S13 E7: [Ruksana] Radicalized
43:32 Share

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Something Was Wrong early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now. You're driving, cleaning, and even exercising. But what if you could be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Multitask right now. Quote today at Progressive.com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

With Audible, there's more to imagine when you listen. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. And Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as a part of your everyday routine without needing to set aside extra time. As an Audible member, you choose one title a month to keep from their ever-growing catalog. Be

Be inspired to explore your inner creativity with Viola Davis' memoir, Finding Me. Find what piques your imagination with Audible. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash imagine or text imagine to 500-500. That's audible.com slash imagine or text imagine to 500-500. Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences. Episodes discuss topics that can be upsetting.

such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence,

suicide and murder. If you're in need of support, please visit somethingwaswrong.com slash resources for a list of nonprofit organizations that can help. I'm not a therapist or a doctor. Most names have been changed for anonymity purposes. Opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent my views. Resources and source material are linked in the episode notes. Thank you so much for listening.

♪ You think you know me ♪ ♪ You don't know me ♪ ♪ Oh, everybody ♪ - Hi, my name is Roxana and my American friends call me Roxana. I was going to graduate school on the East Coast and graduate school ended. I was active in my addiction with alcoholism, but I totally hit bottom. At that period of my life, my family was in the Midwest

I come from a Muslim family, so there was nobody who drank or did drugs. And so I really had to deal with this on my own. I had a boyfriend I was living with at the time. And it was like a super toxic relationship that got even more toxic when I tried to get sober. So I had to move out. I was in this city by myself trying to get sober, just out of graduate school. I was a highly functioning addict slash alcoholic. So I wasn't really...

I wasn't really able to communicate what was really happening or what was going on. I'm in this city. I'm trying to get sober. I'm going to meetings. I'm trying to reestablish my whole life and learn how to live. And I'm out of a relationship. During this period of time, I learned that I had CPTSD, perhaps from the abusive relationship I was in or perhaps from a childhood that...

had some trauma in it. Nobody could ever really give me specifics, but I guess I demonstrated symptoms of that at that time and it was really hard because I was also getting sober. So it was confusing to know like how much of that was alcoholism, just like unmanageability and how much of that was trauma that I was having to work through. I'm trying to establish my life. I'm trying to get therapy. I'm trying to relearn how to be in the world.

My parents came out and visited and they decided to actually buy a place out there rather than me renting as an investment property. And then I could just stay there. I was living by myself. I would say a couple years go by. I'm trying to work in the field that I went to graduate school for. And I'm really trying to create like a community for myself. And I'm trying to work through all this trauma myself.

That was really hard for me to grasp because, I mean, honestly, it was a lot easier for me to say, like, I was an alcoholic than I suffered from PTSD. I don't know why, but that was just a lot harder for my mind to grasp.

Life is going on. Things are going well. I'm getting a few freelance gigs here and there. And I ended up getting a text message from a girl named Katie who said that her dad and my mom worked together in Florida a long time ago. And that's how she got my info that she was wanting to go to graduate school where I went. And she wanted to know if she could fly out, have a cup of coffee, ask me about my experiences.

And I was like, yeah, sure, that's fine. We ended up talking and oddly, she was an AA as well. So we started having these spiritual conversations. She was newly sober and I guess I automatically felt like, you know, a kinship with her. And later on in the conversation, she wasn't able to come out, but we still kept on talking and there was a lot of back and forth. I didn't really think much of it. I saw myself more like her mentor or something. That's how she referred to me.

I remember asking my mom if she knew somebody, if she had worked with somebody in Florida. And my mom was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't think anything of it. In our conversations, she told me that her grandmother was a psychic who lived in China. She was a shaman.

And it was because of her grandmother having a dream of some sort that she ended up reaching out to me. I guess her grandmother told her to reach out to me, that I could help guide her in her career. And I was like, whoa, that's cool. I would love to meet this woman. So she's like, sure, yeah. We ended up emailing and her name was Jill, who lived in China and understood shamanism.

I reached out to her and she was very sweet, grandmothery like figure. And it turned out she was sober as well. NAA. So we had a lot to talk about because she had a lot of time sober and a lot of wisdom to share. We talked a lot about spirituality, herbalism, career, this, dreams, whatever, la la la. And then she would start to have premonitions about me.

