Grace
Appearances
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
But I would say the Lord's Prayer over and over and over again until I fell back asleep. I was really scared. And of course, like after the fact, as I'm describing this to Mark, my skeptical husband was skeptical. And, um, We like toyed with the idea of this being a sleep paralysis instance, but I never experienced sleep paralysis before.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I wasn't under any kind of like exceptional stress at that time. Like I wasn't going through really like a big, aside from having bought a house, like, and I'm not a super stressed out person anyways, but there really would have been no triggering incident for having sleep paralysis. And aside from that, like I just wasn't asleep. Like I woke up and saw these two things.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
This became like a regular topic of conversation in our house because I was really, really scared. I did not want Mark to travel for work anymore. And if he did travel for work, I slept like with Francis in the bed with me. Or I even would sleep at my parents' house sometimes if Mark was traveling because I just really did not want to be in the house by myself.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
It's like if you've ever lost somebody in your family or a close friend, you might have had this experience where there's three or four days after you lose someone where everything just feels a little bit thinner and a little bit... There's a very specific like opening of a sense that you don't always have. And then after a few days, it kind of goes away. I don't know.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
That might make sense to some people. It might not make sense to some people. But that's how my house feels all the time. It like always feels like there's a little bit of thinness and a little bit of like pressure that's otherwise not there. So at this time, like... It was just a more intense version of that. It felt, like, kind of heavy.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And I still do love the house, but I think Mark, you know, and as things started to pick up more and more, Mark also started to figure out, like, we can't live in this house like this forever. Like, that's not going to work. Like, we're going to have to do something about this because... We live here now, like this is our house and we don't want to leave.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And the next couple things that happened, I think Mark, he started to get like not just a little bit less skeptical, but he started to get full on board with getting rid of whatever was in the house. There were two more incidents that happened within the span of a week. The first one was pretty innocuous. I had what I thought was a regular night's sleep.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And when I woke up in the morning, came downstairs, it suddenly hit me, this memory of having my hand held in the night. My hand was dangling over the side of the bed. And I had like that physical memory sensation of somebody holding my hand. And I turned to Mark and I said, somebody was holding my hand last night.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
A few nights later, Frances was getting up really early, so we would take turns being up with her at like 4.35 in the morning and let the other person sleep. So I was sleeping in on this day, and I was laying in bed, and I heard my door open. And then I felt somebody's hands around my ankles. They slowly pulled me down, probably a foot. So I was now off my pillow.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
My legs were probably dangling like from my knees to my feet off the end of my bed. And I sort of like shook myself and I felt the ankles, my hands around my ankles again, and again pulled me down. But this time I felt myself being pulled off the bed completely, like hitting the ground. I could feel my cheek rubbing against the linens. I could feel my body smacking against the wood floor.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the top of my bed at my pillow. I don't know how to explain this, but I felt like I was being taken to another place. My physical body wasn't being pulled, but I was being pulled out of my body. I felt like I was being taken somewhere. I felt like I was receiving a very forceful invitation to enter another world. It felt like a trick.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
It felt like it wanted me to trust it. Whatever is trying to take me here, it wants me to feel like this is playful and no big deal. But there was something really deep down in me that was just like, you're not supposed to go there. And I very quickly was just like, fuck that. Under no circumstances am I going anywhere against my will. Like, I'm not going to let anything take me anywhere.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
If I go to another plane, like, I have to be in control of that. And then I went downstairs and I told Mark everything that had just happened. And I was extremely, extremely shaken up at this point. This was very, very scary for me. Felt like maybe in the absence of the other things that had happened, I would have been able to write this off. But it felt to me like such a clear escalation.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
It got really, really scary because I also felt like it's one thing just to like see somebody in my room. But it's another thing for something to be like touching me or like holding me. And I was just like, I'm not, I'm really afraid. I don't want that. And I don't know like where, what is this thing and where is it trying to take me?
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
The look on his face, like it turned, I think, from skepticism and laughing it off to concern. whether it was just for me and my mental state or for my safety or what was happening in the house. I think it was probably some combination at that point. So I started to do a bunch of stuff around the house based on the advice of a friend who I felt was very attuned.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I talked to her about the situation and She suggested playing loud music, move the furniture around, and she was like, just talk to it and tell it that it's not welcome there and to get the fuck out. So I started doing that. Mark started doing it. She suggested putting plants and offerings in the basement.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So I didn't do offerings per se, but I did put flowers in the basement and just tried to really change the energy of the space. And the night incidents... stopped. But that's when everything with Francis started.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
My name is Grace. I'm 35 years old. I live in Eastern Connecticut, like kind of near where Mystic Pizza takes place, that classic Julia Roberts movie. I'm a wedding planner and event designer. And the story started when I moved back to Connecticut in 2018. I had been living in California
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So at this point, it's like March 2020 and COVID had just hit and there's like nothing to do but like go for walks with Francis. Like I was working from home. I worked in nonprofit at that time. So Francis and I would go to the park all the time and we'd take these like long walks all the time. So one day I'm at the park and Misha, who has three sons, randomly shows up at the park too.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And we get to chatting. We like weren't close friends yet at this point. And I just asked her about the skull that she had mentioned because Mark and I basically thought that she had made that up to scare us since the house negotiations had gotten a little contentious. So I was like, you were like fucking with us, right? And she was like, no, I was not. I was not making that up.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
That absolutely happened. And then she said, let me go. I'll confirm all the details with Chris when I get home. So she texted me later that night and she told me, not only is that true, that skull, but she said that Chris, after that happened, did a bunch of research on the property and learned that there was a church and graveyard in that portion of the yard.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So most likely, in his opinion, that was probably a graveyard where they pulled that tree out. I sort of told her at that point, like, I didn't give her a lot of detail because I was a bit bashful about being judged. But I told her a little bit, like, there's something going on with this house, and we love it, but there's just something going on here. That summer, the weirdness persists.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Frances and I, like I said, we're taking all these really long walks, and there's this forest near my house where we walk every day during COVID. At this point, she's like a year, a little bit over a year. And we just hear whistling in the woods every time that we go, like following us through the woods. Not birds, like human whistling. Nobody else is in this nature preserve.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Like I said, like weird things like that were just happening with remarkable frequency. But it was one-offs. Like it was a little thing here and a little thing there. And Frances was just starting to talk. And when she could start to clearly communicate with us, she started to say some like pretty jaw-dropping stuff about what was happening to her at night.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
This is when Auntie Gloria like enters the scene. It wasn't like a gradual introduction to Auntie Gloria. It was like one morning just before her second birthday. She told us that Auntie Gloria had come to see her last night and was playing with her toys and reading her books. And Mark and I kind of looked at each other and we started to probe her just a little bit. who's Auntie Gloria?
