S23 E19: BTS with BCM - Case & Community Updates with The BCM Production Team (Part 3)
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Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences. This season contains discussions of medical negligence, birth trauma, and infant loss, which may be upsetting for some listeners. For a full content warning, sources, and resources, please visit the episode notes.

Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself, Broken Cycle Media, and Wondery. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong. You're making on me, you don't, you don't, until you don't.

Thank you so much to the listeners who submitted questions. We always love hearing from y'all. Lily and Amy, since you guys work a lot behind the scenes, just like any other journalistic or news outlet, we're not going to share our full behind the scenes process. But we can share a bit about our production process and a bit about what makes us perhaps unique to other outlets.

When we're looking to start a new season, we will have a pre-interview chat that's off the record for us to get a better understanding of what the survivor experienced. And then from there, if they want to move forward, they will. And we will create a timeline document laying down the main points of events that we want to cover in a chronological way. And within that document, we cite everything. So if we have...

a medical record that is corresponding with an area on the timeline, we will put that and we can see where we got the information. Fact checking is huge, especially in these most recent seasons that we've been doing that are a bit more data driven and fact forward rather than maybe a specific one-off conversation that someone is reciting. I think also the level of crime, I mean, like Megan Stoner,

unfortunately, is prolific in the amount of people she victimized. So some of the seasons are such a heavier lift when it comes to organizing the amount of evidence. And like season 23, to Lily's point, all of the medical documentation and definitions and all of the research, it's extremely extensive and the team works their ass off. Lily was doing a lot of fact checking this past season. Lily, if you don't mind sharing a little bit about what that process is like for you and how much time we spend in

in the evidence review and fact checking process. Because so much of that happens behind the scenes and people have no idea how many hours we're spending on that. Yeah, I can't estimate given hours, but specifically this most recent season 23, I think was the heaviest lift in terms of this back end fact checking that we're talking about.

It was obviously dependent on the person that was speaking and that we were publishing their statement and the specific topics at hand. So this one had a lot of moving parts. We're talking about people's specific medical conditions, diagnoses. So we would have medical records just used internally that the survivors would send over that we would just corroborate even something as small as their blood pressure reading, what date did this appointment take place on.

But then also the medical terms, actually giving a proper definition of what preeclampsia is and doing our research to make those aspects make more sense. But yes, the fact checking was a huge part of my specific role in this season that took lots and lots of time.

And something else that's really important about that is every stage, it's getting fact checked. Every audio review. Especially with something like this, that as we're releasing it in real time, we are getting a lot of tips and connecting further with certain communities. So...

It's not just the audio that you recorded two months ago that you're going to have to substantiate. It's these ongoing things that you really have to keep on top of. And especially when it's something we're actively investigating, like a season 20, for example, where we were getting new leads all the time. It was like the whole picture kept evolving. Or even season 14, when we were working on that season, the amount of survivors that came forward, even this past season. We really try to...

share the things that are important to the survivors, even if that might seem extensive to some people, like the amount of time we might spend taking to tell a story. I think that that's one of the things that has made us stand apart since the beginning is the amount of time we're willing to sit with people and listen. If you're looking for like snippier content from more of like a bird's eye view that's maybe less personal,

then there's a million and one other documentary true crime podcasts out there that will tell you any story in six or seven parts, no matter how many victims there are, survivors there are. In my opinion, that's one of the ways that victims have been harmed through media. Something I've heard time and time again from survivors is that, especially those who had engaged in media prior to working with myself,

For example, the Jonestown survivors, the gentleman on season four, they had been interviewed by the press where he had some circumstances where he would spend a week with these people and then his interview would be whittled down to 10 to 30 seconds. What I kept hearing from survivors since I began is it doesn't feel good to just be like used for a clip for 20 seconds.

That might feel good to the person who's digesting the content, but survivors deserve to be treated as whole human beings.