She would say stuff like, "I shouldn't go outside today. I should stay in my apartment. Something bad would happen if I did." She didn't know it could be a car accident, it could be this, it could be that, but I was like, "All right." I would listen to her. During this time, my life became very fragmented. My work life, I was a professional, had work relationships.

And then in my AA life, that was like where I was of service. I was new in my sobriety. I really didn't know how to have real intimate relationships. And so much of my energy was focused on therapy and trying to go through my trauma. A lot of my energy was spent trying to rebuild my life, being single again. I talked to many people in program. I had many spiritual conversations with people in program. So Jill and Katie were like friends.

one of many people that I spoke to, they weren't on my radar. I felt like I had a support network.

Can you give the timeframe if you're comfortable sharing around what year? 2000, I would say nine, 10. And did you communicate with Jill and Katie on the phone? All email. All email. There were times like we tried to call, but like it never worked out. My schedule was busy. Their schedule was busy. That was not a red flag or anything, especially within the AA community.

So I'm going on with my life. I'm working on my PTSD treatment. My work life is getting a little bit bigger and I felt like my life was getting a bit smaller. I chalked it up for it to being so deep in my therapy and not really having the energy. I would reach out to people and they wouldn't get back to me.

I was so deep into AA and everything. I kind of made it like, oh, it just must be me being selfish or me having unrealistic expectations on people and what type of value am I bringing to them? I was really trying to pursue my career too. I just thought that's what life became like when you became sober, that it was just a lot harder to have relationships with people without drugs and alcohol.

I have a conversation with Jill and she talks to me about this Chinese shaman, basically noted as like a Gongshi. It's almost like a shapeshifter or a time walker. She said that there was one in my vicinity that wanted to communicate with me, that wanted to help me.

So I did some research and then she basically was directing me via email. She's like, yeah, yeah, there's an area next to you, a shop, walk in there. I'm like, okay. So I walk in there, I sit down and then she says, the guy across from me is the gung-shi. And I'm like, no.

She's like, yeah, and it was all via email. And it turns out to be the guy who helped me and my dad buy our house. He worked at the bank. This guy was from the Midwest. He had a super conservative family background. He was raised Mormon.

And I remember having that conversation with him at the bank because I was raised Muslim. He had left his Mormon background and I had left my Muslim background, but there were a lot of similarities. And so we really connected. It turned out oddly, his wife was this white woman who was raised in this Indian religious community, 3HO. I ended up meeting her and him at the bank once.

He stood out in my mind because there were so many strange coincidences. My family was also from India. But she was like more Indian than me, though. She ate Indian food. She spoke the language. All this sort of stuff. So anyways, that's how I became friends with them. And they just seemed like really cool people. Really sweet. So he's there. And Jill, through email...

confirms that it's him. I'm like, "No way, that can't be possible." Jill was like, "He doesn't know. Gangshis are not aware of their own spiritual capacity. If you talk to him, he won't know anything that you're talking about. So just be friends with him, but don't tell him anything because that'll freak him out." And I was like, "Okay." So we ended up talking and it was totally neutral, totally cool.

He became like a friend in the neighborhood. I'd see him around at places. I started seeing more of him in my life. I just thought of it as like a coincidence, you know? His name was Lee. When you saw Lee at this coffee shop earlier,

Was he surprised to see you? Yeah, he was surprised to see me. I sat down. He was working on something on his computer. And we had this really friendly conversation. How's your family? Because he had met my dad because we had done all the loan stuff together. It felt very, like, cordial. It was comforting because we were both from small. Like, I grew up in a very Christian town in the Midwest. Yeah.

So it was this friendliness that was comfortable to me that I didn't experience for many years living in the city I was in. And this was three years later from when you originally met him at the bank? Yeah, yeah. I would say like three years later. Was that around the same time period that you also were introduced to Katie and Jill? I believe so. Like maybe a couple months around there. He didn't work at the bank anymore. Now he did something else. He was with his wife. He was actually expecting a child now.

A lot of the conversations that we had when I would run into him randomly at the coffee shop or wherever was a lot about him being nervous about the baby. What was his personality like? Shy and then warms up. A little goofy. As we talked more and more, I began to realize he had very, very conservative views. Very conservative political views. And sometimes we'd almost get in debates because some of the things that he would say were quite racist.

