming,

correct this negative self-talk, these things that have been instilled in them for years beyond childhood. What's also standing out to me from season 24 and season 23 is that in America and many places, children do not have very many rights. And I find that to be very concerning. If we are looking at how well a country is doing, we should look at how it's most vulnerable are doing and how they're being treated. There is clearly something fucking wrong here

in many of these systems and the ways that it impacts children and just how little rights and protection children have in our country. Thank you so much to the listeners who submitted questions through my personal Instagram, as well as the something was wrong, Instagram pages. We always love hearing from you. y'all and hearing your questions. I think that was something that was really cool, too, about the live event that we had in

Austin was it was almost like a live Q&A and getting to hear listeners' feedback and thoughts or, like, them asking clarifying questions. It was so cool to get to experience that live where you can have an actual two-way conversation with somebody about it. Someone asked, have we ever had to decline a story due to a person being shady slash abusing the platform that's created to serve survivors? I've never had like a Megan Stoner situation where someone came to me and had completely made up a story about someone or anything like that. No, I've never had that happen.

Do we have to assess certain elements, logistics, consistencies in order to make sure that we're being responsible with our platform? Yes, of course. Because I review the submissions that come in a lot of the time. every once in a while I'll get one that just doesn't feel right. I think it's a lot of the time a style of writing. But yeah, in terms of having a pre-interview, I don't think that's ever happened. I will say there are certain things that can happen

where we're working on a story and then we need to prioritize the survivor's safety and we always put that first. That has to be number one. So sometimes we can start working with someone and things start moving and it's no longer in their best interest for us to move forward. It may be in that survivor's best interest to not go public with their story at that point

because they might be actually going to court, you know, and be seeing justice elsewhere. So we constantly have to be weighing those things and make sure we always prioritize the survivor doing what's best for them, not for us. And that's another way that we're different than a lot of traditional media outlets who don't care or think about those things at all. somebody else asked the best way to get in touch to share their story. Lily, since you've heard me say it a billion times, could you tell folks where to submit their stories? Yes. If you go to the something was wrong website, something was wrong.com, you click the share your story button and it prompts you to write a message and leave your name and the state you're from and just basically a brief overview of the experience you went through. From there, I review them internally and pass them along. Lily, you spend a lot of time going through submissions.

The question a lot of people ask me, what's important to share from your perspective, Lily, if people are trying to sort of like distill down what to share with us? I think just a brief overview of the situation at hand with key events, different nuances or oftentimes things that I like that people do are, I want to share my story because this highlights blank point that. they've faced or why for them it would be important in sharing. Laying down the main points of events that we want to cover in a chronological way on the timeline.

Sometimes people will just send us like a paragraph and we still reach out to them because what they've shared feels important and we want to know more. Submissions don't need to be extensive for us to consider them. We've had submissions even for season 24 where people just let us know like my name is XYZ and I was here and here and it wasn't an extensive submission about their feelings. And some people will just say, like, reach out if you want to know more and we will. I think it's a daunting task to try and summarize, but it can hopefully be therapeutic for folks to sort of try to distill.

But we also don't want them to be feeling like they need to write us a memoir. We can chat more on the phone and, like, work through things if there's pieces that we don't understand or that are more in depth. we've had some people reach out and be like, can you send us this timeline document? When we're saying timeline, we're just meaning like date and then bullet points underneath. We build it out more extensively, like with sources and we link to things because it's so important to not only understanding the story fact checking, but also to our like creative process. It's very in depth.

But I would also recommend writing whatever you're going to send somewhere where you can save it because it won't like send you a copy of your submission. So if you're worried about like if it got through. or not, maybe just put it into like a free Google Doc or some sort of program that you have and type it into there. And then you can copy and paste it into the website. So that way you have a copy of it if you want to end up submitting it to a different podcast or just because you're doing the emotional labor and it may be validating for you to work on a timeline for yourself. We've heard from a lot of survivors that it's been beneficial for them. Documentation is a

really great tool, especially for survivors who have ongoing legal battles. so much can happen in these traumatic situations that it can become a lot to keep track of. It can be really beneficial. And I think also just any time we have to write something or try to summarize our feelings about things, whether that's through talking about them or writing about them or creating any type of art,

it can help us process things when we have to distill it, at least for me. Working on my own season, even though I had written about my experiences a lot more before previously, saying it out loud and having it, be held and cared for by the people I was working with was very healing for me in a different way. And so I also just want to underscore that like, even if you don't feel comfortable coming on a

podcast to share your experience, you can share that with a safe person. You could share that with the therapist. Everybody's process and how they decide to share who they're comfortable sharing with is their own journey and there is no right or wrong way to do so. The quicker that you get it all out on paper and brain dump, all about it. As time goes on, trauma does a lot to your brain and you're going to forget little pieces of it. So it's important to get that out. Especially with like stalking victims, it can be really beneficial to like journal things, especially when repetitive behavior is happening where like the memories can get confused easily because they're so frequent. It just can be helping as like a

