An online friend makes Sara question everything, including her ability to be a parent. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [email protected] and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What deception caused Sara to doubt her parenting?
In the winter of 2020, Sarah's son was born. She had unexpected complications, and the birth didn't go as planned.
I had a very traumatic birth. It was really, really bad. He was almost completely fine. But I needed a lot of help. At the very end of the birth, while my son was being put in my arms, I had a psychotic break. And I ended up going into postpartum psychosis. And I had no idea what that was.
About 2% of women develop postpartum psychosis after they give birth. It can start with obsessive thoughts about the baby's well-being and concerns that something is wrong. But it spirals into hallucinations and delusions. It's a condition that can be really dangerous for both the mother and the baby.
I was hallucinating very vividly, but I had no idea that I was hallucinating. And so I was experiencing really intense paranoia. You know, a lot of people have like intrusive thoughts, scary, violent ones. And once those thoughts start sounding like a good idea, you need to talk to someone.
I was having those thoughts toward myself because I thought that if I didn't get myself out of the picture, something would happen to my baby.
She was scared and she didn't know what was going on. So she reached out to a doctor.
When I sought advice from medical professionals, I was actually told it was normal. But I didn't know how to effectively communicate how serious it was. And so I was at home in full psychosis with a newborn.
This lasted for two months until she hit a breaking point.
I had like a full breakdown episode and I was admitted to a hospital. I stayed there for a little over a week, I think. Time really wasn't, I'm not really sure about that. It was really hard to be away from my baby, you know. But I did feel that he was safer. And I felt safer as well.
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Chapter 2: How did Sarah's upbringing affect her identity?
It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together.
How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves.
Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it.
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After three years of interacting with Becky, an admin in Sarah's parenting group, the truth was revealed. Becky wasn't who she said she was.
She was like, she is a catfish. She's been stealing people's pictures of their children, pretending that they're her kids and giving them these crazy backstories. Immediately, my brain went to the child that had a hate crime committed against them. What possesses a person to see a picture of a child they don't know and invent a hate crime against them? This cannot be real.
The community was reeling. Sarah went to the Facebook page and Becky was gone.
And then I saw the announcement from one of the admins, just like how heartbroken and shaken she was.
200 of the most active group members were all in a text called Therapy Sesh, comparing their notes, trying to understand what was happening.
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