He would talk to me and be like, I don't think you understand. There's a whole group of people in this country who...

don't like people like you who've moved here and taken all our resources. I'm like, what? And he was like, yeah, there's a lot of people who believe this racist white supremacist argument. It's not like I ever was around people like that. It was kind of like my first time up close and personal meeting someone who even said these things out loud, you know?

I look back at that time, I was so deep into my spiritual program and AA and shame. Even if I had a negative thought about him, I'd judge myself for being judgmental. I really tried to have an open mind and compassion. And his experience, because I guess his wife was really mistreated and abused sexually and physically by these Indian people whom her family was in a commune with.

So he had ideas about how bad Indian people are and the culture.

He would speak and I would have compassion for them. There should have been like red flags, but it was more like we would have these little conversations. He was like American pride type of person. So he, I feel like he was trying to like educate me. And the big reason why I put up with so much of it was because he was supposedly like a Chinese shaman. So I would have these conversations with Jill via email about how horrible he was and the things that he said.

She would rationally be like, no, he's just not conscious. That's who he is in this dimension, but in the other dimension. And it was just so weird. The only reason why I'm really believing her is because she knows weird shit about me. Like she knew that my brother was sick. He's been sick for many years and she knew that. And she led me to believe that there was this medicine in Mexico that it's not available pharmaceutically, but that I should start looking into it.

It was giving me hope in these weird ways. There were many reasons why I was engaging with her. She was this nurturing grandmother figure now that existed for me over email. She told me, a gongshi, it's like a Chinese shaman. And they're able to walk between worlds. And they can be shapeshifters. And they have the capacity to heal. So that was something else that she said to me, that Li could help me.

He doesn't know that, but he has that capacity because in a past life, he was a Gong Xi. As I began to know Lee better, turns out his family went very deep into Freemasonry. There were a lot of men in his family that were in that community. So we had these conversations about politics, Freemasonry, Islam, Christianity, Mormonism.

And for me, it was very interesting to talk to someone who had completely different views. And I didn't think anything of it. I grew very curious. I wanted to learn about Freemasonry and about these things because they also have spiritual principles and stuff like that, too.

What is Freemasons? From what I understand, it was a brotherhood and they worked on character development. It was based on a lot of Egyptian science. And interestingly enough, I saw a lot of similarities in Freemasonry as an AA in terms of it's a spiritual program. You have a mentor. It's about being of service to people and helping the community. A lot of similar things that I learned in AA. That's kind of how we connected.

I did meet some of his friends that were in it, and definitely there was these power dynamics. There was something interesting, but I couldn't necessarily put my finger on it. It seems like Freemasonry is this global organization, and you can do with it what you want. If you want it for networking, if you want it for character building and getting close to your highest version of yourself. While this is happening, my life is getting a little bit smaller.

Weird things are happening. A really big red flag event was I had sponsees in AA and they started getting strange emails from me. Emails saying that I had relapsed and that I wasn't able to sponsor them anymore. Weird shit. And I ended up talking to one of my sponsees. I saw her at a meeting and she was freaked out. She showed me the email that had been sent to her. I hadn't written that. A lot of weird things started happening in that way.

People started acting strangely towards me. Weird things were happening with my social media accounts. And at this time, I'm doing a lot of research about PTSD, this and that. And I begin to become scared. And I think that I have dissociative identity disorder. I'm reading all this stuff about it. And I'm like, oh, my God, like, do I have another personality that's sending these emails?

The first ones went to my sponsees. Would be like, "I relapsed and I can't sponsor you anymore." Then other emails were like, I would have an appointment with somebody. A work-related thing, right? An appointment. And they would have received an email with me canceling it. So I'd show up, nobody would be there. During this period of time, this would happen. And I just figured, "Oh, well, people must be busy," or whatever.

Some of the emails that bounced back, those were the ones that really led me in the direction of thinking I had personality disorder or some sort of dissociative thing because nobody could have written those things. Nobody knew those things.

And for those that don't know, dissociative identity disorder was previously called multiple personality disorder. It's usually a reaction to trauma that people have as a way to avoid bad memories. And that can look like multiple personalities, essentially. That's my not-a-doctor understanding of disorder.

Yeah, I was experiencing dissociative symptoms like losing track of time. But that was the only way I could justify the emails that bounced back, the few that came and then different times I'd have conversations with people. I would go to meetings and people would be distant with me. I didn't understand what was happening. Weird stuff with people I worked with. Misunderstandings.

