We're All Insane - Groomed by Camp Counselor

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp - go to http://betterhelp.com/insane to get 10% off your first month. In this deeply personal video, Logan, a courageous young individual, shares his journey of overcoming the trauma of being groomed by his camp counselor. Grooming is a manipulative process where an abuser builds a relationship with a child or adolescent, often for harmful purposes. If you or someone you know has experienced grooming or abuse, know that there is help and support available. Please consider reaching out to a trusted adult, counselor, or contacting organizations for assistance. Logan's Amazon Wish List for fidgets for his students: https://bit.ly/loganwereallinsane If you have a unique story you'd like to share on the podcast, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ZiHgdoK4PLRAddiB9 or send an email to [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's me Devorah. I just dropped an all new bonus episode inside my new subscription channel, We're All Insane Plus. This week's bonus episode is called My Brain was slipping into my spine. Listen now by subscribing to We're All Insane Plus inside your Spotify or Apple Podcasts app or go to we're all insane.com. Well, hello. Hi. My name is Logan and I had the privilege of being groomed by my Christian camp counselor turned youth group leader turned, hello queen, turned boss. Wow. Yeah, I was with this man for a very long time.

Currently, I am a professional school counselor in a middle school. And I have significant training and experience in crisis intervention and suicide prevention. And I work a lot of, well, a lot of my work goes specifically with suicide prevention. in LGBTQ plus youth. So this year, well, every year really, we teach personal body safety lessons, which is about child abuse and grooming and about essentially how we, you know, as adults can help kids stay safe around other adults. So, you know, as we were doing it this year and I was delivering the lesson, a lot of

the students had questions about grooming and they were kind of laughing about it. And like when we were talking about some of the topics, they were like, oh, like, you know, raising their hand like, that's not going to happen. Like, that's absurd. And I felt this like very real like triggering response to it. How old are they? Oh, middle school. So sixth grade.

Well, I was six through eighth grade. Wow. And so many of them really didn't take it seriously. Right. And I'm like, this is a real thing that actually happens. And it is hard, I will say, like, thinking back and even. meeting younger kids, it's almost like our brains don't grasp anything. Right.

Except for like what's happening. And in ways, that's a good thing because we're like present. We live in the moment. Yeah. But when it comes to serious safety and just issues of the world, it's a downside. Right. I mean, myself in middle school, most of the story comes from when I was in middle school, I probably would have laughed at the idea of like grooming a child too because it's so absurd.

But it's very real and we have to teach kids about the fact that it's very real. And it's a significant risk for every single child. So with that, the purpose of me coming here is to kind of tell my story and my experience with being groomed where I'm at now. I'm doing well. I'm doing great. I love my job. I love working with kids. And it just kind of, I want to be the voice to,

tell not necessarily children, but, you know, I'm at the age where people are starting to have kids. And I'm sure many of the listeners are also, you know, young adults and they probably also are starting to have kids. And this is still very much a reality for families and for kids. And if telling this story can, you know, make one parent kind of be like, oh, wait a minute, now I'm kind of questioning this relationship that my child has with this adult, then for me, that's a win. Absolutely. And so I personally am an only child.

I'm also a child of divorce. So just right off the bat, there were some like vulnerabilities that didn't necessarily impact me personally, but made it so that I was a perfect target for grooming. I grew up relatively non-religious. my dad and his side of the family is Jewish. And I pretty much celebrated a lot of the Jewish holidays, but wasn't like necessarily practicing Judaism. The irony is that this camp that I had gone to for all these years is a Christian summer camp.

We had no idea. It was a Christian summer camp until one day my mom told me that I came home singing about my father's house. And there's like this song. It's like, come with me to me. my father's house and my mom was like, why are you singing about your father's house and not your mother's house? And then she put it together that it's a Christian camp. So I started at that camp at age five and had been there every single summer for eight to ten weeks for since from ages five. And then I worked there up until age 20 or 21. So 13. And was it just a day camp? Yeah, it was a day camp.

It was a day camp and we had overniders. And that's that's what I'll be talking about. more on. But so in fourth grade, I moved from the traditional day camp to the wilderness program, which is like had this reputation of having fewer rules, having, you know, more open space, less structure. It was kind of for the kids who were a little bit more needy in terms of their neurodiversity. That was not me. I just thought it was really cool.

And the culture of this wilderness program is that everybody could not wait until they were in the teen group because it was like, wow. like once you're a teen, you have, you know, all this freedom and like it's super, super cool. And, you know, also like in the teen program, there's this really awesome guy named Steve. And Steve is the, just like the face of the wilderness teens program and also the center of all of my trauma. He's the groomer. Okay. And so he is like notorious as this like big extroverted.

personality. He also is very charismatic. And he's seen as like the most powerful person at this camp because everybody loves him. I mean, it's like if we think about how do you define a groomer, it's the charismatic person who everybody loves. He has this awesome reputation. He's been there for years. So he has all of the historical knowledge of everything. And so this guy is like the face of the teen program and you're like, wow, I want to get, I want to get to teens so that I can meet Steve. And so if I had to describe wilderness teens or just teens with one word, the word I would choose, even pre-grooming would be lawless because we spent time in the woods. We'd be building forts, building fires. We also spent lots of time at our local McDonald's,

which is like really weird. We would just, like, not in a weird groomy kind of way, just like a strange. Like we just hang around and eat like McChicons. Honestly, it sounds pretty good. Yeah. In theory, it sounds great. But like if you think about the fact that like families are paying for their kids to just go to McDonald's, it's a little weird. McDonald's and build fires. Build fires. Yeah. Nothing like outdoorsy McDonald's and fire pits. So we would start and end each day with a group meeting, which is pretty typical of most camps. We'd ultimately like in the morning, prepare for our day. And at the end of the day, kind of debrief how the day went. Each meeting, of course, included prayer because it was a Christian camp. Yeah, that's what I was

going to ask. Were they teaching you stuff about Christianity as well? Yes. As we got older, there was a lot of, a lot more Christianity. That was kind of incorporated, especially Steve was the big, like he was, he had his own youth group, which I'll talk about later. So he was really kind of like the preacher figure as well. When I eventually became a counselor at the camp, I kind of toned it down a little bit because I'm also very gay. So, you know, there's that aspect as well. But needless to say, Christianity was a big part of the camp. Another important fact about the teen program is that the boys and the girls, for the most

part, were separated. There were times when we would all come together, you know, for normal group stuff. And I will refer to that time as mixed company because that's what Steve referred to it as. Oh, we're in mixed company. So all of the things we do with just us guys that can't happen in mixed company. Like, all right, whatever, weirdo. So traditionally, the boys group, Steve ran for years. I mean, like I said, I started in fourth grade.

He had been leading the boys group since the second I got there. And he had been there for many, many years before that. For the most part, it was just him. But my first year in the program, he eventually, he got a co-counselor, which I'll talk about later. And the weird thing with Steve is he never told anyone how old he was. So like picture this essentially Santa Claus-esque figure, nasty gray beard that he insisted was blonde. Dude, you had blonde hair.

Like your beard is gray. Rinkly eyes, six foot two, like huge guy. So he was older. He's a lot older. So he told us that he's. started working at camp when he was 16. And when my final year as a counselor, he was celebrated for serving 25 years at the camp. And so he never told us how old he was, but I did the math.

And that would have put him at 41 in his 25th year. So when I was his camper, he would have been 36. So this is like a 36-year-old man working with 14, no, 13 through 16-year-olds. also like objectively not weird so not really a red flag but also he had been doing it for like 15 years so just a little strange um there was also a girls group um with a counselor or two and then we had a head counselor who supervised both the boys group and the girls group um so like i said in my first year the program had grown significantly so steve for the first time had a co-counselor um to be with the boy's but the girls just had the one counselor and then the head counselor who worked with them. And then you asked about, is it a day camp? Yes, but every Thursday into Friday,

we'd go on an overnighter, which would be somewhere relatively far away, either the beach or the mountains or whitewater rafting. So it's kind of like a trip. Yeah, a trip where we'd get on the bus for like three to four hours, do like a camping thing or an activity during the day, camp overnight. And was that only for the teens? It was for, yes, Thursday into Friday was the teens.

Every other group starting in third grade did it Friday nights. Got it. Okay. So Steve was also the bus driver for us. So like he played many different roles. And I have many talents. Many, many talents. So he was also a bus driver for a local public school system.

So like this man was anywhere that children were involved, he was there. And most of the lawlessness, ironically, happened on the bus. So because of these weekly overnighters, we had to store all of our luggage. So Steve took the six seats in the back of the bus out of the bus so that we could store the luggage. And it was great storage space for when we were on the overnighters. When we weren't storing luggage, we had dance parties back there while the bus was moving. So like super unsafe. And we painted the roof of the bus like on the inside.

We signed her names on it. So it was like our personal space. My first year there was this trend of like everyone sitting on the top of the seats. So like people are dancing in the back of the bus. People are sitting on top of the seats like on the backs of the seats just hanging out. Any limb or any body part whatsoever is certainly out the window. for the most parts, the buses for our camp were this, this like, baby blue. Like, everybody knew.

If you saw the baby blue blus, like, that was the camp that I was at. Because of our absurd party-like, lawless atmosphere, Steve wanted to do anything he could to distinguish our bus as like, no, we are not part of this camp. So he took the name of the camp and the phone number off at the side of the bus. bus. We also painted the bus camo, which was pretty cool, like objectively, wilderness theme. Okay. But that way it was easy for us to pretend like we weren't representing this Christian camp. And we were, you know, this like hardcore wilderness group and like, oh, well, if we got in

trouble, because like we're not associated with the camp. We're something else. Multiple times Steve was pulled over as a bus driver with us like partying in the back. I remember we were like crossing in the Bay Bridge and we get pulled over and they're like, dude, there's somebody standing like in the steps going up to the bus. Like there were kids just standing there so that they could talk with Steve while he's driving. Like super unsafe. Yeah.