If we're really trying to understand their experience and understand the victimology, then we need to spend more time listening and sitting with things, even if they make us uncomfortable. That's what really makes the show unique is how in-depth we go and how much time we're willing to invest and spend with survivors' experiences. And I don't ever want to become the type of show that just uses people for 30 seconds of accountability.

of a clip. I've had people do that to me. It feels like shit. What feels good about the work that we're doing is we do deeply care about the impact that it has not only on listeners and our community at large, but how it impacts the survivors and what is important to them.

And that leads into one of the questions that you have on the recording outline. Can you share more about the production process for Survivors? I feel like I can speak on that pretty well. I felt heard from the start ever since our first meeting with the whole team. Like we just felt so connected and that our comfort was prioritized in a way that I had never experienced before. Y'all were so patient and you really cared about what we wanted as Survivors.

You wanted to make sure that we felt just as good about what y'all put out there for everyone to hear. And that means a lot coming from someone who is a perfectionist and wanting things to be a certain way. You want to be able to tell your story the way that you want to tell it. It's such an amazing, safe space to do that. And I can say that...

That being a listener, a survivor, and then being on the team, you guys are so genuine about what you do. You really put your heart into every single thing that you do. And you really do focus on telling that story the way that it's supposed to be told, no matter how long it is, no matter how many episodes to get through. You want them to feel heard. And that's so important. We got our consent stripped from us at a certain point or we were betrayed.

So opening that trust back up to hopefully telling our story the right way, not knowing for sure how it's going to go. I can't imagine telling it to anybody else because I truly felt so heard. I could tell that I wasn't just another story to you guys.

Thank you so much for saying that. That makes me feel really seen. It means a lot that you feel that way because that's what we want. We want you to walk away feeling that way. And I think that's where survivor-led content and having people involved behind the scenes who have lived experience can be so valuable. And that's why survivors can be so valuable within this industry and lots of others.

Certainly every survivor is different. We can't always anticipate that, but I try to really navigate it from a place of like, what would I want? How would I want to be treated? And that's how I have operated since the beginning. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to ask people what they need and those needs are different. We really try to support the survivors throughout the experience through the episodes being released, anything that may come up throughout the seasons. We

We don't just take an interview and then ghost people, which we see unfortunately happen a lot in this industry, using survivors for their content and then essentially discarding them or doing interviews and then it never shows up. Like the content never gets made and they're never informed and all of these different things.

And then people wonder why survivors don't want to speak out or why didn't they say something sooner? Well, a lot of people have made it extremely hard to feel comfortable doing that. We're here to try to like lessen that. As much care that we put into it, we also still have to be legally and journalistically responsible.

I knew that from the beginning and thankfully I knew enough about what I didn't know and rely on the people who do know that information very well like our legal team that supports us etc. So we are genuine and authentic and compassionate and we hold ourselves to a really high standard. We

We know how often survivors' accounts are questioned. And so we've known since the beginning that we were always going to be up against that, which is why survivors often go above and beyond to provide more than enough evidence for us to be able to share these stories. So much evidence, it's insane. So I'm very confident in the things that we put out.

The most important thing is that there's compassion and empathy infused in it and that we've done our best to create a safe and positive experience for the people we work with. So I think that's the most important things to share about our process. Another question we had was, do we prefer to work on longer or shorter stories? I personally prefer to spend more time with stories because for me, that feels more authentic.

I like to do a lot of original reporting and that's what I've always desired to do, which is so much work. It's a lot different doing original reporting and having to fact check vet and collect evidence and do all those things than it is to just create content based off of other people's original reporting, essentially.

It's much more expensive to do because you're also taking on the legal risk of being the person who is originally reporting that information. So it is definitely like more of a risk to us, but we have all the appropriate things in place so that we're doing it as ethically and responsibly as possible.

You know, we're probably not going to do another season like a season 23 again. So that's why I'm like, let's spend time with this and sit with this as much as it feels like the story needs and the survivors desire. You know, at a certain point, we, of course, have to move on. But I think it is probably harder for people to understand that when they have less information about all of the story and the holistic picture involved.