It felt like when I was using and operating from a blackout. Like when you come the next day and then people are talking about things that happened that you don't remember and you're like, "Oh shit, I was blacked out." But I'm not drinking, so I didn't understand what was happening. It was very scary because I didn't know if I had a memory neurological issue

I'm living in the city by myself, trying to make a career. My brother is sick, so it's not like I could really talk to my parents about this because they're dealing with that. I'm still talking to Jill, not talking to Katie so much anymore. But Jill is sort of operating as like my personal psychic. Now she tells me that me and Lee are supposed to be in a romantic relationship.

It's destined, all this sort of stuff. And I'm like, he's married. That's not possible. I'm not attracted to him. So then turns out him and his wife have an open relationship. And I have no idea how it ended up happening, but we ended up having an intimate relationship with each other.

Probably like the combination of me being so isolated. I didn't feel bad about it because I thought they have an open relationship. It's not a big deal. I didn't feel like I was hurting her in any way. She was pregnant and busy with whatever she was doing. I met her a couple of times. She seemed super cool with me. Like it wasn't odd.

I think I went through with it because I thought it would help me spiritually or it would help me get closer to finding a cure for my brother. I don't even know. Like, it was just so messed up now that I look back at it. My cousin reaches out to me and she's like, are you in Amsterdam? I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, your Facebook says that you're in Amsterdam. And I'm like, what?

I go on Facebook and it says I'm in Amsterdam. And on top of that, it's like all these like things in Arabic and like allegiances to the Muslim Brotherhood and all this shit. I wasn't really going on internet or Facebook or anything like that because I was so deep in my outpatient therapy that I really didn't have the wherewithal to manage any sort of social media accounts. So this was a shock to me, a real shock, like, oh my God.

It's all in Arabic. I didn't know what to do. I told my therapist about it. He was like, whoever's doing this, they know where you are and what you're doing. Your time stays. Basically, this person was watching me.

This season, Instacart has your back-to-school. As in, they've got your back-to-school lunch favorites, like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back-to-school supplies, like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow.

Let's face it, we were all that kid. So first call your parents to say I'm sorry, and then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply. Hey, podcast listeners, great news. All your favorite comedy podcasts can be enjoyed ad-free on Amazon Music.

When your cousin saw these extremist posts, did they assume you were hacked?

No, nobody even responded to the extremist stuff. It had been going on for so long. My cousin, I don't even think she understood any of that shit. The Arabic, what the Muslim Brotherhood was. That was my red flag.

But for her, it was like, what are you doing in Amsterdam, girl? I see what you mean. Nobody in your life is seeing these posts about the Muslim Brotherhood and talking to you about that. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. They just stopped talking to me. Looking back at it now, I think the terrorism thing is just so scary.

I think people either they left the site or stopped talking to me. In my AA community, a lot of people later told me that they thought I relapsed and lost my shit. Everybody from work, I was making people money. So nobody said anything. I think people assumed that I had relapsed. Not one person said anything. My therapist was like, you need to leave the city. You need to go home.

stay with your family for a period of time. So I went back, stayed with my family. Turns out I ended up getting pregnant. This is all happening during this whole period of when I've been told I need to go back home. And then it turns out that I find out I'm pregnant. So everything's just coming to a head.

I have no problem getting an abortion because there was no moral issue about it for me. But for Lee, whoa, huge moral issue. He was like, I don't believe in abortion. You're so vain. That's why you don't want to have a baby. What are you scared about your body? You don't even have to take care of the child. Me and my wife will take care of the child. You don't have to do anything. Flipped the frick out.

I was so shocked. I never thought that that would have been an issue, you know, because it was my body. So I ended up having it and he was so mad. The level of his anger and rage, it was just off the charts. His wife was pregnant. I had regretted even telling him. I ended up going back to my parents' house. So now it's just time for me to clean up the whole internet debacle.

I ended up going to the police in this small town in the Midwest. I explained to them my situation. My mom ended up coming with me. When I told my parents what happened, they were terrified because they were Muslim. And within the Muslim community, especially in this small town, they have a lot of fear of the people within the Muslim community being radicalized. I think for them, they saw me as somebody who stopped drinking alcohol.

and who really changed in lifestyle. And they thought, "Oh my God, she's become radicalized." I could see the fear that they had. They made it about them too. They became terrified that their relationships, their business would be affected by my associations. I had really burnt a lot of bridges and trusts by having been an alcoholic and I had worked really hard to reestablish that trust.