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
What does she say when she comes? Is she friendly or is she mean? At that time, like, she was pretty open about it. She would say, like, she's really nice. She reads me the stories that she wrote. She just comes and says hi. She told me happy birthday. And so Mark and I, obviously, we get, like, kind of curious. Like, well, let's figure out, like, is this Auntie Gloria – Who is this?
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So we look up like Auntie Gloria. and the name of the town that we live in. And right away, the first hit is an obituary from 2003 or 2004 for a woman named Gloria Barber, who, as we came to find out, was the person who lived here when the house was excavated. She rebuilt this house. She was known by community members as Auntie Gloria. She was a children's author.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And when I got pregnant with my daughter, Frances, we moved to New Haven and started looking for houses in Connecticut. I grew up here in Eastern Connecticut, so we were looking all over. Around November of 2019, Frances had been born at that point. She was probably about eight months old.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
and she renovated a bunch of the old houses in the neighborhood. At this point, we're both just like, this is undeniable. We had never talked about Gloria. There was just no way that Frances could have just made this up. And every week or so, she would tell us about another visitation with Auntie Gloria. I would try to tell her, make sure Auntie Gloria respects your space.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
You don't have to talk to her if you don't want to. One day she woke up and said that Auntie Gloria wants you to paint the house red again. And I told a neighbor about this kind of offhandedly, like, oh, Frances is talking to Auntie Gloria. Because obviously the neighbors who'd lived here for a long time remembered her. My neighbor told me, like, indeed, the house used to be red.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And it was a very specific shade of red that Gloria had gone to, like, incredible lengths to find because she wanted it to be really historically accurate. And apparently she was upset when it was painted over black. She would tell Frances things like, tell your mom not to leave her cakes out on the counter so long before she puts them in the oven.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So she would be, you know, for, like, a two-year-old to say that, it was... Literally unbelievable. It was literally unbelievable.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Like a two-year-old just doesn't think about the world that way.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Right. Right. So this was like, I think I recorded this one and sent it to you. But after we chatted, you know, because she's really sheepish about it now. Like she clams up when you ask her about it. But at one point we were making cookies and I was, I try to keep it super casual with her, you know, like no big deal. It's just like, you know, see what comes out.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Try not to put too much pressure on her because like I said, she clams up. So she did end up telling me, like, Auntie Gloria was telling her about her aunts, her mean aunts. I probed a little bit and just said, like, well, why are her aunts mean? She said that her aunts do bad things to children. And she said they do bad things with belts to children, which is, like, really dark, I know.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I'm not super mom, but like my child is not exposed to anything like that, like ever. So to even know that that's a thing that happens is, I just, I don't, maybe I'm naive, but like I just don't see how a two or three-year-old could make that kind of a connection. Like how they could, she could say that spontaneously. I don't know.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I went to an astrologist named Michael, who I'd gone to several times before, because I wanted to have Frances' birth chart read. So I have Frances' chart read, and he said a bunch of really interesting stuff. It was really cool, but what he said about Frances that I thought was interesting and that stayed with me is that he said she was surrounded by spirits.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Obviously it's upsetting, you know, to think that your little girls like being exposed to things outside of your control. That's like what every parent, like that's probably one of the hardest parts about being a parent, maybe the hardest part about being a parent. But I also think that like, She didn't seem scared or upset.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And so I didn't want to map any of my like shit onto the way that she was experiencing it. So when she told me, I just tried to stay like pretty neutral and curious. I don't know. That's, I guess, my parenting style is like, well, she's not freaking out about it or scared. Why would I put that on her? I don't know if that's right or wrong, but that's kind of how I approached it. Thank you.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
A few weeks later, I'm looking at houses. I had driven like an hour from New Haven to my hometown and I was looking at houses around like Mystic and I went to a house in Mystic and it was a total bust. Like it was just a dump and I was like, okay, this was kind of a waste of an hour drive. Let me see if there's anything else nearby to go check out.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So I got on Zillow, I found a spot, and it was on this road that was a mile from where I grew up, but I didn't even know that this road existed. And the house was, like, really cool. It was a black house, salt box on an acre of land right on the river. So I was like, all right, let me go check it out. So I was with Francis, Francis and I went to the house.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
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Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
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Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And when we walked into the house, it was like a flip just switch. Like it was a no brainer that we were going to buy this house. We put an offer then in that day. And, um, we were like on our way to closing in December. So at the closing, you know, the negotiations with the homeowners, I think it was probably pretty typical for the way that negotiations go.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
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Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Like, it wasn't—like, we weren't warm and fuzzy. Misha, the homeowner, she's one of my best friends now. But at the time, like, we didn't even want to look at each other at the closing because we had argued about a bunch of stuff with the house. So anyways, at the closing, we signed all the paperwork. We're sitting there, and—
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Uh, no, he, but we scheduled a time for him to come over and pointed out to me. So he came over like a couple of weeks later. He spent like a couple hours with me and we started just like talking about what the excavation process was like and what the carpentry was like. And he did tell me stuff just about like, you know, some of the things that they found outside.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And, um, one of the things that he, um, described to me was at one point they were like digging the foundation and then they had excavated just like a portion of the driveway too and they found like the carpentry team like the construction team found a fire pit that went down like you know it was carbon dated down like 8 000 years at least like it had been used for fires for like 8 000 years
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And then we, like, walked around the property, too, and he could, like, pick stuff up off the ground. Like, there's all these—I didn't know what they were until he came over, but there's all these little—they just look like tiny white cylinders everywhere.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And he would, like, pick them up off the ground, and he'd be like, you know, they were, like, not that—like, they didn't have the science that we had, but— They knew enough to know that if you shared a pipe, you would get the same sickness that the guy next to you had. So they'd make these super long pipes, and then they'd just crack off the part that they used and throw it on the ground.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Yeah. There's all these weird like stone fixtures around my house. And like some of them are like there's a hitching post, right? Like where they would tie their horses up. Like some of the stuff I kind of knew what it was. But as we walked around the property, there were other things where he would like pause like he was kind of like jogging his memory.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And one of the things that he showed me were, like, these marble slabs that had been repurposed into steps. And he said that they used to be gravestones. Like, you know, the old 1800s marble-looking white gravestones that you see. So that was really interesting. And then it was, like, time to talk about the treasure. Like, I was ready to...
