Something Was Wrong - S4 Ep6: Learned to Fight Back in My Dreams

Episode Date: March 7, 2020

*Content Warning: death by suicide, cultic abuse, religious abuse, abuse of children, psychological and physical violence, gaslighting, domestic abuse, suicidal ideation, death, distressing themes.Music from Glad Rags album Wonder Under  IG: @GladRagsMusicwww.somethingwaswrong.com/resourcesFollow Tiffany on Instagram @LookieBoo Thank you to Leahness, Thom and Jim Bouge for participating in this series.*Sources: (some of these links are Affiliate Links)Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People by Tim ReitermanGaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People--and Break Free by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, PhDPsychopath Free Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People by Jackson MacKenzie A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown by Julia ScheeresRaven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People by Tim Reiterman

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Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences. Many episodes discuss topics that can be triggering, such as emotional and physical abuse, suicide and murder. Please take caution when listening. I am not a therapist or a doctor. Opinions expressed by guests of the show do not necessarily represent the views of this podcast. If you or someone you know is being abused, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline

at 1-800-799-7233. If you or someone you love is experiencing a suicidal crisis or thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Thank you. You think you know me, you don't know me at home. Thinking of me, you don't know me where... We ended up, we were most way out. The parks went ahead of us because me and my sister could barely walk anymore. So they'd gone ahead and came out.

Then they'd sent some locals up the river with some canoes. They'd gotten us. We came back out. Down there, if you just get a little scratch or anything else, well, you better get something on it quick. Faction comes real fast down there. He didn't know at that point that we'd even been hit. No, I hadn't even...

That we came out. That's what he found out we'd been hit. Yeah, I didn't know. And it isn't exactly like you can do a lot of searching in the jungle. It's just so vast. It could be any... were. Tom and his sisters were finally rescued from the jungles of Guyana after two nights, three days, on November 20th, 1978. The Boge family was ecstatic to be reunited, especially because neither

group knew who had been injured at the Port Kaituma Airstrip shooting on November 18th. During the reunion, Tom learned that five people had died during the airstrip shooting. Congressman Leo Ryan, Defector Patricia Parks, a photographer from the San Francisco Examiner, and two NBC news reporters were tragically lost during the shooting. Congressman Ryan remains the only U.S. representative to be killed in the line of duty. Twelve others were wounded, including Tom and his sister Tina, both of which had been shot in the leg. The Boog family and the rest of the congressman's group learned of the mass murder at Jonestown from locals while staying at a small disco in town. Jim and Edith Bogg's daughter and Tom's sister, Marily, and 917 others died that

fateful day. People use the term like drink the Kool-Aid, but not everybody necessarily even drink it. Like some people were held down. There's other ways that it happened. So certainly not suicide. It was, it was murk. And I think some took it just simply. because they were tired. You know? I've had enough. What do you think Jones wanted the most? Attention.

Attention. Power and everything else to get the attention. Well, you know, it's kind of like, you know, when you see on the news about that neighbor who has all these people buried in their backyard and everything, right? And they're talking to the neighbors of that individual. And they're like, they were just the nicest person.

I know, you know, I can't imagine that. That's why. That's who they are, right? Right. So it's kind of the way it was. So you think about it, all this horrible stuff is going on inside the church. But with all this dynamic of goodness being shown to the public, right? They can't even begin to think that anything like that would be occurring inside.

And that's what he did in big time. It was just part of the control you had to have to make it all work. Freedom of the press has been a longstanding tradition. in the United States. In today's political and social climate, the news is often labeled fake, alarmist, or biased. I think it's important to highlight that without the push of Congressman Ryan

and journalists like Tim Reiderman investigating Jonestown, the Boge family, as well as the other defector families, may not have lived that day. Raven author, Tim Reiterman, was also injured during the airstrip shooting when he was shot in the arm. He recounted,

In all, 913 perished in his final white night. Very few people in Jonestown escaped death. Very few outside the reach of Jones' voice followed his orders. On that horrible Saturday, no one kicked over the vat of poison or turned guns on their leader to stop him. No one could stop him, not after he had manipulated his people into believing their fortunes lay only in the grandiose final statement. Not after he had sealed their compact with the airstrip murders

and the command bring the children first. The executioner had initiated an act of such enormity and tragedy that Jones Town, the life-sustaining symbol and dream for his followers, would become a degraded international synonym for unspeakable evil and waste. From the day of the Holocaust, outsiders refused to accept the interpretation Jones sought to place on the self-destruction of his movement. They viewed it as madness, cruelty, and later as deception by a satanic leader, not as a political or social statement.