And also just like the legal process and what you have to present and making sure you're providing context. Then there's the logistics and the creative parameters and all of the things. So there's a lot that goes into it. And it's okay that people want different things from the content they engage with. Also something that I've had to come to like realize and recognize and remind myself of is people have different expectations of our content and different ways that they personally want to engage with it.

You can't always make everybody happy. You can't account for taste, as I tell my kids all the time. We all like different things. And what's right for some is wrong for others and vice versa. I've had my loved ones point out to me that I seem happiest when

When I'm working on longer stories where I'm able to really spend more time with each person I'm working with, and I feel like develop maybe a more intimate relationship with them than when we are recording more episodic content. I honestly don't really have a preference. One of the things we all have in common is just inherently curious people. So I'm excited to put in like as much energy into that as the topic elicits.

But I feel like since my time, like in the past three years, we have gone through some changes. We have had those maybe two episodes at a time, three episode releases. And then to long form, that's 14 episodes. I think the thing that...

I'm sure you get this, Tiffany, that is totally different about this long form reporting is how connected you get to everything and how I feel different now that 23 is coming to a close because all of our years kind of been wrapped up with it.

It's so interesting because something that kind of gets lost is the amount of time you spend with survivors on each season. It was 10 months ago that season 23 technically began the process, right? Yeah, that's when we started meeting. When Lily discusses the impact and the transformative side of things, it hits home because you really do spend almost a whole year with the topic, with the survivors. That's

so impactful. I think it just too allows us to get to a more deeper place in the interviews this next season, season 24, working with these survivors that have been institutionalized and were placed in these quote programs as kids. I never move on from any of these stories.

We never are really done from my perspective. It doesn't end when it ends, which is why I love what came next and that we're able to help continue checking in with survivors and bringing those updates. It is important to share updates too and continue the conversations as well.

I'm curious, Lauren and Amy, being that you have shared your stories on the podcast, what it is like for you when people learn in real life that you've shared something so private about yourself publicly and like what that's like for you in dating as well. I was picking up my son from school not long ago and someone came up to me and said, I didn't realize you were the Amy from Something Was Wrong. And

And that fills my heart and also makes my stomach drop to my feet because then I know that person knows every intimate detail about my life. And it kind of hit me like I'm so glad I've had those conversations with my children ahead of time because they know. And otherwise, I would have a lot of explaining to do. But it is a really interesting place to be.

I felt this desire to have real connections because I was stripped of those for so long. So I did end up telling a lot of people. And I think it made me feel seen or like understood in a way. And I think it can help strengthen relationships if you are able to open up and talk about it. I was just at certain points just desperate for that connection. So I was just telling people about it.

Like as a server, I would go around and tell my tables about it. Like, you guys want to hear something crazy? Like if I could catch a good vibe with them. Lauren, when I came to North Carolina last July, I can't believe it's already been almost a year, by the way. Something that struck me was there, especially because it was like kind of more small town vibes. A lot of places we went, Danny or Bree or somebody, if they were like...

Have you guys listened to the Something Was Wrong season 20 yet? Or like it came up or something? A lot of people knew about it or like recognized people and like said stuff to us when we were just out and about. I'm curious, Lauren, what that's like for you, because I know you're a bit more introverted maybe by nature.

I get some responses where I didn't necessarily like the response, but also I kind of get it to an extent. Like, how could that happen? The automatic victim blaming questions that you hear all the time. I just decided to push through that. But it is like dating and stuff is really hard to talk about this subject. If you go on and listen to the podcast, you're listening to 12 episodes of what happened to me for three years.

And not a lot of people have the opportunity to take a deep dive into your trauma. So it's good and bad. I like to build those connections. But I'm struggling right now with that in a potential relationship where I haven't told him about it. And now it's getting more serious. And I'm like, if I would have just spilled it in the beginning, that'd be one thing. But now it almost feels like there's a lot of pressure to talk about it.