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
to broach it with him so what he told me was that when the house was under construction they were always hiding things there because people would you know like kids would come through the house and mess around at night and like if there was any valuable tools they wouldn't want them to get messed with So they found this place in the house where they could tuck things and nobody would find them.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And it was like a running joke between Brian and Gloria that when she passed away, she would put a bonus in that space for him to come back and get. I asked him to point out to me where it was and he went like straight upstairs. and showed me that the place where this like secret room had been or is has been like dry walled over.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Misha said, hey, just a heads up, like, everything's out of the house, but when you go down to the basement, you're going to see that there are like five or six boxes down there, and those have to stay with the house. They belong to the house. So if you ever leave, you need to leave those there. And I was like, okay, well, what are they?
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So somebody at some point between his construction and me living here covered it. And he basically said, like, there was a trick door that if you moved into this house and nobody told you it was there, you wouldn't notice it.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And so if you didn't like the way it looked, like, it would make sense that somebody would just cover it with sheetrock because it doesn't look like anything if you don't know what you're looking at. So basically, it's hidden behind this drywall. So when Gloria lived here, she... only lived on the first floor because she had a premonition that she would die on the stairs.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Brian told me all of this, like that she would die going up or down the stairs. So whenever he came or like anybody came to visit her, she would have people like run up or down the stairs and get things for her because she refused to go up and down the stairs. So anyways, so the upstairs of the house is like A-frame shotgun rooms.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
The pitch of the ceiling, you would say, is, like, much steeper than the pitch of the roof. So there's, like, a big gap between the roof and the ceiling. And that's where the secret room is.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
No, he has no idea, but he has like total certainty that there's something there. So obviously I, I told him like, let's like crack this bitch open. Like, let's do it. Let's see what's back there, you know? And yeah, It was weird. He actually got kind of squirrely about it and sort of shook his head and was not interested. Huh. Yeah. Which is super weird, right? He would think if...
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I don't know if he just, like, he's old. Maybe he just doesn't want to take on a project like that. Or maybe he doesn't want to, like, maybe he just doesn't want to be involved anymore. I don't know. I did call him afterward, too, and I offered again, like, I'll pay for, like, the materials, you know, like, and whatever's in there, you can keep. Like, it's obviously for you.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I don't, even if it's, like, cash or whatever, like, I just want to know what's back there. But, yeah, he was not interested.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So I had a friend come and I told him about like a kind of a handy friend come and like cut like a probably like a one by three hole in the wall for us to crawl into and check out. And it was a bust.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
You're right. And there's like, I cut into one section of the room and there are four sections of the room. Yeah.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And she ended up telling me that in 1998, when the house was rebuilt, right, because the house is from 1725, but it had a new foundation poured in 1998. And whenever construction is happening on like a potentially archaeologically significant piece of property, you're supposed to let the state know. I learned all of this since then, obviously.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Yeah, like an inside joke. So I also had an archaeologist come and visit the house who knew Gloria too. And his perspective was like, Gloria was an extremely, extremely practical person. And he does not think she would have left anything of value there.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I kept it pretty vague, but I did ask him if he ever hadn't any experiences in the house. And he sort of laughed and he said that Gloria believed that the house was haunted.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I did. I mentioned it again. I was just sort of like testing the waters to see if he'd be receptive. And his response was just like, I believe it. That was basically it. I believe it.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I haven't had any experiences with Gloria. But, you know, a couple things have happened in the past few months that I feel like have been... like above and beyond confirmation bias.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And the biggest one is my husband, Mark, he went outside to like take the compost out and he came back in and he closed the door behind him and he turned and like just looked me dead in the eye, like had this look on his face. And I was like, what? He said, when I was walking back inside, right next to the garage, I heard somebody in my ear say, hello.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
He was like not from a distance, like not yelling far away, not inside, like somebody right in my ear. And then they said, Francis? Francis? And he literally was like, I'm not talking about this anymore. Like, once I was like, oh, my God. He was like, done. Conversation over. I don't want to think about it. And I was like, okay. But my son and my daughter overheard him.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And they were like, oh, the voice that says my name? Like, the voice in the tree? Yeah. And I was like, what? And they were like, oh, we hear that all the time outside. It was like very nonchalant, them saying like, yeah, that's normal for us.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the weird thing is that like, there's not like a nice clean narrative structure. I feel like to these things most of the time. And there's not like, like some clear, succinct meaning to derive from it.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So the homeowner at that time had let the state know, I'm putting an addition on and I'm doing a new foundation. Do you want to come and conduct an archeological dig? So they did. UConn and the Connecticut State Archeologists, like the State Historical Society, they came and conducted a dig on the property.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And they took some of the artifacts that they found, but they left these five boxes in the basement So I was like, oh, that's cool. I didn't know that before. You know, we've got like some old spooky shit in the basement. So I just asked her really off-handed like, oh, is it haunted? And she said no. And then she paused and she looked at her husband, husband at the time, Chris.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
They looked at each other and like they gave each other this really funny look. And then she turned back to me and she said, but we did find a skull in the yard. And I was like, like a human skull? Aren't you supposed to, like, call somebody, like, if you find that? And she was like, yeah, it was definitely a human skull.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
We had a big pine tree removed from the yard, and we found all these bones, but we just gave the arborist, like, 300 bucks and told him to throw everything back in there. I was like, okay, uh... Really like fun story, like kind of a party trick that I can tell people, you know, like over cocktails or whatever.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Yeah, I mean, okay, just there is like legal precedent for disclosing haunted houses. But I think that she didn't think the house was haunted. She just knew that there was a skull. Now, she probably should have reported it to somebody. But, yeah, I think that her husband, like, I feel like that knowing look was just like, Misha, like, shut your mouth.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Don't tell them about the buried bodies, like, in the yard. Like, you know, you're going to fuck this up.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
We thought it was fun at that point. We were like, this is cool. Like, this is cool. This is like a fun, it's like, like I said, it's like a party trick. He is eternally skeptical about, But I think like even things will happen now. And he'll say to me like, if it doesn't happen to me, I don't believe it. So at that point, we had already signed the paperwork.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So it was not even like we had an opportunity if we were like, wait, this is sort of like could have changed our offer on the house. We didn't even have that opportunity because everything had already been signed. So it wasn't like we were mad about it. You know, we still loved the house. We still do love the house. But we basically took the keys and we left. That was it.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