The terrible images of poison being squirted down the tiny throats of babies, of screaming adults twisting on the ground in death throes, or being forcibly injected with poison, of entire families dying inside a perimeter of guns, crossbows, and jungle. The incomprehensibility of all of this caused the world to shudder in revulsion and despair. belief. We ended up having to spend the night in the local bar there because they didn't know where else to stay. And the next morning they flew us out. And then I was in the, in the Georgetown hospital for a month, recovering for my leg. How did you pay for the hotel or did

the... Well, we didn't pay for the hotel. And they charged us, I got to charge against me yet from the hotel down. The government paid for it as a primary. And then dad was backbilled for from the government. How lovely. Yeah, yeah. We stayed there and they sent us some money to while we were there, my family did. In fact, my family bought all of our tickets to come back

and they wouldn't let us on the plane yet. And finally, they called and they even called the president, I guess, my sister and had. a one-time sister-in-law, and they were working like crazy from San Francisco, and they was calling everybody, and then they finally led us on the plane to leave down there. Then we came back, and we got to the States,

and we were interviewed several hours by the FBI and individual trailers, which was really strange if we went to this big warehouse, and here's all these trailers, and each one of us are sent to a trailer. So after several hours of that, we spent the night again, And then we flew from New York to San Francisco for a whole other adventure.

Did you feel relieved when you came back to the States? I don't know. I'll see the same thing. Even after Jim Jones' death, the people's temple defectors continued to fear retaliation from the church's remaining members. And here's the scary part is Jones would always say that if anything, happens, there are those who are to kill any survivors. Okay? When we left, and I believe it was sometime within the first two years, between 78 and 80, I believe

it was, that Mascone was killed. Here's the scary part about that. Is at the meeting that Mascone came to in the church and spoke, and Jones spoke very highly of them and everything else, right? Showing all the support and everything. after he left that meeting, Jones continued to speak about him. And he said anything ever happens to us, he's going to die. So within the first two years of getting out, he dies.

Oh, you think survivors weren't freaked out? And then you hear about the Mills family getting shot, but they tried to put it on the sun, but they couldn't prove it. So those were previous defectors. I know I personally was very concerned. after that for quite a while. And not being of an age to really even build to put the pieces together, but only to be able to have an emotional response to things that happen.

You know, not a logical response, not a factual response. So it was, no, that was a scary time for me. We had to get it straight in our mind about America again and release all this crap out of our minds from down there. One of the biggest things that you deal with when you get back is all the people. The numbers of people. After you spent time down there in that kind of seclusion, you actually make that seclusion. And then when you, you know, so you develop a sense of being a naturalist, in a sense.

And then you come here and now you're dealing with all the commercialism, all the people, all the, you know, the fads and everything else. going on and you sit back and you question, what is the point of all this? Hell, it's better to be back to being somewhat secluded. And to many levels, I still feel that away. And while people who know me say, really, you, you don't like being around all kinds of people and everything else? Well, no, but I've learned to be around people and to interact with them. But inside, I still want more of the seclusion. So that is an adjustment you make in coming back here. And that point, Part never really leaves you. Of course, I had to get things together and got Tina and Oneita and computer school.

But were you all living together then? Yeah, in my sister's house. Yeah. What did that feel like to finally be? I started realizing how my sister wanted to be Queen Bee. You do it my way. I mean, it wasn't do it my way or else or anything. you just do it my way.

And I got Tom in computer school, but he learned more about girls, and he did computers, and he kind of flunked out of that. When we first got back, I had to tell him one day, Tom, you've got to get a job, because you had something like 12 jobs in one year?