It's fairly new. I would say that relationships have been cut short and it could potentially be the reason for it because I was just kind of figuring out like just how to navigate that. You know, it's just a new territory for me.

I don't have the choice of when to tell people because first conversations will bring it up. Well, are you close to your mom? Do you have any siblings? Or the people will ask me about what I do for work. Well, that's part of it too. So I have had bad reactions. I met a gentleman at a bar who literally became super interested in me. One day later, texted me a picture of my podcast as he was listening.

And then a day later said that that was too much for him to navigate. And I said, that sounds like a you problem. It shows your bandwidth, not mine. I was so mad that day, y'all. Yeah. I was so mad. I also have people who are literally my biggest supporters, supporters I've only dreamed of in a partner. I didn't have that in my marriage necessarily. So I've encountered people like that. I will say it's a really interesting space.

The trauma does permeate all things, parenting, dating, life, work, all the things that we have to navigate. Unfortunately for trauma survivors, it is something that we have to navigate. The idea of when do we share that? When is that intimate information worth giving to that person? And sometimes like you don't want to do that when you don't have the safety. I didn't do that with that man. He just Googled me and found it. But

But it's just an interesting place to be, a rock and a hard spot and a healing space. And dating is definitely a test to that. I'm at the point, though, with dating that I believe in healing relational trauma with other people, but I also believe that we need to do that solo too. The way we invest our energy becomes more precious to us the older we get too.

I know it's been interesting for me to come to understand the ripple effects and the after of publicly sharing your story too. And so I can certainly relate to it. I think it also provides a unique perspective that listeners may not have thought about

Lily, shifting gears quite a bit, I'm just curious what it's like for you in your dinner table conversations. You've gone from sharing this show with your family and now you work for the show. Yeah, it is interesting because most of my friends and my family, they can't relate to this as closely. And when I do share things, there's a lot of shock, but I mean, lots of sympathy, of course.

I think also there's something interesting. I mean, I'm a young college grad. Most of my friends work in entry-level corporate environments. So I couldn't be further from that. And I think a lot of just the day-to-day also seems surprising to them. They can understand that it is a lot to take on emotionally, but there's also this compartmentalizing I feel like I've found a good balance with where...

You want to hold space for this stuff. You really want to respect what it is. But then at the end of the day, we do have to turn it into a product that we're releasing to people. So finding that balance, I feel like my friends have seen that within me. I feel like specifically the Megan Stoner season, I would talk to my boyfriend about every new update we would get. And he was just as riveted.

It's interesting. And it's obviously dependent on each season too. Lily, I'm curious. Do you feel like working on the show impacted how you date or the way you think about dating? A hundred percent. And also like viewing my friends' relationships from so many levels. Because again, I started out listening. So I feel like I took some of that and incorporated it into my dating. But then actually being in the thick of it and hearing so much behind the scenes, it

I haven't had a relationship before the one I'm currently in. So I feel like I got pretty well acquainted with the things to look out for. It's easier to be more attuned to people in general. But yeah, with dating, I'm sure you guys get this too. Like your friend will say something, a little red flag popping up. I tend to just spiral personally. Like, does this mean that this stuff is all wrong with their boyfriend? It can be hard to separate that sometimes.

Quite a large number of people I know are getting divorces or entering the dating pool or still in the dating pool. And I am the first person to warn everyone about dating apps, the lack of protections at times. And I do not date on apps at all. I meet people only out in the wild. And I kind of like try to equip people with the knowledge that you can still do that because I think people don't think that we can. But

But I will say I have noticed lately, especially friends coming to me and being like, so do you have information on this aspect of the dating world or online dating or app dating now? Because I do have that knowledge. And I will say one thing that this work has equipped me with is the statistics, is the information. And so like, I feel very empowered to empower other people to ditch the apps and or just educate themselves going forward.