clarifying exercise even for ourselves. And an isolated behavior feels like that until sometimes we witness a repetition or something that we can kind of see as a pattern. So sometimes when you do write it down, you're not just going from event to event. You are able to see that pattern sometimes quicker. Yeah. And I think a lot of times it can become daunting for people thinking it needs to be really extensive. I would definitely just empower folks. Don't feel like you need a certain setting or document. It really can be whatever feels right for you. But a good place to start is just laying out what happened when and connecting like dates to memory. memories and thoughts, that on its own can be like some of the process for us as survivors,

because some things can be so uncomfortable to think about that we've compartmentalized certain aspects or our brain has become foggy in certain ways. One question that was submitted through the Q&A that someone also asked me at the event that I didn't expect was what it's like for me to support survivors who have different politics from mine. I have been interviewing and working with Survivor. whose politics don't align with mine since season one. From the beginning, I've met with and interviewed a lot of people who have different religious beliefs, political beliefs. And the show has certainly helped me become very, very comfortable with difficult conversations. What would probably

have felt uncomfortable to me seven years ago doesn't anymore. Like most things, the more practice you get at something, the more comfortable and confident you become. And so it's not difficult for me to talk to people who have different political beliefs than me. I really actually enjoy talking to people who believe different things than me because I like to learn. I want to know everything about every angle. That's just sort of how my brain works. Is it upsetting sometimes to hear certain beliefs? Yes, but I also think because people know that I just hold more progressive, ideals, I think they probably filter what they say around me too. I don't know what their conversations are like elsewhere, but I feel like it's always remained very like civil and an exchange of ideas.

I think you have to know also other people's perspectives in order to know how to make change. Because it's one thing if I go into an echo chamber and I'm just hearing the same things over and over and over again, my breadth of knowledge and understanding to like what is the problem and how we got here is going to be limited versus when I expand my knowledge and I speak to people with many different ideas about that topic. It helps me overall gain a better understanding of the obstacles. This idea that if you don't like what I say, block me or unfollow me, I've never really been that kind of person. I may have said, like, if you believe this, that's fucked up for sure. Like, I'm very outspoken, but it is part of my job. I believe, as an ally, to lessen the burden

for people of color, for trans people, for marginalized communities, to have uncomfortable conversations and continue those conversations with people who are acting bigoted. I understand that everybody's mental health is different, and you certainly have to take care of yourself. but if we're just unfollowing each other and not talking to each other anymore, like we're just going to be at a standstill for the rest of time. It's not about excusing negative behavior, poor behavior, or agreeing with that person's beliefs. But I think I try to really look at the human being.

And I think most of the time when I talk to people about things from more of an issue to issue basis versus you're a Republican and you're a liberal. I just think that it's part of the reason we're at where we're at, which is an extremely divided country. And I understand that the burden for some people is too heavy because of the way that they're harmed by these people's beliefs and policies. But I'm going to stand up and fight where I can. And there's areas that are really hard for me to talk about, and I can't advocate as openly about one of them being police, gun violence. it's so painful.

And I think that's something we also have to consider when we're discussing people who have different beliefs from us. What is the cost to them? If you're making a victim of sexual assault, let's say argue about statute of limitations, the cost to the person you're arguing with is such a different cost

than somebody who hasn't experienced sexual assault. You have to also consider the emotional labor. You're making people summon to deliver information. And if there's something out there that you don't understand, it's on you to educate yourself and learn more about it. So that's where I'm operating from is a perspective of education, curiosity,

and I guess just trying to build more bridges. That was one that, like, stood out to me. I remember saying something to you guys after the event. I was like, a few different people asked me this question. And then it was funny because as soon as we put up the Q&A thing on social media, somebody asked me that too. I honor and respect the shit out of you for entering the conversation as intelligently and as compassionately as you do all the time.

Thank you. I'm a human being. We're all learning and I don't always say the right thing. I also learn from people who have different beliefs and it helps me understand more of human nature and psychology in general. We can learn a lot just by listening. Next time on something was wrong. It's incredible the community that's being built not only in the listenership, but the actual survivors that are interviewed.

75% of the people talking right now in this episode are survivors who have shared their experiences on something was wrong. It's also incredible just to reflect on the amount of survivors that we have worked with over the years. It was mentioned that we've worked with hundreds of people at this point, and that really struck me. We're nearing, I want to say, 400 episodes like we're getting up there. So it's a lot to reflect back on. Every season feels like its own piece of time. Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production, created and produced by executive producer Tiffany Reese,

Associate producer's Amy B. Chessler, and Lily Rowe, with audio editing and music design by Becca High. Thank you to our extended team, Lauren Barkman, our social media marketing manager, and Sarah Stewart, our graphic artist. Thank you to Marissa, Travis, and our team at WME, Wondry, Jason and Jennifer, our cybersecurity team, Darkbox Security, and my lawyer, Allen. Thank you endlessly to every survivor who has ever trusted us with their stories. And thank you, each and every listener, for making our show possible with your support and listenership. Special shout out to Emily Wolfe for covering

Gladrag's original song, You Think You for Us this season. For more music by Emily Wolfe, check out the episode notes or your favorite music streaming app. Speaking of episode notes, there every week you'll find episode-specific content warnings, sources, and resources. Until next time, stay safe, friends.