Every time I got bored. I had to say, I don't know, you're going to sleep in doorways or in the gutter or wherever you want to do. But I said, I'm taking you out of my wallet. That was the day, I thought he was going to walk me one. Would you say that you had post-traumatic stress? They didn't even know what that was back then. I remember the nightmares of always trying to escape in my dreams. And over time, actually, it happened with such frequency.

to get it to stop, I actually learned to control my dream because it was just happening so much that I learned to fight back in my dreams. You know, who does that? You know, but yes, that's all part of what I believe to be the post-traumatic stress syndrome. And back then says they knew nothing about it. I mean, I got into drugs. I mean, the whole role. I became homeless, all that. And it actually wasn't until I met my current wife before I really started coming out of this mess. Were you interviewed right away by a bunch of people in the media? Like, was it in your face? Like, I imagine it would be now media on your doorstep?

After getting back to San Francisco, within the first couple of years, yes, there was actually quite a few people trying to interview. I recall only doing one initially. And being a young man are not really knowing anything about theatrics, really. Oh, they, you know, and I remember afterwards just despising that interview. and the people who control it. Because they had me doing stuff like, you know, like ringing my hands, like I was really distraught and stuff. Gross.

Yeah. Retramatizing you? Great. Right. Or are trying to make me look more traumatized than what reality I was. From that point on, any next interview, I would tell them right off the bat. I said, look, you can ask your questions. I will decide what I'm going to answer, what I'm not going to answer.

If I tell you, I'm not going to answer it. And you push, we're done. Not going to be a question. We're done. which I was going to tell you and I forgot. So, yeah, but no, but from that point I learned I was going to control my interviews. Yeah. And what you want to share and what you don't want to share.

And that's absolutely you're right. And anybody who would push you and make you feel uncomfortable, it's not somebody who deserves your story. No. And I just want to say it's very refreshing to actually sit here and speak to somebody who wasn't just, as part of the research, wasn't just looking for the surface story as I've been contacted with so many times prior

in all the interviews I've gone to and I've done well over 100 of them. Okay? This is the first time that actually somebody, and I'm referencing you, has actually taken a moment to try to understand the actual mindset of what occurs as these things develop.

because most of the interviews it's very basic to me but most of the interviews are so what happened right oh well and not once they say well why do you think that is you know it's more of do you recall this and this and this and this oh yes I do

sure I'll elaborate on that but not once did they really go into the underlying story the one that actually informs people of not only the psychology of what occurred, but provides an outlook of what to be aware of. So I just want to take a moment to say thank you for that. Well, thank you.

And it's very refreshing. And I honestly got into it with one crew. They were trying to get me to say something about my mother, but because I knew that society wouldn't understand it or having not been there. and just knowing one portion of it would really make her look bad without understanding the other portion and most people tend to remember the first part of what they hear, not the tell end of the explanation.

I read the headline, I know the story. Okay, so, and because of that, I was like, you know, I told her out of the get it, no, I'm not going to do that. Because I am not going to make my mother look like that when that isn't who she is and never was. it was due to a circumstance at the time. At that time, it was one of the ways they kept the nucleus broke up, is if it was one of your family members and they were in trouble

and you didn't openly and strongly chastise them, not only were you in trouble now, but whoever that person, family member was, is now in double trouble. So by doing this open chastise and you were actually saving them from being in more trouble. Okay, but that isn't the part that people tend to remember. They don't remember the headline. So they wanted me to read this paper stuff and I told him I wouldn't do it. They started pushing and finally I got to a point where I just told me.

I said, look, you know what? Remember what I said? This is one of those times. Say one more thing. Try to push it. And you with the camera, get off from behind my shoulder because he was trying to film me holding the paper at least so they could use it later. And that's when I got up and I turned around to a producer.