So like that's kind of the overall lawlessness of what we were dealing with. So like super fun if you're a 13 year old boy. And did he ever get in trouble when you guys would go back to the cam? No, because he had so much power at this place. Like everybody just knew like, oh, that's Steve. Like, you know, the wilderness programs create fun Steve. He used to call himself Big Steve. Yeah.

It was a little really weird. It's disgusting. Yeah. It's really gross. So on the overnighters, we'd spend all day Thursday doing all the fun stuff. Then we'd get to our campsite. We'd cook dinner from scratch, set up camp, set up our tents, have a huge bonfire. And then we'd have our group time.

after dinner, which is where the more Christian stuff came in. That's where we'd start in our mixed company, you know, boys and girls. Nobody in between because non-binary people don't exist at Christian camp. And then we'd split off. And group time was like the most quintessential Christian time. Like anybody who's been to a religious retreat camp, it's that experience. it's essentially like Bible time with a mega church and so during group time Steve would prepare some big message and then share it with all of us before we break out into our gendered groups to discuss

said message and talk a little bit further so the important thing about the timing of group time is we had just spent 12 hours at the beach or hiking or whitewater rafting so we're exhausted we had also set up camp cooked food, danced on the bus for four hours and what have you. So we are also incredibly exhausted, emotionally vulnerable, just like, you know, ready to be having that conversation of believing in a higher power. And this is the formula for most Christian camps. You know, they get you tired and you're like, you want to go to bed, but then they tell you this like crazy story about whatever. And you're like, wow, that's so impressive. And an example. of some of the stuff we would talk about is like I remember there was this one kid who shared

and he was in high school at the time he shared about his struggles with masturbation and he like the fact that that was just like I was like I remember at the time I was like this is weird like there's like 20 other boys in the room like why are we talking about this but then also why are we talking about this with an adult like it's just this is a talk about this with your doctor Yeah. Or even like just 101. Yeah. So two to three hours of like trauma sharing. Okay. And it just- Was that required?

Not required, but it was the culture. Got it. And so Big Steve would start each thing with this like really absurd story about something that he experienced in his life. And then that was kind of like the catalyst for all of our sharing. Okay. And then at the end of the group time, you know, some people would commit their lives to Jesus Christ and all that good stuff. And then we'd go to bed.

And it was like, okay, Slay. Let's wake up the next day and do something absurd. So that was kind of the vibe of the overnighters. And before I get into the logistics of the whole grooming, it's important for me to talk about the dynamics between Steve and his co-counsel. because they hated each other. Like, objectively, it's kind of funny, but at the same time when you think about, like, how these two are adults

that are supposed to be working together for the bettering and the sake of the safety of children, like, that's not what happened. Many times when I talk about Steve, the question I get is like, where's the co-counselor? And the answer was, like, Steve would do whatever he could to get the co-counselor somewhere else

because he was a super jealous person. And he did not want us to have any sort of relationship with this other co-counselor. So he would do what he could to keep us away. Maybe he'd be sending him off to do like the little, you know, the bitch work. Oh, go fill up the cooler for me or go start the fire. Or, you know, he'd just essentially badmouth this guy when he's not around. Super, like, immature and appropriate. Like, dude, you're an adult grow up.

And he, through the power dynamic that already existed, he found a way to kind of make it seem like this co-counselor was his assistant counselor. And he really was not, like, Steve was still the main person. And this was just, you know, an extra adult for the sake of numbers. And because the co-counselor signed up for camp under the impression that he'd have his own group, of course, he was really resentful. of Steve and the fact that Steve would try to like make it seem like he was an assistant. So they really didn't like each other for that reason. But Steve was especially jealous of this man because he was in his 20s. And you know, Steve never told anyone his age.

Sorry. Steve, if you're watching this, first of all, fuck you. Second of all, I hope you like this. Third of all, we all know that you're like in your 40s now and you're in your 30s at the time. Yeah, old man. Yeah, old man. And the co-councer was in his 20s. He was a cool guy.

This was 2012. Dougying was really big at the time. So he was like teaching us all how to doggie and Steve hated that. He was like always making fun of the duggy. Because he couldn't do it. Exactly. And so yeah, Steve was really jealous of the fact that this young man, this younger guy was like seen as the cooler guy. you know, he's not as cool as Big Steve.

Hey, I'm Jeremy Schwartz from American Criminal. On this season, robbery gone wrong or cold-blooded murder? Either way, Boston will never be the same. Listen to American Criminal, the murder of Carol Stewart, wherever you get your podcasts. Or to get early ad-free access, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at Americancriminal.com. How many of you would you say were in the group,

like in a group at a time? Good question. I'd say like 20 something, 26. So it was a big number. It's a big number, yeah. So it used to be like 15 to 18. The reason why we got the co-councers because we were in the upper 20s. Got it. Plus the girls.

So I'd say total we were in 30, 35. Okay. But it was only two groups, like boys and girls. Right. Boys and girls. So they were the two male counselors and then there was the girl counselor and then the head counselor. And it wasn't broken up between ages? Nope.

Okay. So that was only for like the wilderness. Right. Yeah. So we had, so yeah, in the main camp, they had 14 through or 13 through 14 and then 15 through 16. We just had 13 through 16, which is also a pretty significant age range. So a little strange. But the dynamics of Steve and the co-counseler really came into play at the end of every day when Steve would say goodbye to us.

A normal adult like me with my students now, I'd be like, hey, you know, great day to. day, I'll see you tomorrow. Steve always insisted on hugging us. And he would end every day with this horrible statement, like love, love, love. But he would say it in the most obnoxious voice. He'd be like, love, love, love. And it was just so weird. And we would hug him.

And I was not a hugging person. Like, that was not my vibe. But we all hugged Steve individually. And I saw everyone else do it. So I was like, oh, well, you know, they've all been doing it for years. I guess this is just what this is what teen wilderness. does. We hug Steve. Um, so, you know, we, we hugged every day. And it wasn't the camp appropriate side hug, which is like, oh, hi. It was like full on like bear hug. Like my face is in

his nasty ass beard. Um, I remember like cringing every time. Yeah, I'm sure. Um, so that's like Steve in a nutshell of like the dynamics of Steve. Um, and you'd think that, you know, after our cute little hug and our love, love, loves, you know, we'd be done until the next day. But I had the privilege of receiving the nighttime messages from Steve on Facebook. And that's where the weirdness starts. And so, you know, every week Steve would post photos of the group on his Facebook, which, like, again, a little bit weird that you have like all these albums of kids on your Facebook. but I get it.

That's your, you know, his entire being was dedicated to this camp. So sure, you know, not that abnormal. Like now we would use Google Drive, hopefully,

but I get it. It was 2012. And so while my online interactions with Steve started with just likeing the photos, commenting on the photos, everyone else is doing it. It quickly moved into Steve messaging me on Facebook. And remind me how old you were again?

12. So like I legally shouldn't have had a Facebook. Oops. It happens. Yeah, it happens. I also had a Twitter at the time, which I made because I wanted to follow Snooki. So, like, that was the extent of my online interactions. We're, like, following Snooki, watching Jersey Shore, and then, like, scrolling through

the Wilderness Teens Facebook. So, like I said, Steve would message me, like, every single night, which is weird. But even weirder was that I was never the one to initiate the messages. It'd be one thing if I were like, hey, Steve, like, loved the photo. So, nope. Like, I would get the messages from him. I knew 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock PM would roll around and that Facebook messenger would go off like every night.

I was like, oh, God, here we go. And so I'd kind of like hold my breath. At first, it was not super abnormal. Right, because you didn't know what to expect at the point. Right. But then as more time goes on, I'm like, oh, God, like I hope Steve doesn't message me tonight. Yeah.

And he usually did. So just so that you have an idea of what these messages were like, I went through all of them before this because, you know, I keep the receipts. And the most notable one that I had was a message from Steve at 10, 24 p.m. That he starts and sends to me, hey there, pooper. Pooper. Why am I pooper? I don't know. Oh, my God. Like so weird. Hey, there, pooper.

just like weird weird dude Steve like I'm not Steve deserves every bad comment but at the same time like I don't like to comment mean things on people that I don't know but like Steve's a fucking weird Yeah yeah Like a weird man

And like there's some I haven't heard the whole story yet But there is something twisted I'm thinking that had it happened to Steve or Steve was born twisted I don't fucking know, but like it's almost like he holds on to this youth. Uh-huh. Yeah. In the worst way possible.

Right. Yeah, because I'm 26. My students ask me how old I am. I tell them 26 immediately. But that was like such a big thing. I'm talking like Steve. Like we would jokingly steal his wallet to like pull out his ID and his ID was like taped so that we couldn't see his birthday.

Like it was that he was that secretive about how. old he was. And so, yeah, weird guy. And there's going to be things I'm going to talk about where, like, you're allowed to laugh and I'm going to laugh about it too because this man is so strange. Right. It's weird. He's so weird. So, hey there, pooper was my first message from Steve. Would you say, hey, there, pisser?

I don't know. Just like, probably like, hey, daddy. I don't know. No clip. Oh, my God. I did not screenshot my response. In fact, actually, I think I did because that was the one where I was like, what the hell did this guy just say to me? So I would leave my Facebook messenger after I started catching on.

I would leave my laptop open so that it said I was online all the time so that he never knew when I was actually online. Got it. So that I could get away with not responding. And that was one that I was like, oh, so sorry. Like didn't see this one the next morning. So you didn't respond to that right away? Not to that one. Many of them I did.