We get to the house, like one of the first things we do, Mark actually was traveling. I'm remembering now he was traveling for work a lot at that time. So I think I actually moved into the house without him initially. Francis and I were in the house. One of the first things that I did was I pulled all the boxes out of the basement and I brought them upstairs. and started to look through them.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
They were meticulously organized. So there was an inventory list with codes for everything, including the GPS location, exactly where on the property everything was found. And inside, man, there's so much cool stuff. A lot of it is really old, like, Pequot artifacts. Like, arrowheads, obviously, but also pottery and old bits of clothing.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And then through colonial times, so, like, lots of stoneware, painted ceramics, like, children's shoes. And then a lot of animal, or, I mean, I think animal, some of it is unknown, but bone fragments, like, there's... horse jaws and old pipes and like bone pipes. So like a lot of really cool and pretty creepy stuff, a lot of bones down there. I kind of love creepy stuff.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And again, like at that time it was just entertainment for me. So I was like, this is weird, but I also like, I love history. And I was, it really got me super interested in like the history of the property and who had lived here before, because there was so much. And even like, you know, my first month living here, forgot to mention this, but like there's gardens all over the property.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I'm looking at them right now. There's like five stone garden beds. There's a raised garden. There's all this hardscaping with perennial flowers. And the first month I was here, I would find arrowheads like every other week, like just on top of the dirt, like as if somebody had placed it there. Just like beautiful stuff, old milk bottles and old ceramics. Like there's just stuff everywhere.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So I just got really, really interested in the history of the property and who had been here before me, because it obviously had been inhabited for a really, really long time. So like I said, Mark had been traveling a lot at that time. And around February, so like two or three months later, was when it stopped being fun. At this time, my bedroom was upstairs.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So we have the first floor, second floor, and then there's a little attic above the third floor, really small. The first visitation in February, I woke up and it was the middle of the night. I don't remember what time it was because As soon as I opened my eyes, I was looking at the bookshelf on the side of my bed.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And in the bookshelf, I could see the outline of two little boys laying in the bookshelf looking at me. I think everybody's probably experienced like when you open your eyes in the dark and you think you see something, you think you see a figure and you just keep staring at it because you can't tell. That is not what this was. It was dark, but it was like moonlit in the room.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
And I think what was, I mean, obviously that was exceptionally strange. What was... Maybe more strange in retrospect was my lack of action. I didn't do anything about it. I didn't go under the covers. I didn't get up and walk out. I didn't scream. I didn't turn the lights on. I just stared until I fell back asleep.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
When I woke up the next morning, I think I was actually way more terrified the next day when I remembered what had happened the night before. Pretty soon after that, like three or four, I think it was three for me, one for Mark, more things happened at night and the intensity was like escalating. The second incident, Mark again was traveling.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
I was laying in bed and I opened my eyes in the middle of the night and I was staring straight up at my ceiling. And in my peripheral vision, this thick green mist was starting to like enter my line of sight directly overhead. And as it came together, it formed a very distinct face of a man, like a full head of hair,
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
Eyes, but like no pupils, you know, like that didn't look like it was, it didn't look like it had anything inside of its eyes. When I saw the face come together, I wasn't like frozen with an action at this time. I let out a really loud like gasp, almost a scream that I will not explain.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
replicate because it's a little embarrassing but I made like a really loud noise of shock and the face almost like mirrored my face like opened its mouth and it I felt like it screamed. And as soon as it opened its mouth, the mist dissipated back to my peripheral. And I was just laying there in bed. Like, you know, you can imagine like scary, heavy breathing.
Otherworld
Episode 116: Auntie Gloria
So that was the second thing that happened. This time I was very scared. It was a little bit different than the previous incident. I was horrified. And for the rest of that week, actually, probably for the rest of that year, if I ever woke up in the middle of the night, I'm not religious. I'm kind of anti-religious.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
It felt like he was consciously recognizing that we... That he, that it was, that he was like, yes, I am a man. Like he, he stood up on the back of the car to be like, I, yes, you were right. I have the face of a man.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Cause it just wasn't, it was like not, um, like it wasn't big, big. Well, the other thing too is like, it's, it had paws and it had like skinny little legs and there was no way anything was inside of that creature. The body was so distinctly mangy and, and dog.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Like the other thing too is like, you know, you see coyotes in LA and you see, and I've seen wolves before, but it wasn't like that either. It was very much like the body was, was almost too, I don't know what the right word is, like too,
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
gentle not gentle but like soft and and and skinny and to be a coyote or to be a wolf like it was definitely a dog and the and the tail wasn't so coyote like either the tail was the normal tail of a dog like like not crazy big it was just like it felt to me like like my uncle used to have this dog named, um, named Digger. And it felt very much like the tale of Digger, but the coat was very dark.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Like the coat was sort of this like brownish reddish blackish coat. I remember. And then the face, the hair on the face sort of was less so like the hair there was hair on the face, but it wasn't like, it wasn't like dog hair. And the features were distinguished. The lips were distinguished in a way that humans' lips are distinguished.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
The eyebrows, it had distinguished... And the eyebrows weren't even comical eyebrows. It made sense for its face. The dog, because I was sort of recessed from it, looked from afar to be like 60, 80 pounds-ish. And... I remember I turned back to see my uncle, to look at my uncle when he said, turn around and look at that dog's face. But I remember it looking smaller.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And then when it came up to the side of the car, you know, Land Rovers are tall cars. And so I remember it thinking like, wow, this dog is really tall because the dog really was looking at us, like almost level to us through the back of the car. So I think the dog, I mean, I don't know how tall the dog was. on all fours, but on two must have been maybe the height of a human man.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
So my uncle looks at us and is like, turn around and look at that dog's face. And we turn around And the dog has since approached the back of the car. And it was almost like turn around and look at that dog's face. And then the dog, as if it knew that my uncle had said that, appeared in the back window looking at us, very curious about us, but also confirming
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
This is my face, you know, like, oh, you're asking about my face. Here I am. I remember being like mystified almost like, like, like, whoa, that is crazy. That dog, that dog has the face of a man. Like I was 13. I wasn't, you know, maybe a complex thinker, but I was just like moved by seeing a dog with the face of a man.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And my mom's, I remember looking at her after I saw the dog and she couldn't take her eyes off the dog. And she was just like, it was one of those things where it was just like, oh my God. And it was that collective experience that we were all having where I think if I'd had this experience alone, I would wonder today if it actually happened.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