Yeah, that is an interesting point. I don't know how you feel about it, Lauren, but at least for me, I'm 23. Almost every single one of my friends is currently on them or was on them at some point. And especially living in a place like New York where it's such a high volume of people and it's like a lot of people to weed through, it can be difficult. And especially as young people, you were already more disconnected.

than older generations are. And people in bars, you could see that they're actively on the dating apps rather than just walking up to someone. So it is extra confusing and limiting being a Gen Z person navigating dating while, to your point, Amy, knowing all of this very legit backed information and statistics.

Well, and I think social media too, this has been a piece of our process for a while, but I think it is just so much more widely used now. And it's more of the exception when you aren't on it as a single person, I think, than if you are. That's why it's really important for us to like make them safer. It's not about necessarily trying to remove dating apps.

What works best for Amy won't work best for so-and-so. But I think that we could definitely make them safer.

It's really hard, especially for younger people, I think, to imagine dating outside of the apps. And it's come down to there's a psychology behind the gamification of apps, too, where like the swiping and the hearts, the psychology is very layered, too. You're also like the most outgoing person I've ever met. So it's like you are built different.

And I'm the opposite of that. And I'm whatever the opposite of that is. I am very introverted and I don't really go out very often in order to meet people. So I still use the dating apps. I see how they are successful, but I also see the whole game thing and

It's honestly almost like social media. It's got an algorithm that you have to work with. You have to do marketing for your own photos in order to get people. Everything is kind of structured that way nowadays. There are a lot of reasons why dating apps do work because you can filter out people based on their political affiliation. You can filter people based on their height. You can filter them based on whatever. When I used to be on them, I was just like, these are not promising options anymore.

And then you get one person that's cute and then you're like, okay, maybe there is a chance. And then you are returning back. So it is that like dopamine. The funny thing is you'll get that attractive person or that person that you've been waiting to swipe on and then you'll leave them in the queue and you'll start swiping again because it's more about like a numbers game. Like it really just turns into that. I understand it feels like a necessary evil for folks, but like,

It also feels very dehumanizing. It just is making me think about how much we live online and how much people are operating from that place. That's why I always say, like, I encourage people. It doesn't have to be a bar. My Starbucks. Your Starbucks. I mean, how many have you pulled from that Starbucks alone, Amy? I love you so much. No, I saw her work her magic at that Starbucks. Right? When she's in her zone, she really does. That's why I love traveling with Amy because she's just so confident. She makes me feel more confident. Yeah.

Tiff, you and I, I feel like we are just a little shy. The highly sensitive person, the HSP that you're telling me about, that really resonated with me and I think about it all the time. But I do think that we struggle with social interaction more than the average. No, no, we're struggling over here. I'm definitely coming to understand myself better. This past year, seeing a new therapist who I feel like really gets me and where I'm kind of at reflection-wise and

I'm starting to recognize these things. I tend to get overstimulated in social situations a lot. And I just will start saying the most random shit. My filter that already is very weak just goes to the wayside. And so I think that's what makes me nervous about doing like a lot of interviews or even going to like the iHeart Awards. It's like, I'm so me. I don't know how to be anybody else. I feel like a lot of times I can't mask the ability that people will want me to mask.

I'm working on it and you guys are helping me. And that's what was really cool about the South by Southwest thing was being able to open myself up to that a little bit, being with people, allowing myself to make mistakes and show up imperfectly.

What I'm learning about myself as part of my social anxiety or masking or whatever is I over anticipate things because it makes me nervous. For a lot of my life, I thought a lot of who I was was chiseled out of trauma. And where I've gone is a byproduct of the trauma I experienced. But also what I'm learning is that there are other things about me in the way that I'm wired.

that also could have made those traumatic situations even harder on my nervous system and have impacted me socially in the way that I am navigating my social relationships. This is hard for me right now. I was telling you guys in between recordings, like I really struggle with these kind of recordings where I'm having to like be really conscious about what I'm saying versus when there's a subject in front of me.

or a survivor, and I instinctively know what's right, what's wrong, and like what we're talking about. I don't have anxiety in those situations. For me, it's more in the social that I struggled to find my footing more, and I tend to resort to my sense of humor. And that kind of helped me make it through socially for most of my life.