Okay. Not to the pooper. Not the pooper. Yeah. This was just, and it was also 1024 p.m. But that was just, the pooper was just one of the screenshots that I had. Because truthfully, I just found it absurd. Bizarre, yeah.

But there are many other honorable mentions that I'll go through now. So a big honorable mention was when he used to tell me that he was drinking at night, even though the counselors, and I say this as a former counselor at the camp, were explicitly told that they couldn't drink during the summer. So a direct quote I got from Steve was when he messaged me saying, I'm already relaxing if you know what I mean. Dot, dot, dot. Keep that between us because it's kind of against the rules.

And I was like, what do you mean by against the rules or what do you mean by relaxing? And he said, as long as it's just between us, counselors are not supposed to drink during the summer, but I'm a grown man. So I think it's okay on a Friday night. I might be jumping ahead, but do you think that he was messaging other people as well? Or do you think that he had more of like this drawn thing to you? There was an archetype that he was looking for. There were four of us.

And I'll talk a little bit more about this later. But there were four kids that were kind of like targeted. Targeted. I don't know if they are actively aware that they were targeted. But looking back on it and kind of talking with the other adults that were involved, We kind of are like, yeah, those four. And then would he, after you'd get these messages, would he say anything to you the next day or act like it didn't happen?

Oh, he would say in the messenger. And I'll read some of those messages too. But it would essentially be like, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, I just get a little crazy at night. Okay. So anyway, so he says that he can drink on a Friday night. And I'm like, that's cool. Like you're in your 30s telling a 13-year-old that you're drinking, like weirdo.

and so I said in response what does that have to do with relaxation because I didn't know what I don't know how adults unwind at night after a long day and he says drink a glass of wine equals relaxation so I have no idea how to respond to that so I don't and then he says TMI for one of my campers I know but I feel I can be honest with you and hopefully you will be honest with me when you have something you need to talk about mind you I'm 13. And like, why are you being honest with me? Like, don't you have your adult friends you can be honest with?

And Steve's not a therapist. He's not a therapist, no. And he doesn't need to be. And mind you, these messages are riddled with typos. So, like, he's not, this is not just one glass of wine on a Friday night. This is like, I'm drunk texting a 13-year-old. So, also, like, let's just preface with the fact that adults should never be asking kids to keep things a secret?

Like in the lesson I teach kids, part of the reason that they were laughing is because I was like, an adult should never ask you to keep a secret. And they were like, that's absurd. Like, why not? And I was like, I'm thinking about this. I'm like, yeah, there's adults who are going to tell you to keep things a secret, like the fact that they're drinking at night. And then that's just like the gateway drug of like, oh, well, keep that a secret.

What else are you going to keep a secret? And so because he's asking me to keep things a secret, I feel like that's. part of the reason that I never told my parents about these messages. Because I was like, these are weird for me. And he's asking me to keep it a secret. And I got to protect Steve. And I can't let, you know, I can't get Steve fired because he's not supposed to be drinking. And I think, too, at that age, even if we don't fully understand things or what's happening around us, we can trust our gut. And I think that like, like, things would happen in me as a kid that like, even though I didn't understand it, I knew it just was weird or wrong. And I think

at that age too, the first thing we want to do is not tell our parents. Like, that's like, we're not going to run and tell our parents. We're not at that really young age and we're not at the old age where we can handle it ourselves. We're like at this in between. And I think it's awkward to go to a parent. And so it's like, like you said, you know that if you do go to your parents, you know what's going to happen. He's going to get in trouble. Someone's going to find out. It's going to, it just almost seems worse. Yeah. At that age, I feel like. And then everyone's going to hate me. It's because Steve is this powerful, notorious person. Right. He's so charismatic everybody loves him i can't be the one to say that steve's drinking on a friday night so i

didn't um so another honorable mention is uh when steve then tells me that he has a drinking problem so first he's telling me he's drinking like okay weird then he's telling me he has a drinking problem maybe you know maybe i can i i can help people with their drinking problems now i probably could have still done it in 13 so the message he says is by the way if you ever notice i'm talking crazy and seem different than I am at camp, I'm sorry. I have a small problem I'm working through. I feel bad because I say some crazy stuff sometimes at night that I would never normally say.

Again, riddled with typos. So when I tried to normalize the way of, you know, saying weird things at night, because, you know, you get a little kooky at night. You have a sprite and you're crazy. You know, I'm a child, so I'm just like trying to relate, I guess. He says, when I get this way, I'm a completely different person.

And a lot of the times I regret what I said the next morning like you asked about. And so I'm thinking like, dude, you need a therapist and a treatment program. Right. You need help. Not a 13-year-old. So the weird, again, another honorable mention is when he tries to guilt trip me into saying that I like him more than I like the other counselor. So the co-counselor, the head counselor, the girl counselor. He messages me, yeah, man, I'm ashamed to admit, I thought you loved.

the other names, but just put up with me. It's probably because of the bus trips and Twitter stuff. I told you about Snooki. You are such a unique and amazing kid that I was okay with it, as long as I had you in my group. Do me a favor and keep this combo between us. So again, now he's telling me to keep the fact that he's jealous that I'm friends with other adults between the two of us.

And is this all one night or this is multiple. Oh, this is over the course of the first summer. Got it. Like. Multiple different nights combined. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's tons of nights.

tons of messages. These are just the honorable mentions that I screenshot it after the final incident. Okay. And so again, he's asking me to keep a conversation a secret. Well, Steve, it's been 10 years. It's not a secret anymore. And it hasn't been a secret since 2019. Every June, I like to post the screenshots just to like celebrate Pride Month and be like, this is what happened to me. Yeah. Good for you. So another honorable mention is when he asked me to guess his age. And I assumed 35, which I was correct about. I wish you said 65.

Oh, that would have been awesome. He looked younger at the time. He looks much older now. And when I guessed that he's 35, which was correct, his response was, holy crap, really? I look and act that old. Okay, I guess it's time for me to jump off a bridge. Oh, God. How am I as a 13-year-old supposed to respond to an adult telling me that he's going to jump?

jump off a bridge because I guessed that he's 35 years old. Also, like, let's not joke about suicide. One, two, like. And to a child. A child. How am I supposed to respond to that? Like, oh, ha, ha. That's why I'm saying, like, I feel like his mind was just not, like I said,

obviously he had problems, but it's almost like he was trying so hard to be your guys' age, like your friends. And which is weird if you're 18. Yeah. It's weird if you're 20. It's weird if you're 25. It's creepy if you're 28. It's creepier if you're 30 and he's 35.

At the youngest that I knew him, he was 35. So there's that. Anyway, so he tells me that he's going to jump off a bridge because I guessed his age correctly. But another honorable mention is when he tries to guilt trip me into forming stronger relationships with the head counselor than I did with him. And he says, you know, he's put a lot of effort into pursuing you.

And I can respect that. You guys are close as far as a teenage boy and a woman can be. But you are my bro. And bro love is completely different. So the pronouns are a little confusing because this head counselor is since transitioned. He is male. But in these messages, Steve is referring to him by the pronouns that he was identifying with at the time. So he's saying that, you know, oh, a relationship with a grown man is different than a relationship with a woman.

Right. Either way, I'm 13. It's weird. Yeah. And who really gives a shit? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And so then he says, just keep in mind as head counselor, she can get away with playing favorites. But as group counselor, I can't. That doesn't mean I love you any less than her. I'm like, this has never once crossed my mind that an adult loves me less than another adult. Right. Like, why is that his focus?

But it was a big focus for him. another honorable mention is when he tried to convince me that the N word started out as innocent. There was literally no context behind this. The message I have is, quote, gay, queer, the R word, and the N word. He used the actual slurs. All started out as nice little innocent words. And when I was like, oh, I didn't know that. Because like, what does that even mean?

He said, slave owners started calling slaves the N word and used the N word. because they were uneducated. And I was like, okay, like, why are you telling me about your interpretation of the history of slurs? Like, cool. Anyway, weird. But then another weird thing he did was when he randomly messaged me Heil Hitler, because he said that he's a third generation German. And then he tried to play it off by redirecting the conversation to the upcoming Christmas party. and when I responded to the Christmas party comment and not the Hitler comment,

he said, I said, bring on the root beer. And his response was F the root. So he's like, let's get drunk at my Christmas party. What? Like, dude, I'm 13.

I am 13 years old. So those messages from Steve are the, again, just pointing to his character. And the nature of our interactions, obviously they're a little bit more vulgar online because he's clearly hammered. But the interactions on a daily basis at camp were also very similar to that. So the culture at camp overall, you know, the use of slurs and racist language was pretty normal for Steve when we weren't in mixed company, of course. If we were in mixed company, Steve is the most politically correct version of himself, which is still not very great. And so the teen program was predominantly white.

You know, it is what it is. And we had a few different kids with the same name. And Steve insisted that we called one of them, who was the oldest of them and had been there the longer, black name. So like, just for the sake of the example, let's say the kid's name is Patrick. There was Patrick and then there was black Patrick. and we were instructed by Steve to call Patrick, the older one, black Patrick, because he's the only black guy in the group. And Steve, you know, self-identified as an equal opportunity offender, which allegedly made his racist jokes a-okay, because, you know, he was making jokes about lynching. And he would justify those jokes because, oh, I also make anti-Asian jokes.

So it's okay. I'm an equal opportunity offender. Oh, my God. I don't understand how like, okay, I get if he had this power, but I don't understand how this was okay. Like, would he do this and say these things in front of other counselors? Yep, he would. And he had, again, he had that systemic power.