But because I looked into the face of all the people that were looking at this dog, we were all having this mystified sort of trance-like experience for a moment. that I knew it was real. And then I remember my uncle was like, we got to get the fuck out of here. And like, was like, we got to go. And my aunt started going like, go, go, go, go. Because they were like terrified.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
By that point, they were terrified of the dog. I was totally in sort of this like trance-like experience. But then when they broke me out of it to sort of with their own fear, I was like, oh, fuck, that is really scary. And then I remember thinking like, this dog definitely knows where we live and definitely knows how to find us. Like, I don't know why I thought that, but I remember thinking that.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
So we like drove out of there. We like, you know, he laid on the gas and we drove back to their house. We drove directly back to their house in Buchanan. And then I remember that night like I was in my bed and it was dark and there were no lights and the sound, it was very quiet. And then that night, I swear to God, there was so much howling.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Like there was so much howling outside, but it didn't feel like a lot of dogs. It felt like one dog or wolf or whatever. It felt like one animal was making a lot of noise. When we got back to the house, we called my uncle, who lives in Dallas now, because he's really into spooky stuff. He's like a conspiracy-lite kind of guy.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And we called him, and I remember he Googled it while we were on the phone. And he was like, oh, there is this thing, this dog, man-dog. At the time, we were calling him man-dog. But... He was like, there is this man-dog theory that there is a dog with the face of a man that many people claim to say they've seen. At the time, it wasn't in reference to Michigan.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
It was just like this thing he found on the internet. And he asked us, I remember he asked us a lot of questions and was really like into the story, which is I think why another reason why I really remember this happening too is because my uncle was so like... He was just surprised that we had run into something so mystifying.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
He'd always wanted that experience for himself, maybe, and was really excited that we'd had it. In my memory, I think me and my mom were leaving the next day, and I think they drove us back to the airport. And the whole time, we were just like... Not the whole time, but we were like, that man-dog was crazy. Like, that's the craziest thing.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
But again, something you need to know about me and my mom, too, is that we're not crazy ghost people. We're not crazy, like... I mean, now, thinking about it and telling the story, I'm like, maybe there is sort of this... presence in that dog that I should have recognized and been more consciously aware of in that moment because he clearly was trying to say something maybe.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
We're not big, spooky people. So we kind of were like, that was the craziest thing ever. And then we kind of got on a plane and went back to Dallas. And every once in a while, we'd be all together and we'd tell the story to somebody and we would talk about man-dog. But it was more of a funny thing because a dog with the face of a man in a lot of ways is... ridiculous.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And I think telling the story was really fun for us because we got to be like, yeah, that actually happened. There were four of us in the car and that happened. And I think people were always really surprised by that. So that was fun for us. I mean, I think the thing that will be more interesting with my aunt than with me is that she was a full adult when this happened.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And she knows that area very well because she had a house there. And she also like There's the funny thing is when this got brought back up, there was no point where any of us were like, did that happen? We were all like, oh, yeah, man dog. And that, I think, is to me the most striking part about it is that there is there was it's not even like any of us were like, wait, what?
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Or, you know, like, oh, yeah, it was completely for everyone. Like, yeah, man dog.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
I'm Grace. I am 31. I live in Los Angeles. I'm a director and I grew up in Dallas, Texas. I went to Boston College and then I went to work in New York. I actually worked at Saturday Night Live for a long time. And then I came to LA two years ago and have been directing for like three or four years, and just directed my first feature. I'm engaged to a guy who's obsessed with Otherworld.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
My fiance's name is Jack and I love him so much. And he moved to New York for me because he lived in Austin when we started dating. And then he very kindly moved to LA for me too. So he's been following me around. So I have to tolerate, you know, things like his podcasts, him repeating the entire story of a podcast out loud, which podcasts can be riveting, but the retelling of them is less so.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And he works at this wine store. He works at Silver Lake Wine with a guy named Steven, who we love. And Steven introduced him to this podcast. I also have been seeing Otherworld podcast billboards all over town. But I would kind of send the picture of the billboard and Jess to the both of them because I'm going to be honest with you.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
I'm not a fan of this podcast only because I'm not... It's not you or the hosts. It's just I don't like spooky stuff. I'm not into ghosts. I'm not into, you know... unidentified flying objects or anything. Sure, sure. I'm just like, I'm sure it's out there. It's not like I'm... It's fine, Grace. It doesn't exist, but it's just not for me. And so Jack... It's not you, it's me.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
It's not me, it's you. But Jack's obsessed with it. Jack loves...
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
ghost stories he loves that kind of stuff so does steven and so they have like they like really created their friendship over this podcast and now i mean we went to their house last night for a movie night like we're very close with them and it really i think this podcast is part of that and so i i had never told him this this we call it man dog but i'm hearing people call it dog man
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
My mom was in town a few months ago, and so I had two friends over for dinner. And I cooked dinner, and my mom was there. And our friends were talking about how they think there's a ghost in their apartment. And then Jack was sort of pulling answers out of them because he was really interested in their ghosts. I mean, even in our house that I'm sitting in right now, we have... It's really old.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
It's from the 1920s. And a woman died here. And, you know, the lights act strangely. And Jack thinks it's a positive ghost. Only love and light exist, he's always saying. But, you know, I'm like, whatever, that's just an old house. And so we were sitting here and he was like at this dinner with my mom and my two friends.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And he asked the table, he was like, does anybody else have any sort of otherworldly stories? My mom looks at me and she goes, well, do you remember Mandog? And I was like, oh, my God, I completely forgot about Mandog. And obviously Jack's ears perked up and he was like, man, dog, what are you talking about? And then my mom was like, well, we were in Michigan.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And then Jack stopped her and she goes, wait, you know, the Michigan dog man is like a legend. And we didn't. We knew that, like, Dog Man, or Man Dog as we call it, was sort of a, you know, a lore. But I didn't know specifically that the Michigan Dog Man was this, you know... interest in a lot of worlds of otherworldly conversation. And so I remembered it.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And my mom told a very brief version of the story, which is what I remember. But I haven't really intentionally, because Jack wanted me to do this podcast, I haven't really heard their full versions because I think probably for the best... for your storytelling and for this story, I could just tell my version of it.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Because if you talk to my aunt, she might have a, I think memory works in very funny ways. So I think it might be more interesting if we tell you our raw versions of our stories. And so my mom told the story, the brief version that night, which was when we were driving through rural Michigan. We saw this dog with the face of a man.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
I kind of like had put it back somewhere in my brain, but it wasn't something that was like, oh, it was like, oh yeah, the man dog. It wasn't something that took me a while to recall. It was something I remembered immediately. When my mom said that, Jack was like, why haven't, you've never told me that? That's the craziest thing that you've ever done. Why haven't you told me that?