They had seen the emails and I couldn't necessarily defend myself because I was scared that maybe I did it. It didn't help to have your own parents be suspicious of you. It was terrifying to see my brother scared of me. That was terrifying. I saw my parents and my brother scared of me. I thought, yeah, I must have done it. I must have, you know. They couldn't even talk to me. Whispering around me, overhearing them have conversations like, do we turn her in to the police?

I went to the police almost with this idea of like, I'm turning myself in. And as I started explaining my case to the detective, he was like, absolutely not. You're not a terrorist. Totally not. Your shit got hacked. And I'm like, I don't know who could have hacked it. He was like, come back. We'll work on this. But don't leave your house. My health started to suffer. I got adrenal fatigue. It was nervous breakdown time. I could actually breathe.

collapse a little bit, but I couldn't fully because my parents were still sort of scared of me. I went to AA in this small ass town. I couldn't tell anybody what was going on over there. And I went and I worked with this detective. We sat through all the IP addresses and tried to figure things out. We went through all my emails and

We found some emails that bounced back that looked like they were written by me, but it wasn't me. That's when I started to have a detective about my relationship with Jill and Katie. And he was like, how did you believe this woman was in China? And she was a shaman. Like you're a grown woman.

I remember him saying that and I was like, I don't know. I couldn't really explain to him the whole spiritual thing having been in AA and being sober, why I trusted her more. I couldn't explain that to him. I remember him shaking his head and he used to call me city girl. So he'd be like, all right, city girl, we're going to get through this. All right, city girl.

One time we were working on the files and we were trying to break in in my Facebook. And it was so hard when you try to write to Facebook and ask them to shut something down. It was such a fiasco to have to prove to yourself that you're not that person or that your account has been hacked. It was really devastating. One time we tried to like

put passwords into my account and it was very clear that there was somebody on the other side trying to change the password before we could change the password. While we were trying to get into the account, there was somebody else in present time on the other side fucking with us. When I saw that, I started bawling because I had this sense of relief that it wasn't me.

Because all this time I thought it was me. I thought I was a danger to my family. I thought I was a danger to society. I thought I was this walking ticking time bomb that had a terrorist agenda or some shit. And I'm like, it isn't me. It isn't me. And the detective's like, whatever city girl, it was never you. He's like, okay, you need to like go play some basketball, go have a beer, chill out, come back tomorrow. He tried to make it funny.

Once I realized that it wasn't me for real, for real, I got vigilante. I was researching all this stuff like gang stalking and hacking, trying to learn as much as I could. From what I've learned, gang stalking is when you have an organized group of people harassing you online. It's an organized effort.

Wow. So almost like those like incel groups or people that are on white supremacist groups. Totally.

What was interesting, I remember Lee saying his family members were masons and they were policemen. And I remember him saying stuff like, do you know who I know? If I wanted to, I could end you right here and nobody would know because I have protection. That's real power. Shit like that. And I'd sit there and I'd be like, this guy is so weird, man. Like, who says that?

After you have this breakthrough with the detective, did you go home and try to discuss it with your parents and relay this to them? I don't think they could discuss it. I think it triggered some real primitive fear. They took me to the mosque. I had to talk to a sheikh to see if I had been programmed or see if he could deprogram me. It was a shit show. I was going along with it all because I was like, oh my God, if there is something in me that's bad, I don't want it there. I don't want to hurt anyone.

They never apologized for that. Once they learned that it wasn't the case, it was like, all right, let's just go back to life as normal. The relationship has never been really repaired with my parents. They still don't talk about it. Looking back at it now, my parents, as Muslims, dealt with a lot of bigotry, not in America, but in their perspective countries that they came from. So I think this whole incident really unearthed a level of trauma and hysteria.

that was really generational, ancestral. I remember my mom yelling at me, being like, "How could you do this after everything this country has done for you?"

I think at this time, too, the Muslim ban had happened or was happening. I know a lot of shit was happening in Syria. People were scared. Muslims were very, very scared of terrorist activity within the Muslim community. My family felt a huge loyalty towards America and was absolutely disgusted that I could even possibly be in that camp or whatever. My mom and dad will talk. My mom will be like, remember we took her to the sheikh? And my dad's like, who? What? When?