And he historically was, you know, the. They are so long. Yeah, right. one of the counselors was Asian. Yeah. And I remember they would do these skits that I don't even want to repeat, but we were, we recently got together and kind of debriefed all of this. And she was like, I can't believe he put me in a situation to perpetuate all of those Asian stereotypes.

And like, that's just what it was because that's how we do it here in teens. That's how Steve is. We don't question it. That's just what it is. Really weird. Yeah. And so there was. actually only one kid who ever stood up to Steve when it came to his racist jokes.

So this guy was Indian and Steve had made some horribly racist joke about Indians. And to be honest, maybe like I genuinely don't know if he was Indian or if Steve just said that. He could have been Middle Eastern like I don't unfortunately I don't know. But either way, he was not white. And so he went to Steve's supervisor and was like, this needs to stop. When it got back to Steve, Steve encouraged us to ostracize him and say, like, oh, well, he can't take a joke. So we have to tone down the racist jokes this week.

Sorry, guys. And, like, that was this whole, like, you know, oh, man, no racist jokes this week, kids. Not in mixed, not, like, not in mixed company, not in just guys. Because we got this asshole who's reporting us for the racist jokes. Um, the, what Steve would bring up, you know, within mixed company is virginity. I feel like that's like the quintessential Christian thing is like, you know, don't have sex until you're married. Um, and every year Steve would tell this absurd story with this like allegory of how, or

analogy of how having sex before marriage is like opening your Christmas presence before Christmas because when you're married, you know, it's it's not going to be exciting if you've done it before. Just like on Christmas morning, if you open your presence before that, then, oh, well, there's no exciting thing about Christmas because you already know what it's like to open your presents. So like every year we were talking about how we should have be having sex. And I was like, I'm 13. I don't even think I know what that is. But also like to view it in a sense of excitement. Mm-hmm. Like, come on. Yeah. Like weird. Not not the right way to be. preaching about why you should be waiting to have sex.

No. But okay. And Steve also told us that he was a virgin. I'm like, okay. Like, because he's like very incredibly single and a virgin because he's not married. And we're like, dude. Do you think he really was? Oh, God.

I don't want to think about that. But probably. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. He was really, really insistent that we are, that we were virgins. So definitely a virgin. the most horrible, horrible thing about Steve, which I've said a lot of pretty awful stuff, is this concept of prick Steve.

And Steve hated disrespect. And, you know, as someone as jealous as he is, he felt disrespected a lot. And when he felt disrespected, that's when his alter ego, prick Steve, would come out. And would he call himself that? Uh-huh. No, it was never himself. It was his alter ego. So, like, Steve is a-

But he came out with that name. Uh-huh. Yeah. Steve is absolved of all wrong because Prick Steve comes out. And I am not Prick Steve. You, and we as the campers were always responsible for Prick Steve coming out, of course. So it was literally, like knowing what I know now about after taking domestic violence courses and learning about abuse, Steve had us wrapped around his finger through the cycle of abuse.

use with the use of Prick Steve because we'd spend every day kind of walking on eggshells making sure that we didn't disrespect him. If we did disrespect him, then Prick Steve came out. And Prick Steve would scream and would berate us and would get really, really angry. And we would just, it would like put us all like in this really tense on edge, you know, state and then at the end of the day, of course, he would apologize that Prick Steve came out, but then reiterate that it was because we disrespected him that it came out. So, like, again, not his fault.

Prick Steve came out because you prompted him to come out. Like, you called him out by disrespecting me. And again, like, if we think about the fact that, like, racist jokes were encouraged, jokes about his mom were also like A-OK. But the second that we disrespected him because we weren't listening to him, or we made it seem like he was not all knowing, then there was Prick Steve. And then, of course, at the end of the day,

he'd say, oh, well, tomorrow's going to be better because you all aren't going to disrespect me. And I remember he always said, there's only one rule in this group, and it's respect. And it was like, you know, everything else, do whatever the hell you want. Because he does that so well. Right, he's so respectful.

Yeah. So we were super, we were so stuck in this cycle of abuse. that our head counselor had to create a Steve appreciation day. We had counselor appreciation day. We had head counselor appreciation day. We had assistant counselor appreciation day. But we also had Steve appreciation day. And what was that?

It was a day that we all wrote cards to Steve and gave him gifts and celebrated him for how great he is. That's disgusting. Uh-huh. I'm sure he ate that up. Oh, he did because he couldn't fathom the idea of being celebrated with other people. The co-counselor and then the girls counselor. And then God forbid the head counselor gets celebrated on his own because there's a head counselor appreciation day.

But Steve couldn't stand the fact that somebody who through a professional position was more important than him, Steve needed Steve Appreciation Day. And was this still within the same summer? Yeah, this is all the first summer. So I'm getting the messages at night. We're celebrating Steve Appreciation Day during the day. And then the next day, like jokes about racist stuff are going on. So knowing what I know now, I would imagine that the creation of Steve Appreciation Day was really just our head counselor's way of shutting him up.

Shutting him up, probably, but then also like preventing Prick Steve from coming out. Okay. So in a sense, it was kind of harm reduction. And he definitely knew what he definitely knew what. he was doing. Like, he would do anything he could to navigate the relationship so that, you know, Prick Steve didn't come out, which is also why so much was just like allowed to just kind of slide.

There is one time where Prick Steve comes out on a lifeguard at the pool that we're at because I guess Steve got in trouble for picking up a kid and throwing him in the pool. And the lifeguard, the 16 year old lifeguard was not happy about that. And Steve screamed at this kid. Like in a way that is completely like, I mean, a way you would see in movies as like the abusive father like, you know, berating the mother in a family. Like that's how he was treating this lifeguard. We got kicked out of the pool or he got kicked out of the pool that day. We almost weren't allowed to return like because of the fact that he couldn't take being told off for doing something inappropriate.

Following the rules. So like that's why we were allowed to sit on the backs of the sea. or we were allowed to dance in the back of the bus when it was on the highway because Steve doesn't have rules. Right. And no one tells Big Steve what to do. And so there is also a time that, you know, this was actually my second year, but still relevant. There was a time where, you know, Steve appreciation days coming up. We got to figure out what we're doing for Big Stevie.

And these two guys who are also, I would say, kind of like within the group of the four of us that were sort of his, his, you know, preferred kids. Two of them were talking individually with the head counselor and with the co-counselor away from the group. And Steve sees that and prick Steve comes out simply because these two boys are talking to two other adults that aren't Steve. And so he's screaming. He's so angry. And the reason that they are talking to the counselors is because they're trying to come up with a gift for Steve for Steve Appreciation Day. And that year, for whatever reason, bucket hats were like the big thing.

This is 2013. So everyone's got bucket hats on. And so they are trying to figure out like what kind of custom bucket hat can we get Steve for Steve Appreciation Day. And they're over in a corner talking about it. And so in order to placate the situation and get Prick Steve to go away, the head counselor. has to explain to Steve that, oh, we were together because we were talking about your gift, and here is the gift that we were discussing, and now the surprise is ruined. But, you know, it's coming.

Don't worry. And apparently, according to the head counselor, he told me recently that he has a text from Steve that says, even if they gave me that gift, it would have been tainted with the memory of that awful day. So Steve was so triggered by the fact that these two teenage boys who were 13, at the time, were talking with other adults about a gift for him. And that made the day awful for him. Like, this dude was not well.

No. Not at all. And then he banned bucket hats after that. No bucket hats allowed. Because, you know, bucket hats for the reason that. It makes me wonder, like, what happened? Like, what was his childhood like? Probably not very good.

I'd love to know. I, I mean, that's. There has to be a lot. There's trauma there. And that's like control. Uh-huh. There's so many different. Yeah.

There's so many different things in there. And I, like, I, you know, of course the empathic part of me and the counselor side of me wants to empathize with that part of him. And like, you know. I feel bad if something bad happened to him of the kid. Oh, yeah. But like. But you're an adult. Yeah.

It makes it surprise you. Yeah. And if something's wrong, get help. Right. Exactly. And you don't like... And I don't care. I fully blame the other counselors as well. Because, and I'm sorry if they're watching, but if you see something going on and fuck that. Yeah.

Fuck that. I mean, I will say the head counselor has told me that his biggest regret is not intervening more. Good. As it should be. Yeah. And I mean, that I, he is so awesome and so supportive. And I'm sure. Yeah. And like I said, like I'm not trying to... It's a, that's my opinion.

Yeah. Okay. Just because how do we prevent things like this from happening? We have, we live in a world where it is so important to step in. Yeah. If you see somebody getting beat up on the side of the road and they're helpless. Yeah. They're going to get killed if people don't step in and help.

Right. And I think that I just look at situations like that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean. And yes, like there were, there were definitely things that could have been interviewed. should have been intervened. And I think people, and look, people might have been scared of him.

People might have thought it was just easier not to deal with it. And I get that. Yeah. But I think that like we're talking about children and like the older I've gotten and I'm still so young, but the older I've gotten, I've realized every single thing that happens to children, it stays with them. Yeah. Like their whole lives.

And whether they work through it or not, it's there. Yeah. And it's, like, it's terrible. And like that's honestly one of the reasons I don't want to have kids. Right. Because they are so fragile. And like every little thing that happens, it's like it's going to make them who they are. It's going to break them.

Right. Yeah. Steve was clearly very broken. So broken. You know? Yeah. And he, yes, there was, I'm sure there was a lot going on. He talks to us about his daddy issues.

So there's, you know, I'll talk a little bit more about that later. And then you said too, like his, there was open jokes about his mom. His mom. Yeah. So he, he had mommy. issues and his dad had passed away. Okay. But he was really jealous of his mom's new boyfriend.