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And I just hadn't even thought about it in a really long time. So I think it was just one of those things. I also am not a person who is like, That was otherworldly. That was spooky. I was just like, that was really weird. That dog had the face of a man.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And so it wasn't something that would have been something that I would have been like, oh my God, I had this spooky story because I really didn't have a spooky story in my head. It was more of like a crazy thing that happened to me. I was 13. My aunt had an apartment in Chicago and a house in like a country house in Buchanan, Michigan.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And we were going to visit her house because we'd never been there. And her husband is an artist who is very talented at a lot of things. And he, they bought this house in Buchanan and they, um, It was an old house that he modernized with, you know, a new architecture and an add-on. And it was still, it had the sense of it being old and the basement was really scary, I remember.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
But it was also a testament to their style. He loved mid-century modern stuff. And my aunt has like a tiny collection of chairs that are all like famous mid-century modern chairs. Like they're into that kind of stuff. I remember at night, it was so dark and so quiet that you almost couldn't sleep. Only sounds you would hear were like howls and rustling and like the scariest shit ever.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
So sleeping there, I remember, was like a nightmare for me. And so we went out there from Chicago and we were there. I was 13. I was probably, you know, whatever, eighth or ninth grade. I ended up going to my mom's room and sleeping in her bed, I remember, because I was so scared.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
I remember also like, it took a while to get anywhere because the roads, I mean, you were just so far out that your house would be 30 minutes away from wherever you were getting your supplies or going to a restaurant or, in my memory, it was very far away. And so they were all, and all the roads were super rural. You barely saw another car when you were driving down them.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
There was sort of just like land to the left and to the right. And so they had a nice house on their street, but the houses next to them were not very nice. Like they were like, you know, run down and people clearly weren't keeping, you know, maintaining them. And they were a little spooky, you know, like I wouldn't want to go there alone. Yeah.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And everybody's house was super set back on their lots. So you could see them, but not completely. So yeah. It was also like that weird thing of not seeing anyone was sort of scary. Like you really did feel like you were alone everywhere you went. There weren't a lot of people around until you went to like a restaurant or a farmer's market. Then you would see a lot of people.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
But clearly these people are coming from all over the place. I remember not sleeping very well, obviously, because of the darkness and quietness. And we got up and we were like, we went to breakfast. We had lunch. We did the thing. We went and had drinks. And then I remember it being dusky. Like, I remember part of the reason we left was because it was getting, it could get dark soon.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And so I remember we were driving from like one place to the next and it takes a really long time. So we were going down these super rural roads. My aunt and uncle had this Land Rover and I remember the Land Rover because when we were driving in Michigan, we would pull over all the time if there was like a dead animal in the road and she would check on it.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Or, you know, if it was like a raccoon, she would like take its tail. She's very strange, but amazing. The four of us are in the car. My uncle was in driving the car. My aunt was in the passenger seat. My mom was on the left side in the back seat and I was on the right side in the back seat.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And we were driving and obviously the, we were driving on the right hand side of the road and, and you know, we'd just come from something. And I remember it being like a pretty rural part of the road. And we, we kind of are driving and we see something ahead in the distance and it's sort of like a,
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
To me, I remember it being like, I didn't know what kind of animal it was because it was sort of, you know, when a dog is sleeping and it wraps itself up in itself. So we're driving and we see something ahead on the road and I don't really know what kind of animal it is because it's sort of curled up in itself. And my uncle, I remember him being like, what is that?
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And then my aunt, we pull up next to her and my aunt, you know, she likes to check on animals, as I said, and so... she was like, wanted to get out and check on it. And my, I remember my uncle being like, no, stop. I don't think you should get out of the car. And he got out of the car. And I remember I was on the side of the road that had the dog on it.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And so I remember like opening the door to the car and watching him go out and look at this dog. And the dog stood up. When the dog stood up, I remember being like, like the thing I'll say is the dog to me reminded me, do you know when Sirius Black turns into a dog in Harry Potter?
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
So I remember the dog having that kind of shape, like mangy, but skinny, but long and, and sort of feeling sad for the dog because feeling like the dog maybe was abandoned or whatever. But when it stood up, it was very clear that the dog had confidence in the dog. This is a weird thing to say, but it felt like the dog knew itself. You know what I mean?
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Like the dog was very aware of itself and self-assured. And I remember my uncle was like, whoa. And he took a few steps back. He slowly, slowly walked back to the car. And then he got in the car. He closed the door and said, look at that dog's face. Like, look at the dog's face. And as we turned back, I remember the dog started approaching the back of the car very slowly.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
And the dog, I swear to God, we look behind us and we're all looking out the back window and the dog props itself up onto the car and looks at us through the back window. And the dog, I swear to God, had the face of a man. Like it was a man's, it wasn't a threatening face, but it was very clearly a human man's face. Like,
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
so masculine in the way that it reminded me of, in my memory, it reminded me of like Cary Grant or like Marlon Brando, like really distinguished, confident, you know, rugged, a little bit man, like truly like a leading man. You know how a dog's face is pointed with its nose? And you know how like a pug is flapped? it was neither of those things. It was sort of like the shape of a human.
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
Like it was rounded in a way that doesn't, that I've never seen in a dog before. Like it was, or since I have two dogs, one sitting on my lap. And like the funny thing about it was, it was, yeah, it was just like, it didn't have like a point to its face. It didn't have a smashed face. It had like a curved human face. And so it,
Otherworld
Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2
I remember that being the thing that made me be like, oh my God, that's the face of a man. Like it wasn't a dog, the face, the body completely. But the face was strange in its... And the thing was, it looked at us too. So I think the looking at us, it looked at us and it felt like being looked at by a man. It didn't feel like when a dog looks at you.
The Ramsey Show
Be the Tortoise Not the Hare
So I just took a sales job. I was working in ministry before. My base income is $55,000 for the year, so I make about $3,500 a month, not including commission. I'm just starting to make any kind of commission.
The Ramsey Show
Be the Tortoise Not the Hare
I wanted to go to med school, and so I went to a private school. I went and played volleyball. I made terrible choices. I didn't have great oversight from my parents on what signing a private loan meant. And now I'm 27 and I'm really, really feeling the weight of that.
The Ramsey Show
Be the Tortoise Not the Hare
I did graduate, but I ended up feeling like I was being called into ministry, so was obedient to that.
The Ramsey Show
Be the Tortoise Not the Hare
He actually is not scared. He knows that this is right and this is from the Lord, and he is like, we're going to do this together. We're going to tackle it together.
The Ramsey Show
Be the Tortoise Not the Hare
I am, and I feel empowered, so thank you. All right, here's the deal.
The Ramsey Show
Be the Tortoise Not the Hare
I was calling in because I am getting married later this year. My fiance has no debt, but I am bringing in quite the load. I have about $180,000 in student loan debt. That's all private. And about $15,000 in credit card debt. And I've been told multiple things. I've been told to file for bankruptcy while I'm single. No!