I think the most recurrent thing I hear after I watch you speak somewhere or we go to an award show or anything, people, they hear you reference a social anxiety, but anyone who's navigated a social environment with you, like you're one of the funniest, quickest people I've ever met. Most people walk away going, I would have no idea she was anxious if she didn't say she was anxious. Yeah, and I'm learning that's masking.

fake it till you make it. And that's how I've always thought of it. Part of it I'm now coming to understand, especially as childhood trauma survivors, you have to mask because you're hiding your truth. Like a lot of us, you don't want people to know that when you go home, you're being beaten and abused. That's not going to help the equation. You want to just blend in. At least for me, I wanted to just go to school and be able to have a happy environment and a thing that I loved be sacred.

And I really didn't think that I could do anything to change that trauma. But I think there were also other factors that were causing me to mask. Something I try to project and I try to teach my kids to project is confidence through trauma and being bullied or picked on. I sort of learned that I had to stand up for myself, um,

It's interesting that you say that. For me, it's like I couldn't speak up because it wasn't safe to do so in my specific traumatic situation. I couldn't say the wrong thing because it could cost him his life. That was my thought process going into that. So I had to filter everything so, so much in order to survive, essentially. Yeah. And there's like no right or wrong response there.

You know, that's why it's like fight, flight, freeze, fawn. And however survivors need to describe that is okay. We all navigate it differently. I was anticipating leading up to the South by Southwest event that everything was going to go wrong and that people were going to think I was fucking weird, that I was going to say the wrong thing. I was actually going to offend somebody. I wasn't going to forget to say hi to some, you know, I like this is the stupid shit that goes on in my brain. And it was nothing like that. It was absolutely lovely. And

And now I'm feeling more confident to go do the next thing. And sometimes it's just a matter of forcing yourself to do it scared, do it anyway, and you just keep it pushing. And now we're working our way up. I share it because it's like we're all on a journey. We're all developing as human beings and we all have things that we hopefully are working on within ourselves that we want to get better at. I remember like I took a public speaking class in college and I cried during every speech because I was so nervous. But then I became a teacher.

And every time I stood up in front of those kids, it was like a bandaid was getting ripped off. So it's literally just incrementally chiseling away at that nerve. Yeah. It's practice.

For me, for example, working in college, I worked at a nonprofit where I directly worked with chronic pain patients and essentially helped support them over the phone and digitally and created support groups and stuff like that. I think it helped me learn from a young age how valuable it was to just listen to people and for them to feel heard, how that alone could be therapeutic when it comes to physical pain or trauma.

What a lot of people struggled and wanted more than anything was just to feel seen and heard. And it helps them feel like that burden is slightly lifted. I think that it helped me in essence sort of practice. And I try to tell my kids that all the time, like making phone calls, having conversations, dating, all of these things are challenging for most people and they have to work through it. It's just a matter of practicing.

But I am learning how to become more comfortable with showing up authentically. And I'm excited to see how that lessens my anxiety and depression and just continue to push myself, not completely out of my comfort zone, but push myself a little bit. I couldn't do it without you guys.

My next question is, is there anything that comes up that a lot of people ask you in regards to like working for Broken Cycle Media or on our various shows?

I get some questions sometimes about how is it that I'm able to work in a job with such heavy topics after experiencing my own abuse. Honestly, I've always wanted to help people and I've always wanted to empower other people. And I feel like this is the perfect place to do that, where we can raise awareness on topics that aren't being talked about, but also lift people up that need it and need their story to be told.

Very well said. Lily, what about you? Are there any questions that surprise you? I wouldn't say I'm necessarily surprised by any, aside from just the level of interest. I just see like the look on their face, like, wow, that's what you sit with every single day. If I mostly see like my friends on the weekend, they don't know just the kinds of things that we're tackling and types of people I'm talking to during the week. So I think that's where the level of maybe surprise comes from.