And because of that, he like hated his mom. Yeah, it's like a male thing. Yeah. Yeah. So it was weird. But any time kids did something without him, he would get jealous. And so many of us, as normal teenage boys did, we played Xbox together, like Call a Duty and whatever.

And Steve set out to buy an Xbox to play with us online. which given his financial situation, which I'll talk about a little bit later, like is even weirder that he went and spent the X amount of money to get an Xbox because he couldn't afford that. And, you know, if you're familiar with the culture of the Xbox Live lobby in 2013, it was not a safe space. And so, you know, Steve loved it because all those slurs that he was slinging anyway, like everyone else in the lobby was doing it.

I feel like that's how a lot of things were back. Yeah. Like everybody had words or ways to type things to get around the stuff that you weren't allowed to say. Yeah. So like I can't excuse it and say that it was part of the 2013 culture. But like it was not okay. But it was that the culture of Xbox Live unfortunately. So anyway, all of that happened over the summer.

And you'd think that as uncomfortable as I was over the summer after all of the hugs and all of the Facebook messages that I would not want to see Steve until the next year. But because everyone else loved him, I convinced myself that this is all fine and normal. And when the summer ended, Steve gave us all his phone number. And many of us actually already had it at that point. But he also tells us that he never intends to change his number. So if we ever need Big Steve, we can just reach out to him.

And it wasn't until I became a camp counselor that I I was like realizing how abnormal that is to give your number to, you know, a child. I, in my current role, there is one time that I have ever given my Google voice number to a student. And when I did, it was a very specific situation that was backed by my administrator. Every single screenshot went directly to my administrator. Like we were, like this was a very specific situation. I would never give my personal number out to a child. Every single child had it.

And it's actually, I'm not going to docks him, but his number is still in his Instagram bio. So if you need it, Big Steve's still there. Never changed his number. So even though I should have been grateful that I never had to see Steve again until the next summer, Steve had a youth group called 650 Youth that he ran. and he encouraged everybody from camp to participate in it. And he ran these events called Friday Night Outs or F&O, which were his year-round events where we'd do fun stuff

and then we'd have group time. Similar to the overnighters, just no actual overnighters this time. And of course, everybody from camp was invited, people from the church who worked out were invited. And then the weirdest thing is that he invited people on the kid, or he invited the kids that rode his bus at the public school to these events. So like, imagine your kid comes off the bus.

And it's like, mommy, my bus driver invited me to his youth group event on Friday. And these kids went and their parents let them. Like, that's how charismatic this guy was. And probably too, because everything, anything can sound good. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we'd go bowling. We'd go laser tagging, do fun stuff.

and it would end with some sort of Bible time. Once a year, he'd host the annual ski trip at his family farm in Deep Creek, Maryland. Again, inviting camp people, church people, and the bus kids. So, like, these kids who maybe see him 30 minutes a day on his bus, their families agree to let them go with him four hours away to Deep Creek, Maryland, to stay at his family farm with their bus driver. Like, it's just weird. Yeah.

I don't know how any parent could make their mind up and feel comfortable with that. I know personally, my mom has told me a couple years ago that she always felt wary about Steve, but was like, well, if Logan likes him enough, then he must be safe. Right. And so I guess that's kind of what happened. And unfortunately, like as a parent, I feel like you can only hope that if something was going wrong, your child would tell you or hint it, but it's like, what can you really do? You know what I mean?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So there's like, I'm sure many of the parents just didn't know. Right. They were like, oh, we like this guy. You know, we got good vibes. He's a public school system employee, so he can't be a bad person in theory. I remember just like the ski trips were weird.

There are many things that happened there that were strange. But just like to top it all off, there was a literal loaded shotgun at the family farm that we were on at the ski trip. So, like, safety was not a priority. Did he show you guys? Or was it something that you guys just, like, came across? We just came across it. I think it was, like, hung up on the wall. Okay.

Like, there's my shotgun. And I remember the head counselor at the time was when we were debriefing everything. He was telling me, like, there was a time where he literally, like, held this shotgun behind his back because he's, like, trying to get it out of the house. He's like, I can't let kids be around this. And so he's, like, trying to hide it as he's, like, walking out, like, oh, nothing to see here. But, like, to Steve, that was normal that there was a shotgun. in his house and it was loaded. Oh my gosh.

And then so more of the over the summer stuff, graduation party photo gate is what I call it, like Watergate scandal like this thing. So it was very normal for everybody from camp to go to each other's high school graduation parties. And, you know, they all came to mine. Yes. And I went to theirs and whatever. And Steve came, but he had to leave early for whatever reason.

And grad parties are, you know, four to six hours, whatever. So nobody's there the entire time. But we were kids. We had nothing better to do. So we just hung out there the whole time. Steve left. After Steve left, the majority of us are there. So we take a photo.

We posted on Instagram. Like any normal person would. Obviously, no malicious intent. Oh, God. Right. You know where this is going. It's just a photo. It's literally a photo.

Yeah. Like, I have, I don't even need to justify this. Steve's feelings hurt. Steve's feelings were so hurt. Because you guys waited until we left to take it. Because we intentionally waited until Steve left to take the photo and post it. So, you know, Prick Steve comes out, of course. It's like scary to think.

Like, imagine if you had like, if you were a file on the wall, wherever he was and you could like see his reactions to these things while he's alone. Like that's like scary. Yes, very scary. And so Prick Steve comes out. He tries to guilt us into retaking the photo or photoshopping him into it or deleting it. Those are our options. So I think we ultimately deleted it. Actually, I was the Photoshop legend at the time.

I would just put his head in there. All the time. Photoshop him right in there, you know. Problem solved. Steve was there the whole time. So after we left, we all go to Panera. And we knew where Steve's house was because we had been to the Christmas party. you know, remember F the root.

We're getting full on beer. We never had full beer, but we knew where he lived. And the Panera that we had gone to was 10 minutes from his house. So Steve's all boohooing about this photo that was posted without him because we excluded him. So we're like, dude, just come join us at Panera. Like it was never that serious. We don't know why you left. No one told you to leave.

You chose to leave. Like, we're all still together. Come hang out with us. Because clearly you're texting us. this is really upsetting to you. You're not busy. Right. Just come hang out with us.

And he's telling me, and so he's like calling me saying he can't come. I'm like, okay, well, we're literally 10 minutes down the street from you. But if you can't come, whatever, maybe you're mad about the photo and you're still trying to make us guilty about it or maybe your car's in the shop. I don't know why he left. But so he told me that he wasn't able to drive at the time. Again, I'm like, okay, no car. And so he was like, but you can come over to my house.

And we're like, okay, well, you're 10 minutes away. We've all been here before. It's not weird. But more so we're like, why can't we stay at the Panera? Why can't you just meet us here? Whatever. The girls wanted to stay at the Panera. So they stayed.

A few of the boys and me, we all felt the need to comfort Big Steve because, you know, that's our job. And so we were like, okay, let's go to his house. We've been here before. We know his dog. It's not weird. So we drive to his house. We show up and he is blackout drunk. Like there are alcohol bottles everywhere.

And this is after the graduation. Uh-huh. So he leaves early, presumably to go drink. And that's his reason for leaving maybe. And then, of course, he sees the photo and just like slams the bottle, like one after or not, like blackout drunk. And so. he's crying and he's telling us how hurt he felt and how, you know, he is just so, like,

offended by our photo. And it was so uncomfortable. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. With Valentine's Day right around the corner, relationships is a huge topic right now, whether it's a romantic relationship, a relationship with friends or your family. And something that's important to remember when it comes to relationships is that they are not always going to be easy. They can take a lot of work and a lot of communication, as we all know. And in my opinion, therapy is one of the best ways that we can navigate through these

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Visit betterhelp.com slash insane today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, help.com slash insane. And now back to today's episode. Like I, I'm at this point, I'm in high. I'm 15 or 16. But it's like this grown man is blackout drunk. I'm in his house. I mean, thank God there's other people there who can like corroborate this story.

he's crying to me and this is where he starts bringing up his you know death of his dad um his mommy issues again these are things that you tell your therapist not the teenage boys who you told to come over to your house because you're too drunk to go to the local panera um so i didn't have my car my friend drove me there so i couldn't leave but i remember when he finally like we're just like side-eyeing each other the whole time like i can't believe we're in the situation like what do we do he goes to the bathroom and so we're like okay this is our moment like let's let's plan an escape and so we text the head counselor and i'm like kind of texting him the whole time like this is really weird like and he's like trying to help us brainstorm ways to

get out and so we came up with this idea of like oh someone's got to get home so we got to leave so steve finishes in the bathroom he's either throwing up or peeing one of the two um yeah probably both and uh he you know we come back out we're like you know we really got to go steve like we really love you. We just, you know, it's, we got to get home. And he's like, okay, like, you know, I don't want you to go, but I get it. And so we leave. Um, but like, I, I personally never felt unsafe around Steve until that very moment, um, where I was like, this was scary. Like, I don't, I don't know what this man was capable of. I don't know, like, he's hammered. I, I genuinely had never seen somebody so drunk.

than in that moment. It was like 4 or 5 p.m. in June. Like it was, it was not, like, it's not like we were coming from the club. This man was coming from a graduation party. So just weird stuff. And then, there were times where I would see Steve, you know, multiple days a week as I got older. Because, you know, the Friday night outs were such a hit. He decided to expand his youth group to include 650 youth.

nights on Mondays. 650 youth night abbreviated was S-Y-N, or as he called it, sin. So we had our sin nights every Monday, which is just like a little bit funny, but like given everything else, it's just like, oh, that's just one more weird thing to make this experience strange. So we would see Steve on Monday nights once a week on Fridays, and then he invited us to join at the nearby megachurch where he was also a youth group leader. So like here's where another dynamic plays in.