The Ramsey Show
Be the Tortoise Not the Hare
Yeah. So I just, I feel a lot of options. I've been grinding. I got a higher paying job and I'm really trying, but I'm just curious, you know.
The Ramsey Show
Be the Tortoise Not the Hare
They have, but I mean, my monthly payment is about $800. I've defaulted on two of them already because it's four separate loans. And I just feel like every single month I'm barely scraping by.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Hey, thank you for having me on. Sure. Um, yeah, so let's see about eight years ago, 2016, my mom tragically passed away. Um, I was just graduated high school. My whole community just rallied around me. They, you know, supported me. They, you know, did fundraisers and, um, got me a pretty big lump sum of money enough so I could buy my first car, my first laptop so I can get to college.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
It was just absolutely fantastic. Um, so that, that in itself is absolutely amazing. Now, fast forward six years from then. So two years ago, um, me and my, we were fiance's or my fiance, then we're married now. We were trying to save up for our wedding and trying to just pick up extra shifts and really didn't want to go into our marriage with any debt, um, especially not from our wedding.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
And so unfortunately though, we had racked up about a $2,000, um, give or take a few, um, And randomly, one of my mom's friends from whenever she was alive, she messaged me just one day randomly and said, hey, there's a bank account that is for you that we set up that has the money in it. And I don't know why, but they hadn't given it to me.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
I think they had just forgotten or something had happened. Um, anyways, long story short ended up being the exact amount of money that we were in debt, um, on our mom, my credit card. And so it was just amazing. People had given money and putting this, put it in, put it into an account for us. Um, and then six years later, it was still there and it just.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
just shows how good God's grace is and that it's never ending.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Anytime, anytime we just,
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
it's really not even a second thought sort of thing it's just like if I have this and somebody else needs it absolutely we just had our first first child about seven months ago so even then having a child and just seeing how giving people were for her and just for us and it's just it's amazing how um how kind and generous people can be and it does it has it has moved us in ways that
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
We just have to repay what we can as often as we can.
The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott
S2E7: Chikhai Bardo (with Dichen Lachman and Jessica Lee Gagné)
Hi, my name's Grace. My question is, if your innie had a wellness session with Miss Casey, what facts would you want them to know about your outie?
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
We started seeing each other two years ago. Actually, our first date was a year ago yesterday. And we kind of were like in this often, like we started seeing each other and it went really, really quick. Like he was driving me to the airport. We were like meeting each other's family super, super quickly. I'm a little bit younger. I'm 24. He's 28.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And it was kind of like a dream come true, like fairy tales type situation. And we actually didn't even like Und was war der Grund dafür, dass du sagst, wer entscheidet, dass Dinge langsam gehen? Er. Es ist einfach nie so passiert, glaube ich. Wir waren ständig draußen und machten Dinge.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Ja. Auch damals lebten wir beide mit unseren Eltern. Also hat das auch eine Rolle gespielt.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Ja, ein bisschen. Und dann fassen wir weiter. Es gab viele Parallelen bevor wir uns kennengelernt haben. Der Grund, warum wir uns kennengelernt haben, war eigentlich, weil ich seinen Freund vor ihm gesehen habe. Der Freund und ich sind auf vier Dates gegangen. Es war nichts ernsthaftes. Er suchte keine Beziehung. Sehr amikabel. Wir stoppten zu sprechen.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Zwei Tage später kam ein Freund zu mir und wir haben uns angefangen, einander zu sehen. Wir hielten es unter Rappen, weil ich derjenige war, der sagte, ich möchte nicht, dass du ein Freundeskreis machst, wenn das nicht wirklich etwas sein wird. Also möchte ich, dass du ihn erzählen wirst. Und wir waren beide auf der gleichen Seite darüber. Und dann war Memorial Day Weekend.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Ich habe mich da ein bisschen verwirrt. Sie sind Freunde. Sie sind einfach wirklich nahe Freunde.
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E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
That's how I knew who my situationship was. Like he followed me on Instagram while I was talking to his friend.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And then DM'd me on Instagram after we stopped talking.
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E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Yes, he did know. And he told, when we first started talking, he told me a lot about the guy that I was seeing that like some bad things. He talked shit. Maybe he necessarily wasn't a good guy.
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E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Okay. Yes. It's a red flag. So then fast forward to we both go to the same beach town. We actually have houses on the same street across from each other. And so when we first started talking, I thought this was going to be, that was like the dream situation. I was like, that's amazing. He was doing a house in a beach town a little bit north with a bunch of his friends for the summer.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And the guy I was talking to before was in that house. And I kind of put the pressure on of like, I want you to tell him because we are actually like... dating now and you need to tell him. So he said he told him, he said it went really poorly so I couldn't really come to the house very often. We couldn't really see each other that much that summer.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And it was kind of like pulling teeth to make plans with him that summer.
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E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Genau, ja. Und er war auch sehr, ich initiierte den Hooking-Up mehr als er. Er war viel weniger in dieser Partie. Und das hat mich immer ziemlich unabhängig gemacht, weil in meinem Vergangenheit hatte ich Leute, die das alles wollten. Und zuerst hat es mir gefallen. Aber dann wurde es mich ziemlich unabhängig gemacht, weil ich mir dachte, warum machen wir das einmal pro Woche oder zwei Wochen?
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Initiating, yes. And then September rolls around. We both are back home. We start seeing each other a bunch more. I'm thinking, oh, this is great. This is what I wanted. The summer doesn't matter. Awesome.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Sein Geburtstag war im November und ich habe ihn zum Abendessen genommen. Und dann am nächsten Abend ging er nach Hause um mit einigen Freunden zu gehen. Ich ging zurück nach der Strandstadt mit einigen meiner Freunde. Und er war wirklich trank auf dem Golfkurs. Und ich konnte sagen, dass etwas aufgefallen ist. Wir haben auch Beziehungen mit einander geteilt, wie durch all das. Das ist großartig.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Essentially, I guess. We had talked about rules and expectations back in like May. But once we started kind of seeing each other again in September, when things got more serious again, we never like reset those expectations, I guess. And I was kind of just happy that like he was giving me what I wanted again. And so then that night he was like golfing, he was really drunk.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And I like looked at his location. He was in the car. I was like, okay, I'm going to call him. Er hat nicht geantwortet. Und er hat gesagt, ich bin in der Fahrt, ich kann nicht antworten. Und in meinem Geist bin ich so, das ist seltsam. Du bist wahrscheinlich mit jemandem, mit dem du nicht in der Fahrt sein solltest. Er ist wirklich seltsam, dass er mich diese Nacht nicht geantwortet hat.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Also bin ich nie der Art von Person, der mehr als einmal ruft, mehr als einmal schreibt, aber ich war so, dass etwas passiert. Und so habe ich ihn ein paar Mal geholfen, er hat nicht geantwortet. Am 2 Uhr morgens bekomme ich einen FaceTime von ihm und ich war so aufgeregt. Und es war diese Frau. Und er wurde in den Uber verabschiedet und sie war so, hi, bist du sein Cousin?