It's like they blacked it out. It was so traumatic.

I started to go back to the detective, we're working on it. And then what's the weirdest thing that happens? There's all these IP addresses, one going to Amsterdam, one going to Nigeria. And I guess that's pretty common because they have some certain emails that are abroad that are linked with scams and things like that. It made me see that this person, whoever did this, was very connected. They had many people working at once targeting me specifically, and it was organized.

There were a lot of government email addresses in there. At one point, I remember the detective looking at it and something shifted in his face. Something shifted. He looked at me and he was like, you know what? I can't help you.

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair? Done well. Kitchen sink install? Done well. Deck upgrades? Done well. Electrical upgrade? Done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high-quality, certified pros at Angie.com.

Most Americans think they spend about $62 per month on subscriptions. But get this, the real number is closer to $300. That is literally thousands of dollars a year, half of which you've probably forgotten about. Thankfully, Rocket Money can find a bunch of subscriptions you've forgotten all about and then help you cancel the ones you don't want anymore. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions,

monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features.

Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash wondery. That's rocketmoney.com slash wondery. rocketmoney.com slash wondery. He was done. He wasn't going to help me anymore. And he was like, listen, if I were you, I would change your name. I would just start over. Because if you want to really chase this, it's going to cost a lot of money.

And then he said that I was the one at fault because I didn't protect myself. I'm so sorry. Were these United States government email addresses you're saying or from other countries like Joe at California state dot gov or something like that? Yeah. So I don't think it was necessarily Joe.

but it was routed through them. Okay, so these are professional hackers. Yes, absolutely, 100%. They knew what they were doing. I obviously pissed somebody off who knew what they were doing. During this time when you're back at home and you're working through all this, are you still in communication with Lee? No, after he found out that I terminated the pregnancy...

He was like, do not contact me anymore. I want nothing to do with you. You're disgusting. I was like, all right, fine. I have other shit to worry about right now. My identity got hacked. He's like, that's so not my problem. So I did not connect him with that at all. So I changed my name and I got a work opportunity back where I lived before and I left. I really tried to just forget it and start over with another name.

I was scared it could have been anybody. It could have been somebody from AA. It could have been somebody from graduate school. I didn't think it was Jill or Katie or Lee. It could have been anybody as far as I knew. When I was working with the detective, we went through all my emails. He contacted everybody in my email list, went through all my contacts. He's like, I can do that for you.

Turned out for like three years, people were getting crazy emails. Me threatening them, me accusing them of things, weird things in Arabic, and nobody said anything to me. Nobody said anything. They just left or acted weird. I did notice. I felt like people were getting hostile and weirder around me. I didn't take it personally. I thought people were going through stuff.

But it goes to show you when it comes to the terrorist thing, I think it really scared people. And that put me in a very isolated environment. This was after I just got out of a really abusive relationship too. I was already isolated in that way. I didn't have anyone around me that was close enough to me to be able to notice these things personally.

I was also getting sober too, so I didn't know if that was what life was like now. If you don't have drugs and alcohol in your life, I've done my best to live my life and move on. I have a different name. It's taken me a long time to learn how to connect with people safely again. And then even my AA program, I'm very, very cautious now about who I engage with and who I deal with.

A lot of people have had a lot of theories. The number one theory is it's Lee and Katie and Jill. But there's other theories. Maybe it was somebody I worked with. Maybe it was my ex that I was in that abusive relationship with. My dad has his own business. Maybe it was an employee that he fired. That was also another theory. So there was really no resolution. The detective thought maybe it was Lee's wife because some of the emails were from the law school in my neighborhood where she went to school.

When I first got out of it, I came back to the city, but I had to reestablish my life. I was completely shattered and fearful. Couldn't really trust anyone. I couldn't trust my own mind. I had this memory of what my life was and my dreams were, and I just tried to take the next right action.

My faith completely shattered. My faith in God or my higher power. So that's really hard. How do you work in an AA program without having a faith in God? The betrayal was really hard for me too because the fact that for three years people were getting inundated by this stuff and nobody said anything to me, I still can't wrap my mind around it.