It's like, okay, Steve's my camp counselor. Now he's my small youth group leader. And now I'm starting to go to church at this mega church where he's the youth group leader as well. And all of these Christian spaces gave him additional opportunities to bring up his drinking problem and, you know, the loss of his dad and his mommy issues on top of some new issues, which were his financial situation. Like, again, why are you talking about these with? children. But like I said, he was a bus driver and he worked at camp all summer. So he was always telling us how poor he was. Either he was really dumb or really smart because he knew that the kids that he worked with, like the population he drove for in the school district was pretty wealthy.

The camp population was pretty wealthy. And the church population was also pretty wealthy. So he knew, you know, maybe if I tell these kids about my financial situation, they might feel bad for me and help me pay my bills, which they did. So when he'd take us out to lunch on Sundays after church, taking us out to lunch was just like, okay, everyone getting big Steve's truck. If you can drive, you can drive. And then we'd all go out to lunch together,

but Steve wouldn't have money to pay for lunch. So somebody would buy his lunch. And it was just like, oh, yeah, it's our gift. Don't worry about it, Steve. You know, Steve Appreciation Day. He'd get gift cards, you know, his birthday would roll around. We don't know how old he's turning, but we know we're getting him a gift card. Randomly, he would get checks in his mailbox throughout the year because, of course, everyone has his address for the Christmas party.

So it's like somehow his entire life is being funded by teenage boys. And over the course of the four years that I was in the teen program, there were two very traumatic deaths that had occurred. Steve's third co-counselor who was actually previously a youth group leader at the church. died by suicide that year. So that was, you know, of course, really complex for all of us. And then on our last camp field trip, my last day of camp as a camper, the one of the campers drowned in the lake that we were swimming at. And so we were all there to witness that. And so like, you know, we've got all this complex relationship with Steve.

And now we've all experienced this collective two traumas of, of really tragic deaths. You know, our role was to comfort Steve in that time. So. When it should have been the opposite. Yeah, yeah. Of course, you know, he played it out as, you know, I'm here for you. But it was really like, you know, we got to stay strong for big Steve. And I think that's what really made me feel bad for him was how much he blamed himself for both of those deaths.

and how he wanted us to kind of like be more bonded after it. And he wanted us to tell him that it wasn't his fault. I remember we were so, I was personally so brainwashed that I think the summer after that, I texted him happy Father's Day. And I have a great relationship with my dad. Like he's probably going to listen to this podcast. And I did at the time. But I felt the need to tell Steve that, you know, he is a father figure to so many.

because he's done so much for us. Like, what the hell have you done for me besides give me trauma and cry in front of me about your personal problems? So that was my last year as a camper with those two things. And then I start really to see Steve just as strictly my youth group leader and or my boss when I start working at the camp. So we, you know, hung out two to three times a week, Monday nights. Sundays at church, sometimes there'd be a night of the week where I'd get dinner with him,

either by myself or with a friend. I was in the in crowd of the Steve Minions. Like I said, there were four of us. All of us weren't super sporty, even though all of the others are straight, their behaviors and mannerisms as teenagers. Retroactively, they set off my gaydar. I'm not going to lie. And there's just like that, you know, that vibe.

There's not this. There's, it's like, okay, you're either a closeted gay kid or you're just like, there's a little bit off about you where you're not into sports, which is not weird. But that was kind of the kid that he, he gravitated towards. So my best friend at the time when I was in high school, I met through camp. He also attended 650 youth nights. He was, you know, pretty involved in the megachurch that Steve volunteered at. and we would hang out like, you know, every single time

we'd hang out with Steve, plus probably once or twice on our own. So we were super, super close. And one day out of nowhere, Steve texts me, asking me if I'm having sex with this kid. So mind you. And you're how old at this point?

17, maybe. So like, the amount of hoops and assumptions Steve had to was hoops Steve had to jump through and assumptions he had to make to ask that question are just absurd because I was

closeted. I wasn't even out to myself. He assumed I'm gay. He assumed the other boy was gay. He assumed we're secretly dating. He assumed we're secretly having sex and of course we're disobeying Big Steve who has the virginity talk with us every single year.

Like this man texts me and said, are you having sex with him? Like, as a middle school counselor now, again, like my, and I have sixth graders now, but my eighth graders sometimes would try to tell me about their antics. And I was like, nope, nope, I don't want to hear it. Don't tell me. Like, that's gross. You're a child.

I don't want to hear it. He actively asked if I was having sex with another child. Did you respond? I was like, yeah, I responded, hell no. Like, I was like, no, of course not. Because what an egregious thing to assume about me? Right. Like, that's so bizarre.

Did he answer? I guess so. I don't remember what he said, but he probably said something like, oh, you know, you're just so close that I assumed. Which like, weird. Like, why would you assume that? So the closer I get with Steve, the more he tries to isolate all of us, specifically this like core group from the head counselor. So after the tragic death of the camper, the head counselor, you know, really distanced himself from camp. Because, of course, he was dealing with his own trauma in the same way that Steve was.

The difference being that, you know, he removed himself to get help as opposed to relying on children to provide that help. So I remember Steve would try to text me to get information out of the head counselor because he was distancing himself. And Steve would go on and on about how the head counselor was on a smear campaign against the camp and against Steve. and against Steve because he was, you know, just trying to bring to light all of these things that you previously were like, this, you know, this should have been reported.

And he was trying to, you know, it was a little bit too late. But he was now like, I think so he was removing himself and was able to like leave this brainwashed facade of being like, oh my God, this is bad. So he even went to the Washington Post and talked a little bit about this. But, you know, of course, Steve is like framing it as like, this guy's crazy. He's just traumatized.

He's trying to create, go on a smear campaign and say that I'm the bad guy. And so, of course, we believe Steve because that's what you do. You know, this is our leader. We can't go against him. So if, you know, the other head counselor is going to isolate himself, that's his choice. So despite all of these obvious red flags, there were some pretty big sex offender. scandals that were also going on at this camp at the same time that actually distracted me from the inappropriateness of Steve's behavior. So my first year working at the camp, I was 17.

You had to be 18 to work there. But this is telling to how put together the camp is. Apparently, the hiring manager didn't look at my birth date to confirm that I wasn't 18. So I was allowed to work there when I was 17, just because she didn't check my birthday. But so I'm a minor. and working at camp under Steve's leadership, of course. And there was a counselor who gave me these really bad vibes. He wasn't in the wilderness program, but just like really weird guy. He would like come up to me and rustle my hair and get very touchy with me. And I would do anything I could to avoid this guy.

And like, of course, I knew in the back of my head, like, I'm like, I'm a child, but I can't tell anyone that because I'm not supposed to be here. But either way, I looked very young. So even if this guy is 22, 23. Either right, keep your hands to yourself. Yeah, don't touch me. There's children around. And that's like the weirdest thing that.

I mean, yes, I was a minor. I was cognizant of that too. But I was like, your third grade boys are right over there and you're like rustling my hair. Like what are you showing them right now? So of course, I told Steve about this guy. And Steve helped me to stay away from him. And, you know, weird guy. And I ultimately did my best to avoid.

In November of that same year, three months after I had last seen him, an article comes out that he is convicted of child molestation. So again, like red flags, I'm telling everybody, this guy's making me uncomfortable. This guy is convicted of child molestation. There is no notification from the camp. Like, this man interacted with your children for the last eight to ten weeks. No one. not even like a hey just FYI like we found that there's some you know shady stuff going on just like check with your kids nope

wow they just pretended it didn't happen my second year at the camp in the wilderness program um Steve decided to bring in one of his former campers uh who had been working at the camp for as long as I could remember and this dude was weird he was obsessed with childhood cartoons um and he was at the time was my when I was very, very young was my bus counselor, which means that he was the one who would ride the bus with us as we'd go home. And he'd always tell stories about, you know, boy meets world and just like all of these TV shows that are intended for children. Like, I think he was obsessed with My Little Pony. And another thing that he did when he was working in the wilderness program is that he would always find a reason to have a kid sit on his lap. And the head counselor at the time, who was in

charge was writing this up left and right. He was like, this is not okay. Like, this is terrible. Like, he's telling kids to sit on his lap. And that's part of the reason he went to the Washington Post afterward. Despite the multiple incident reports, nothing was done. And a few months later, after camp, this guy is convicted of possession and distribution of child porn.

Jesus. Yeah. So again, no notification to the families. No notification to the staff. we are only informed by the article that we all see and we're all sending it around like oh my god this is two years in a row and two sex offenders have come out of this camp now above the head counselors

is it just one person there is one person yeah so this one person was getting all of these like write-ups and wasn't doing anything about it yeah and I think um the head counselor has told me and this I could be a little wrong on this but even the person above him was like, I will not co-sign moving, like the hiring of this guy.

But, you know, the person all the way at the top was like, no, bring him. He's been here for years. So they knew about it. And I'm sure, too, like, they probably figured out the more scandal, the less people we have. Exactly. Exactly. Because the year before that, you know, they have the death of the child. Right.

The year after that, they have the counselor who's turned child molester. And then the third year, they have the counselor turned child porn distributor. So, like, you know, this campus. Not a good rep. No, not a great rep. So I think they're doing anything they can to make it seem like everything's good. Right, right. So the craziest thing about this child porn guy is like I said, he's Steve's former camper.

And, you know, I recognize that abuse is cyclical. So I mean, I can't make any assumptions. I have no information. But I do wonder how was this guy treated, you know, by Steve. And in a weird way, all of these adults getting charged with literal child sex crimes made me feel better about my interactions with Steve because I was like, you know what? This man terrified the shit out of me when I was at his house and he was blackout drunk, but at least he's not a child molester, which is so nuts. Like that was my, okay, well, thank God. At least, you know, there's bad people in the world.