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E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Und ich war so, nein, absolut nicht. Ich habe ihn gestern Abend nach Hause genommen, eigentlich für sein Geburtstag. Und alle Mädchen im Auto fangen an zu schreien. Sie fangen an, ihn aus dem Auto zu schlagen, rippen sein Shirt. Ich bin so verwirrt. And he's blacked out at this point. I had no idea what was going on. And so then me and him got coffee the next morning.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And I found out that he had started seeing that girl in July over the summer. And it was this girl that he was really good friends with, that he would hang out all the time. That was his old boss. It was her sister. So he never technically lied to me about where he was. Because he would always tell me when he was with that friend. Yeah, but he lied to you. Well, yeah, he lied to me.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And I was struggling a lot because I'm like, we weren't actually dating at this point, but it felt like being cheated on. And he lived this double life, but I was kind of the one in the background. She was constantly with all of his friends down at that beach town. He was like, I could bring her around because it wasn't a problem with my friends and I didn't want to cross my friends.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And I'm like, well, you made that decision when you reached out to me. And basically made it seem like he was like, I was two-timing you guys and I got caught. And I was devastated by this. Ended up talking to him again about two weeks later. Spent Christmas together that year. This was last year. After you caught him? Huh? After you caught him? Yeah.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
She blocked him on everything and never talked to him again.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
I guess. I guess you could say that. I was the one that initiated keeping talking to him. This was also my first, the most serious I had ever been, really, with anyone. So then... Ended things on New Year's Eve last year. And was like, I am not into a serious relationship at the moment. And I was like, okay, I was sad. But then about a month later, he reached out again.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And then we were just in this on and off situation. He would reach out. I would ignore him. I would reach out. He would ignore me. All these things. Fast forward to last summer. Our house, he was actually at his house that's across the street from mine. And we had really been hanging out again. And then all of a sudden I get a text on like a Friday before I went down the shore.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And he was like, I don't think we can be friends. I'm seeing someone. Meanwhile, four days before that, we were hanging out. And then I literally had to watch him bring this girl down to the shore right across, like I could see his house from my bedroom window. And like we were on the same beach, pretended like he didn't know me. They were seeing each other for like a month.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
I was moving across the country two months after that. So I had this big move coming up. I got a new job and was like trying to do better for myself, trying to move on. He was seeing that girl for like a month. It devastated me. He had her down the shore every weekend and then they stopped talking. He blocked my number for like a week. and then called me on Instagram.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
I didn't even know you could do that. And I was just so confused by all of this. He stopped seeing her, started seeing me again, then I moved across.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Ich habe seit ca. einem Monat blockiert. Ich denke immer noch darüber nach, was für mich wirklich schwer ist, weil ich mir nicht gewohnt bin, so etwas über jemanden zu fühlen. Es dauert mir viel, um jemanden zu lieben. Wie fühlst du dich über jemanden? Thinking about them every day. Sure.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
I get sad because I feel like, you know, if I, the classic, like if I was enough, then like he never would have started seeing that other girl. And like, we would be in a different spot. Maybe I wouldn't have moved like all of these like moving parts, like being, I'm so mad at him, but I'm also, but I also miss him.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
I thought I did. But I don't know how I could love someone that would do such bad things to me and show me that he doesn't give a shit.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Ja, das ist... Meine Mutter sagt mir immer, dass ich keinen Selbstvertrauen habe, wenn ich mit ihm weiterrede. Das ist definitiv wahr. Ich fühle mich immer mit Selbstvertrauen im Allgemeinen, mit Männern, mit Männern, mit Männern, mit Männern, mit Männern.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Das ist nicht ein Problem. Ja, das ist es. Das ist es, mit dem ich gestruggelt habe. Ich fühlte, als ob ich ständig kämpfe, um zurück zu kommen, wo es zu Beginn war. Aber das war so lange weg.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And I think when I moved it like I'm across the country now. So it's like it's even more pointless to have it still take up headspace. And like I'm definitely trying. I do go to therapy. I honestly think my therapist at this point is pretty fed up with hearing about it.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Ja, ich habe es nie so gedacht, aber ja, das ist sehr aktiv.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Yeah. I started reading the Lethem Theory book by Mel Robbins and I have been highlighting the shit out of it because I feel very... It's the same for, yeah, Mel, like, whatever, she has a lot of good things to say.
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E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
my friends here they have now instituted a rule that if i bring him up they get to pretend like i'm not part of the conversation because like i'm a yapper i love talking that's it's just my thing and they get to have a conversation and pretend like i'm not even there and they're not they're just gonna ignore me for like five minutes which i've appreciated and i think i realized that like
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
And what are you thinking about? You know, I think about how it was in the beginning. I think about missing that aspect of things. I think about how he betrayed me. But also, like you said, I'm not really the victim anymore ever since I decided to go back. And actually, when I moved to where I live now...
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
I met a girl at a bar and we were chatting and she was really cool and I really wanted to be her friend. And then I found out, we connected the dots, that she was best friends with the girl that he two-timed me with. And it kind of just like, the first person I met when I moved here.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
I feel like I've gotten sucked into the social media of it. Everybody's saying that everyone's a narcissist. How to get over your narcissistic ex or all these headlines. I'm sitting here watching all of them being like, oh my god, yeah, oh my god, convincing myself, whereas I never totally thought that. Wenn wir uns gesehen haben.
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E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Ja, ich habe es nie so gedacht, dass er mich blockiert hat. Und wenn er mit jemandem gesprochen hat, war er besser.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Ja, meine Mutter macht mich ziemlich wütend, weil sie sagt, du hast eine Traumwelt. Genuinely, du hast so viele Dinge, die Leute träumen, und du bist hier, für dich zu entschuldigen, über jemanden anderen.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
Yeah, she stopped listening a long time ago. Let's just say that. And rightfully so.
The Viall Files
E889 Ask Nick - Rebound Rodeo
I can do hard things. So that's what my therapist says.