I would say the one question I get most is, is it triggering to be receiving other survivors' stories? And I will say every time I meet another survivor and I hear their story, it's more heartening than heartbreaking. We're building a community and there's so much to come from that. Can you talk a little bit about that interview you did, Amy, with the women who are doing research about why a lot of survivors are drawn to true crime content?

Yes. Two professors, Dr. Danielle Slakoff-McLaughlin and then her partner, Dr. Kelly Bolling. I have been a part of a research study of theirs. They want to know why survivors consume true crime.

They've interviewed hundreds of survivors. They continue to do other research studies, but they found that statistically speaking, survivors are listening to true crime and that's to hear other survivors and to know that they aren't alone, that there is a direct value for survivors to consume true crime.

which begs the action that we create more ethical true crime because the survivors of it are listening. They are consuming this and we need to be not only delicate for the future of all listeners and consumers, but especially those who have navigated the experiences. People will often ask me like, do you keep in contact with people after you've interviewed them? I honestly like reflect on this so often. It's incredible the community that's being built, not

only in the listenership, but the actual survivors that are interviewed. 75% of the people talking right now in this episode are survivors who have shared their experiences on Something Was Wrong. It's just incredible. It like hits home every time someone asks that.

I'm so grateful. It's also incredible just to like reflect on the amount of survivors that we have worked with over the years. Lily, I think you were working on something. I don't know if it was like press related or media kit related or something, but it was mentioned that we've worked with hundreds of people at this point. And that really struck me. We're nearing, I want to say 400 episodes. We're getting up there. So it's a lot to reflect back on. Yeah.

Every season feels like its own piece of time. And so it's interesting because I don't really think in years anymore. I think in seasons, it's incredible to reflect back on. We don't often do it. We're always so focused on the people we're serving next and the next thing we have to do.

I'm wondering specifically for you, Tiffany, since you started this just by hearing someone's story and then wanting to get it out in this way, did you ever expect it to take off in this kind of way? I mean, especially when we were in Austin, I was thinking about that. Like we were seeing a bunch of people accepting awards who had teams of like 50 people behind them. And this seems like it's just your baby. I just wonder how that's like for you.

That's such a sweet question. It is absolutely baffling. When I started the show, my hope was that it would just reach the people who needed it. And sadly, I've become aware of how many people there are that need it. As much as we talk about the dark, painful stuff, there is so much that we get to celebrate too in the resilience process.

And in the recovery and in justice, it's just a lot to think about overall, where we've reached and the profound amount of topics we've reached and how many different survivors who have trusted us. There's just so many layers to the shock and surprise of it all. It's everything I ever could have imagined and more.

And it means so much to me. I think that's why it's so hard for me to take breaks because it means so much to me. Part of that is the vast community and connection going from someone who felt extremely lonely the majority of their life to now feeling endless connection. It is really profound.

And I feel extreme gratitude and responsibility. I'm very thankful and I hope I never come across as ungrateful because I am so, so thankful. But it is a lot to emotionally navigate because I do care so deeply about how serious it all is. But I never could have imagined this.

Yeah, that makes sense. I can understand why receiving some of these comments that are just founded in absolutely nothing is especially devastating. You feel like some type of identity attached to it and that just seems so tough to navigate and very frustrating. Yeah, it is, right? Again, it feels so personal, the labor of love, how much thought we put into everything, how much we try to anticipate everything.

And some people will not pay attention or they'll be determined to misunderstand you or they're misunderstanding something. It's just so out of your control. And for a long time, that was really difficult for me. And I'm also learning in therapy that part of that has to do with my neurodivergency and a deep feeling of wanting to be understood and genuinely not wanting to harm people.

It's also important for me to remember I'm also very much a human being beyond the podcast and the work that I do and to not forget about the rest of those parts of me too. For me, the hardest time is when people make false allegations or make comments about me that are completely not true and certainly when people come for the survivors.

We talk about so many uncomfortable truths. We talk about so many things that involve trauma. And so everybody is listening through their lens and their experience. A lot of what we talk about brings out a lot of those feelings and emotions and by design is made to create conversation. We believe the topics we're focusing on deserve more attention and more conversation and more advocacy.