He's not that. So, yeah, that was kind of how I perceived Steve. I graduated college. He went to my graduation party. Then we parted ways. Not in a weird way, just like I went to college. Big Steve stayed at home with all the other teenage boys. And I, you know, went into the big world.

And so I'd see him over the summer. It came back and worked at the camp again one more time. But when I was at college is when I finally had the courage to come out to myself, let alone anyone else. So I was like, oh, I'm actually very gay. That makes a lot of sense. So, you know, I came out to my friends, came out to my parents, and pretty much everybody knew. But I was really nervous about coming out to Big Steve. And because I guess in my head, I was thinking, if I come out to him, you know, he might actually think I was having sex with my friend in high school. Because then I'm confirming one of the many assumptions that he made

about me that, you know, if I was, if I'm gay, then I'm definitely having sex with him, which I'd like let's set the record straight. I was not, we were not doing anything. Right. So what happened was I tweeted some article about how nobody is 100% straight. And I guess Steve took note of said article because he then texted me about it around 9.30 p.m. Again, I'm like, I've been, I'm like, I have not been your camper in three years yet I'm still getting the 9.30 p.m. texts. You know, we've moved on from Facebook Messenger and now he's blowing up my phone.

So the funny thing is that I was actually planning on going out to the 18 plus gay bar with my friend, who I told you about before the show. And so we are like getting ready for this. And then I get this text from Steve. And she knows Steve too. So we're like, oh, God, here he goes. So Steve texts reads as follows, your Twitter feed, are you by? No judgment here if you are. Just from what you posted leaves me to believe that.

you're a really good friend so i just wanted to know i read the article that no one is really straight good article very informative and so i'm when i receive this text i'm driving and so um i'm like get my phone to my friend i'm like steve texted me like can you read it and like let me know if it's like if it's something where he's like begging for attention where i need to pull over and respond now um and my first thought after she reads it to me i was like oh my god is steve about to come out to me, like my world is going to explode if he does. So I'm like, let me just, you know, put this away. I got places to drive first.

But, of course, I get this first text, and I immediately think back to when I'm 13, and I tell Steve over Facebook Messenger that I wanted to be a wilder queer at the time. I had no idea what the word queer meant, and I thought it was just kooky. And you know, when we're having all these late night combos where he's telling me about his drinking problems, I have no idea how to respond. So I just say random stuff. Oh, yeah, one day I'm going to be a wilder queer because I'm the, you know, the king of wilderness. So when I sent him that, you know, he, of course, is like freaking out, like, I don't think

you want to be a wilder queer. And I was like, whatever. Of course, I also think back to when he asked me if I'm having sex with my friend in high school. And so, you know, all of these thoughts are flooding in when he starts, you know, texting me about my sexual orientation. So I'm like, I'm not responding to this right now. Like, I'm trying to be in the zone. Like, I'm going to go see a drag show tonight.

Like, I'm so excited. So 15 minutes later, I guess he decides that, you know, his text to me is actually really weird. So he retracts it. And he says, I'm sorry. Forget I asked. That's too personal. I don't care what your sexuality is.

You're just Logan to me, period. Last message deleted. Smileyface. My brother and lifelong friend have a fantastic weekend. So he messages me that and I'm like, oh my God. So I finally admit, I finally decide that it's time for me to come out to him. And so I do and I tell him like, yes, I am. And his response, and this is the wildest thing.

And this is actually the screenshot I post every single year. He responds when I come out to him with, well, if you ever want your dick sucked privately, you know where I live. Ha ha, smiley face. I'm not expecting that. Wow, Steve. I know. Like, so. I really thought like, okay, maybe Steve was just a weird out.

No, Steve. Steve was literally trying to like get dicked down by children for like seven years. Isn't that? Isn't that like. So. Oh, my God. So obviously we're laughing about this now because it's so. absurd. But at the time, of course I wanted to throw up. So I'm like still driving and my friend reads the text. And so I actually I think I was at her house picking her up when I read the text. Also what what makes him think that he would be the one right that you would be wanting or into it? 40 some year old big Steve. No. Honey. Oh my God. Okay. Continue. I was really really.

not expecting that for Big Steve. I know, Big Steve. I mean, honestly, and this is something that I've learned, if an older man's ever texting you at night, there's, there's red flag. Yeah, right. So, especially if a drunk old man is texting you at night. And if you're a child, run. Right.

That's my message to the world. If you are a child and an adult is messaging you at night, block them. So, anyway, I wanted to throw up. And my friend gets in the car and I was like, I think I'm going crazy. Like, can you read this message? And I give her the phone and she's like, oh my God. No, he said that. And so, of course, all of the late night interactions, all of the weirdness like clicks immediately.

And my first thought is like, oh my God, how long has Steve been thinking about sucking my dick? like and I'm an adult at this point but I'm like why is that the first thought that he has when I come out to him? Like that not even the first thought. That is the first thing that he decides to send me. It's not even like there was an impulse. Like there was a brain thought. And he knew you when you were so young. Yeah.

And he had been asking me about if I was having sex with kids. He had been telling me, you know, not to do that. Like just there's way too much going on where you're like, oh my God. So, yeah, I mean, he had been hinting and asking, you know, subtle questions about my sexual orientation since I was very young. And so I had no idea how to respond to this text. So I don't because I'm like, I am going to a gay bar tonight. I'm going to see a drag show. Yeah.

So I'm like, you know what, Steve, you are not getting a response from me because that's nuts. But of course, Steve then spends the next few hours trying to backtrack, you know, from the dick sucking text. So 30 minutes later, I get a text, sorry, bad attempt at gay slash by humor. By bad, smiley face. And, you know, by bad was, it was not a bisexual joke. It was he was drunk and he, you know, was putting in the typos. But I guess when I wrote this, I wanted to keep them in. And then he says, just trying to lighten the mood.

Dot, dot, dot. sorry if that offended you, my bad. Just because I think something is funny in the moment doesn't mean it is. Sorry, bro. And so I'm getting like, text, text, text. I'm just like, dude, leave me alone. Like, I got things to do. So now it's been two hours since the infamous, you know where I live, text, which I did.

I've been there a few times, had some terrible experiences. So now I'm at the bar, you know, watching the drag show and more texts are coming in. Two hours later, I get a text saying, you're not. responding, so I'm really starting to feel awful. I didn't mean to offend you, dude. I'm so sorry. I'm like, okay, still not responding to that. Then he says again. So I've been like quadruple texted at this point. It's a sensitive topic. I should have not made a crass joke about it. And now, you know, three hours later, I still haven't responded. You know, he's still going. I respect you, Logan, and your life choices. I should not have made a joke like that. I'm so sorry.

I don't know what I was thinking. It seemed funny in the moment, I guess. Dot, dot, dot, dot. five minutes later please reply dude i feel awful again like so his mind is is stuck on the fact that i'm not replying to him and the fact that i couldn't take his joke not at all that it was completely inappropriate and of course you can see the trend of him trying to guilt me into responding to him so like i didn't really have an example of that before but this is a perfect example when it's like please respond i feel so bad um this would happen every time he would say something inappropriate You know, please respond. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. Big Steve is here for you. So now it's midnight. I'm still shaking my ass at the gay bar and more texts are coming in. And he says, I did not mean to mock the gay slash by lifestyle. I honestly was in expecting an LOL or a ha ha in response. Only now do I realize how insensitive I was being. I'm so sorry for crossing the line. I should have never joked about such a serious issue. I made a mistake and I sincerely apologize. It's no joking matter

and I know better than that. Please forgive my momentary insensitivity. He referred to telling me that he wanted to suck my dick as momentary insensitivity. And I was like, there is a history of momentary. And the only thing that he knows how to do is to pretend like it was a joke. He's like the kind of person that like will plant something to see what somebody will respond.

And he really, like he was serious. Oh, he's so serious. Right. Then he plays it off as like, oh, no, I was just kidding. Yeah. And I'm like, no, no, that's not the problem. I don't, you can make jokes all you want. It's not the, you can make fun of gay people as much as you want. I don't care.

You told me you wanted to suck my dick and that is the problem that I have with this. And that is he was not getting that. Or he was and he was pretending like he wasn't. So he, you know, the thing that really creeped me out about all of this is that, again, the apology is about the humor. Not about the fact that there was definitely. like you said some truth in him wanting to suck my dick um so because why else would he have brought up the not everyone is 100% straight article right it just it's weird so of course you know it's now three hours later the texts are still coming in um it's like getting to be comical

like I'm literally at the bar like every new text comes in my friend and I are like look at this stupid stuff from Steve like can you believe it's still happening like Tatiana the drag queens like performing, we're giving her dollar bills and my texts are like blowing up. And so Steve says, I guess in retrospect, the joke was supposed to be lighthearted and communicate the fact that I'm okay with you being by or gay. But now I realized that I need, I didn't need a stupid, regrettable joke that offended you to communicate that. I'm so sorry, Logan. I love and accept you no matter what. That's what I should have said instead. Again, I'm not responding. But more texts come in. Dude, this is killing me that my stupid attempt at humor offended you.

Holy Samantha B. I will leave you alone now. Holy who? I don't know who that is. This man, it's like, dude, you are wanting to be young so badly, but you're quoting things from like the 60s. I don't know who Samantha B is. So he says, I will leave you alone now.