I just asked him point blank, would you do this to your mind? mother. And he said no. Then I said, then I said, then get off of me or this interview is over. And that's when they all just kind of backed off like, oh, crap. Good for you. Do what I got afterwards? Because let's face it, from growing up in that bubble, really having little to nothing to do with society as a whole, the last two and a half three years of my life, I was living in the middle of the jungle with a group of people of that same bubble. And then to come here and have to learn about society, all the good and the bad that goes with it was a challenge. It was a real challenge because these other things that other kids learned growing up, you know, from the first time

they went to kindergarten at five years old, until they graduated high school at 17, 18 years of old, of age. I missed all of that. So I learned none of these things. I didn't learn how cruel people can be. And I'm going to say that is one thing that still just amazes me to this day and just how cruel people can be for no other reason but to be cruel. It just astounds me. So as I've gotten older, I've analyzed a lot of my behaviors today. While I didn't think back then, I was being impacted or brainwashed into some of those beliefs. But as I went later on in life, I come to find out that in reality, even though I was the renegade.

the troublemaker, openly and clearly defiant of everything, but still underlying, almost on a subliminal level, I was still taking in those lessons. I remember the first time I was scammed. I was probably 22 years old. I didn't even heard of a scam. I didn't know that there's people on the world that would do that, that would just, you know, take advantage of you, just because they could. That was a huge lesson for me. Just like, It was another lesson for me when I was like 19 years old. I mean, we're talking about a year and a half after I got out. And I'm walking through the neighborhood I lived in in San Francisco with this young lady.

And this guy, twice my age, just comes up and slugs me in the face and keeps walking. I didn't know I needed to be on my guard. I didn't know I needed to be aware of my surroundings like that. That somebody just come out of nowhere and try to do bodily harm. You know, these are the things you learned younger in life. Like high school, right? You know, you're the bully of the school, would you come up jack you up, right? And actually, everything that happened to me growing up was all from the leadership.

It was never from the commoners of the temple. It was always the leadership that did these things to you. So you actually learned to have an acute awareness of the leadership, not from everybody who's basically on the same stature that you are. So then to come out into a society where now you're dealing with that. And racism? I honestly didn't know what racism was. I mean, I knew what it was.

in in in an in an almost a definition type sense but but but but ever really being um subjected to it no even when we were in school here in the states we were a unit we were a group so even on that level for me i never was really subjected to that type of mentality because yes i was raised in a very political organization so we are acutely aware of all the things that were going on in the in the 60s early 70s civil rights, all that. So you might say, well, how could you subject to that? Not really know, you know, well, you have to understand. I wasn't subjected to racism.

Most of the people in our group, we didn't subject each other to that. So when you come down to now going into a society where that no longer existed, now you have to go into those words, you know. I grew up judging a person on their character, not on the color of their skin. A person is a good person or a bad person. And racism back then, even in the late 70s, 80s, 90s, was in many ways more profound than it is now because it was kept in the closet. How does surviving an experience like that change you as a person? One thing it does, and I don't know if it affected everybody the same, but you always have a survivalist part of you in there.

You never, that never goes away. Right. So it's almost like you're always preparing for something bad to happen. And you're not content until you feel you're secured and you have a place to go. Or a way to escape or a way to survive. That never leaves your personality. It may seem like it has to others. I remember several years back, I forgot what it was now, but it really triggered it. I mean, triggered it bad in me in such a manner that I went and made sure we had tense,

We had all this stuff to survive in the wilderness if we needed to. And I even knew it. I even knew I was overreacting and still couldn't stop it. It took almost a week and a half to two weeks for it to start diminishing at all, even though I knew. I knew it. I was like, why are you doing this? Society is not collapsing. Things aren't going that crazy.

I think it was like that's when, was it gas prices or something back then? I forget what it was, but I just, I just remember so well thinking to myself, what your reactions are to this are not real, but yet I couldn't stop making sure I'm covered. And it was just, I mean, but that, but that, that, that was really probably the second time I realized that there had more had happened to me mentally than I'd even knew. And it caused me to evaluate myself more and more and more. of the way I look at things to my thoughts, everything else is self-evaluating heavily. Next time. You think you know me, you don't know me well at all.

You don't know me well. Something was wrong is written, recorded, edited, and produced by me, Tiffany Reese. Thank you so much to the Bogues family for participating in this season. Music by Gladrags. Listener cover. by Catwhite, catwhite music.com. Follow me on Instagram at Looky Boo. L-O-O-K-I-E-B-O.

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