So it comes with the territory, basically, is what I'm trying to say. People will be determined to mishear and misunderstand you because of whatever their own lens and their own perspectives is or whatever reason they don't like me. But I've become a lot more confident in that person. I've come to recognize that credible sources are important in your work as well as your personal life.

And I take advice, seek advice and feedback and all of that from credible sources in my life. I really strongly encourage everyone to focus on the way they feel about themselves and the way they're impacting those directly closest to them and what those people are seeing in you. That's much more important than what somebody on Instagram thinks about you.

I always say that I care about the people who know my heart. I care about the way they see me, even if they don't know me. If they see my heart, if they know my heart, that's who I care about. And I care about how I'm handling theirs. But you're right. Some people are hellbent on mishearing and misjudging. And at that point, you cannot care.

through so many seasons and so many years, now you see how cyclical things become. We can reflect and see like when people run out of ideas of ways to quote unquote discredit survivors, then they start attacking me. I can now better remove myself from the equation and see it for more what it is, which is just like a thing that happens like everywhere on the internet. I avoid all that shit like the plague and that's what works for me.

But the headline is it's still challenging, but it's gotten a whole hell of a lot better. I think it's hard on the team too sometimes. I know it's personal for all of us and we work so hard. And so when it feels like we're being misunderstood or something isn't landing the way we had anticipated, what is that like for you guys? I get nervous every Friday because what came next comes out. The survivors will always be like, I listened.

And I always just want to make sure that that survivor feels seen and heard. And any other validation or whatever that might come in is secondary. But that's where my nerves actually are. And I feel it every Friday, to be honest. That is the opinion we care about. Thank you for underscoring that. And that's something we talk about all the time. We cannot lose sight of that. When you're creating any sort of art or content, different things, documentaries, writing a book, whatever it might be.

You have to also be confident in your vision, style, etc. Because you are you. That is your gift. There are a lot of people who have come in and out of my life through the past seven years who have had a lot of different opinions about the way I put a season together or the way I put a trailer together or X, Y, Z. And

I have to trust myself and do the best that I can with what I know. I can't also base my decisions off of the opinions of people who don't have all the same information that I have.

During my season, it was so hard not to want to read or hear about the things that people were saying. And there were obviously some negative comments about the situation and how could that happen. I was actually surprised at how little I cared about those negative comments when I started to see the positive comments and seeing that I was helping someone else's story grow.

I love that you pointed out like the positive comments too, that that's what stands out to you. We're always hoping that survivors are going to walk away feeling empowered and supported. That's the whole mission.

Thank you so, so much for being willing to come and chat with me today and to share more with the listeners. And most importantly, for just being the best team ever and for all of your support and everything you do every single day. Thank you for creating this space. Yeah, this is also just fun to get on and record together. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Absolutely. You guys are the best.

Next time on Something Was Wrong. The courts had given my parents a decision. Either they were going to send me to reform school or I would have to be shipped off to military school. My mother drove me from New Jersey to New York City, put me on a train by myself at 12 years old to go from New York City to Virginia to a military school.

I immediately got into trouble, got into fights. They disciplined me to the point where wire hangers, broken broomsticks over my back. Their mode of operandum was to break me and make me a military man. I had set a school record the first three months for the most demerits possible.

Thank you.

Thank you to Marissa, Travis, and our team at WME, Wondery, Jason, and Jennifer, our cybersecurity team, Darkbox Security, and my lawyer, Alan. Thank you endlessly to every survivor who has ever trusted us with their stories. And thank you, each and every listener, for making our show possible with your support and listenership.

Special shout out to Emily Wolfe for covering Gladrag's original song, You Think You, for us this season. For more music by Emily Wolfe, check out the episode notes or your favorite music streaming app. Speaking of episode notes, there every week you'll find episode specific content warnings, sources and resources. Until next time, stay safe, friends.