Just know that I love and respect you for who you are. You are my brother and friend for life. Good night. And then I think the next morning he like sends me a Bible. verse that he's been reading about how he's been like reflecting on on humor and his actions or something and I'm like dude like the last thing I need right now is a Bible verse like that's yeah so of course this whole interaction leaves me so confused about the last seven years of my life and I felt so unsafe in that situation I never wanted any child to ever go through that again

So I filed a police report And I knew like that Him wanting to suck my dick as an adult Is not illegal. It's weird But it's not illegal Maybe it's sexual harassment And like he was my boss at the time And my youth pastor and my you know

Camp counselor So I was like okay maybe I'll just file it to document it So the police arrive at my house And they say the same thing that it's not a crime But they said that my story corroborates another report that they previously had. And so they're talking to me and they,

they, they, my friend, uh, when I was texting her, she reminded me that the police legitimately said, I don't know how they let this guy work with children. They knew his name when I reported it. And they were like, oh yeah, this is not the first time. So my first thought is, oh my God, is there someone else who's been in my situation? And then of course, like I'm thinking of all of the, the four of us.

And there's one of the four who just, kind of disappeared one day and never came back and never spoke about it. So I'm like, did something happened to him? Well, it makes you wonder, too, like, if there was a child that really leaned on him, I guess, for that kind of guidance or all the times that he would invite you guys over. And I don't know, like, when you're a child, you might think it's cool to hang out with someone that's older. Or if you don't have, you know, a father figure or this or that, you might lean on something like that. So who knows if somebody that was 13, 14, 15, whatever would have leaned on him if he would have taken advantage of that. Yeah.

If it was just him and a child alone at his house or something like that. It's terrifying. It's so scary. So, yeah, I mean, like you said, I start thinking about all of these kids who randomly showed up at, you know, his youth group events, all of the kids that ride his bus, all of the kids at the church. So I'm like, this can't happen anymore. So I immediately call the camp. I call the camp director because I have his cell phone number. I tell him everything.

I call the church that Steve worked at. I tell them everything. And thankfully, and actually surprisingly, both institutions remove him immediately. Then I, because the police also hinted at something like, yeah, his background check doesn't come up clean if you run it. Um, so I'm like, oh my God, like that's like, why has no one done a background check in this guy in years? Like I get that. Especially when he's working with kids. Right.

And I get that, okay, once you're in, you don't really get annual background checks. But maybe every five or 10 years, I don't know. And did you ever respond or talk to him or see him after that last text? I didn't. He tried to reach out to me last year, um, which was absurd. And as that's happening, I'm actually texting the head counselor of the screenshots. and he's texting Steve saying, leave Logan alone,

don't ever interact with him again. So, like, he's tried. But, yeah, I'm assuming you quit. Oh, yeah, yeah, I quit. Yeah, he immediately blocked me. Got it. So, yeah, we've had no contact until he tried to contact me,

even then I didn't respond. So, you know, he's fired from the church. He's fired from the camp. Awesome, but he's still a bus driver. So I made a new email. Keep Steve away from kids at gmail.com. And I write this long email. to the school system.

And I find all the people, the head of buses, the superintendent, the, you know, all the people that I need to be emailing. And I send this long email basically saying, I know you cannot tell me the results of this investigation. And I can't tell you any details because there is, there's a police report about it. You can contact the police if you want. I give you my permission. But what I need you to do is I need you to run a background check on this man.

That's it. You don't have to tell me the results, but I need you to do a background check because this is not a safe person to be around kids. they respond surprisingly and they say thank you for this information we are running a background check we cannot say anymore but we wanted to thank you and I was like great that's all I want he's fired so like clearly the background check came out did he get in trouble for anything or was he just removed from these positions do you know I think he's just removed I don't know because I mean I'm sure I would assume he's on the record as well I've Googled it there's no record because none of this

was technically a sex offense crime. Like you can find if you look up the other two people, yeah, they're on the sex offender registry, but Steve's not. So I don't know what happened, what kind of report came up. But yeah, his background check doesn't clear, but there's no registry. And the scary thing is too, like I feel like, and this might not be the case with all offenders, but and everyone's different. But you never know when somebody's going to cross that line. Right. So maybe Steve over these last, I don't know, 10 years or so,

was kind of just like dipping his toes in the water, like increasing, whatever. Like you don't know if nobody would have reported this if one day he did cross that line. You know what I mean? Because you never, like it might not, like I said, for some people they might just go all in. But for others it might be something where it leads up to eventually them

really doing something like that. And that's why I needed to tell everyone. Absolutely. Because I was like, this man, because I'm an adult now. You don't want it to go any further. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in the position of I work with kids.

And I'm like, this cannot happen. So thankfully, he's fired. He sends out this long email that was not sent to me. But of course the screenshots were because I have my people. And he essentially goes on and on about how he's taking a break from the camp. You know, he spent his entire life dedicating his time to kids and to working with kids at the church, at the camp as a bus driver. but now it's time to focus on Steve. And he's going to take some time away to focus on himself.

So he acted like it was his choice. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then he in the email says that he's going to start a new journey for himself. He calls it, this is the year of Steve where he's going to find himself and blossom and be the best person. So he even changes his Instagram bio after blocking me to the year of Steve. So his current Instagram bio was the year of Steve and then his phone number. It's been the year of Steve since 2018.

So every year is the year of Steve. Every year is the year of Steve. So now Steve currently works for a construction company and is somehow able to move on with his life. For me, I have pretty significant anxiety and also recently panic attacks. I've been in therapy ever since then. I, you know, take meds for anxiety. You know, I'm doing pretty well. I love my job.

And like I said, every year around June, I try to post the screenshots of the text that he sent me. But I didn't feel like that was enough. And I remember for the longest time, I got a lot of backlash from the people who were Steve minions as well and Steve supporters. And the biggest one who, you know, probably fought me the most about this ended up, you know, being accused as sexually assaulting his girlfriend at the time, you know, and I believe her because he's a Steve defender, Steve apologist. So at first I was like super offended that all of these people were not believing me and believing my story. But of course, then I realized just how brainwashed I was into venerating Steve and seeing him as this like perfect person. So I was like, of course

they're not going to believe me and I can't really blame them for that. But I wanted to come on this podcast because I feel like people needed to hear this story and because I never want any child to be in the position that I was in. And quite frankly, in like getting to the point where I'm at now

is like the last step in getting past all of the Steve stuff. And the year of Steve is ending right now. Yeah. So bye Steve. And I, bye Steve. And I think, too, that it's so important to talk about because it just goes to show, and it's unfortunate because I think that a lot of things can happen where something's like these camps or these churches and everything.

It's supposed to be a safe place. It's supposed to teach religion. It's supposed to teach what's right, what's wrong, this, that, and the other. And I think a lot of times it, you can say that something is something and that's not actually what's happening. So I think, one, it's important to know that even if you're sending your child to a youth group or, you know, with somebody that you think works for the school system or that is a religious safe person.

Do your own research. And like you said, kind of just do that double check. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, don't just let your kid go off because you think someone's safe. You just never know. Right. And I think, too, like I mentioned, it's always important to speak up because you hopefully prevent it from going any further or from it happening to another child or person.

Right. And even though at the time that he sent you those texts, you were still an adult at that point, you spent years around this man as a child. So like you said, all of these things started clicking. And it does become scary. I think you're like, oh, shit. And you reevaluate the whole relationship that you had with this man. And I think it really can leave you feeling extremely uneasy and groomed. And like, wait, what has this man been doing for the last however many years?

You know what I mean? and who else has he done it too. Right. And unfortunately, there's a lot of people out there like that. And like we mentioned before, whether it's because something he went through in his childhood and whether it was just who he was and him being weird, it's not okay and it's not safe.

And it has a very negative effect on children. Like children should not be around people like that. And these kind of people need help. And they just should not be around. kids. Right. At all. As much as I hate doing this, the personal body safety lessons every year, I'm so grateful that they exist. Yeah. Because when I was in middle school, I didn't have my school counselor doing a personal body safety lesson that if somebody had told me, hey, an adult should never be telling you to keep a secret. Right. I probably would have been like, oh, wait, well,

I have an adult asking me to keep lots of secrets. And that's what I was going to say, too, if there was somehow like more things in place where not even just like, reporting. But right, like lessons like that are little key things just to teach kids and like, okay, look out for this. This is a red flag or you should feel comfortable to come to any of us if you're dealing with this or that because I think that like we were saying before as well, as a child, you might not fully grasp things and really understand what's happening or what's weird or what's off because what do we really know at that age? And like you said too, when a whole group of your friends and people that you trust are trusting of this man or this.

person, you're not really going to feel like you want to be the one person that is going against them. It just doesn't make sense in our young brains. So I feel like, yeah, if there was more things in place that kind of just sparked that little like, maybe that's weird or maybe that's not right or maybe that gut feeling I was having is telling me something's wrong. Yeah. I feel like, and it's unfortunate, but more things like that do need to be in place. And it really is sad that we live in a world that you can't be trusting. Right. Yeah.

It is sad. It's so sad. But I think that your story is so important because children need to be protected from this kind of stuff. And there is no certain age. There is no certain place that these things happen. It can happen anywhere. It can happen in the most what you think are the most innocent environments.

Yeah. And they're just, unfortunately, they're not. And I think that the more people that talk about it and can be aware of it, hopefully, the more this is prevented from ever happening to other people. Yeah, absolutely. But you did amazing. Thank you. And thank you so much for sharing your experience, sharing your story about Steve and everything

terrible that he is done. But no, and this is the year that we end Steve. No, we're Steve by Steve. Steve is canceled party. Yes, Steve is canceled. Nobody go to his house. Delete his address and number. But no, seriously, you did incredible.

And thank you so much for wanting to come on here. It definitely, it takes a lot of courage and vulnerability to open up. And you really did incredible. And I appreciate you preparing so much. You did amazing. Seriously. Thank you. Thank you so much.