I really didn't understand racism in this country, honestly. I'm a minority, but I came from a privileged background, so I had a lot of access to stuff. Meeting a person like Lee and learning about these little different pockets in American politics and that people actually really feel that way. I changed my name and I changed it to an American name, mostly because I couldn't deal. I just needed to start over somehow.

And that was really amazing because for the first time, I saw people engage with me in a way that they didn't have fear in their eyes. My whole life, I didn't know that upon meeting people, I always had to justify, have this backstory. Like, I'm not scary. I'm just like you, act like a clown or whatever. With an American name, I didn't have to do that anymore. I could just stand there. I didn't have to like...

be so pleasing, be so pleasant. I could just be present with people without having to reassure them of anything. I was invited places. It was just a different life. And that was tricky because I had no idea that so much of my life or personality was probably shaped by other people's fear or resistance towards me.

I guess I just saw how other people saw me, you know. It was a real wake-up call. It's the only way that I can describe it.

Whenever I told people this happened, it was just too much for anyone. So I quickly learned I couldn't share this with anyone. I couldn't share that this had happened. It just freaked people out. There have been times where I just share what happened. Years afterwards, and people, their response was like, I'm not equipped to handle this. It's a terrorism thing. It freaks people out so bad. I got to say, having an American name has been great because I don't feel like I have to educate people.

about any sort of community. I don't have to carry the burden and responsibility of educating other people about things when I'm just trying to live my life too. The opportunity came up to talk to you and I saw, wow, it could help people. But I don't share this with people because it's too extreme and too much. And the assumption always is like, what did you do? You must have done something. You must have pissed somebody off. I already felt that, so I don't need that.

My boyfriend, he's the only person. We were friends for a long time first because I was so scared to get close to people because I was scared. I mean, we never found who the person actually was. I was very scared to let anybody in my life because I didn't want weird stuff starting happening to other people. So my boyfriend, after a while, I told him what had happened. I was like, nah, you're not a terrorist, dude.

He wasn't scared of it. He still engaged with me as a person. I think that was really healing for me. I met him three years after it happened. I was pretty shattered. Through him, I started to meet people and make friends that were more consistent in my life. I had to deal with all the grief and process all that. I actually had space in my life to deal with what had happened.

And now it's learning how to accept it and find a place in my life where these things can maybe help other people. It makes me grateful now more for the things that I have in my life. But I'm very, very, very cautious about who I let in my life now.

I can't do social media. I mean, I still have panic attacks when I go on the computer. Anything technology-based is very loaded and tricky for me. Nowadays, that's just how you engage in the world. I'm working through that. I've had to find other ways to connect with people, but that digital world, I will not engage with it in any way that I feel not safe.

Thank you so much for being willing to share your story. I am so incredibly sorry. What do you hope that listeners will walk away with?

I hope that when people have someone in their life and they see that something is off, like you get like a weird email or you see them and they just seem off, instead of assuming the worst, to ask if something is going on. We never know what people are going through. If I had just one person during the time that could have seen me as somebody who wasn't capable of that, it could have changed everything.

When the detective called everybody on the list, they were all like, oh yeah, we thought she relapsed. Oh yeah, we knew something weird was going on. Oh yeah, that was a weird email. But it was like out of sight, out of mind. And if just one person would have been like, hey, are you good? Anything. Like, did you send me this? Are you a terrorist now? Like, anything. I mean, anything. Oh, you learned Arabic? Anything. Anything.

Yeah, and I think that benefit of the doubt is so important. Like you said, I know this person to be a good person. So perhaps there's more here. And by just being inquisitive and curious instead of making assumptions, writing people off, we can actually help people in a deep way. It could take that one person being like, hey, are you okay? To change someone's life.

Especially when you know that person to not behave that way typically, or you see that somebody's withdrawing or they seem more isolated. They're not reaching out. They don't seem like their typical self. Just sending a text message to someone. Hey, thinking about you. You good? It can make such a difference for people. Thank you so, so much for being willing to share your story and give your energy, especially yours.

Given that you had to use technology to do this. And we were having technical issues, of course, because Mercury's in retrograde and being a total bitch. But I'm so incredibly thankful for you doing so. Thank you for giving me the platform to be able to share this. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends.

Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at SomethingWasWrongPodcast. Our theme song was composed by Glad Rags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much.

If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away.

We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit filed by Larry King, and no real product to push. He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs.

To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.