Episode 4 - Dating and Defeat

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In this next-to-final episode, Jon (and his intense issues with control) embarks on an intense new frontier: dating.

It shouldn’t surprise you that Jon’s approach to dating follows the exact same “impossibility principles” as everything else in his life … with similarly impressive results.

But this episode also turns a dark corner: Just as Jon’s emotional redemption hits a critical point, an unspeakable event sends him into the most broken, surrendering depths he’s ever faced.

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TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

NOTE: The transcript below was generated by AI and has not been edited. Accordingly, some things below are a little weird … but you’re smart, so I’m confident you can figure it out.

SPEAKER A

Among the severely disabled, there's this very real sense that we are unlovable, that no one would ever date us, that we are excluded from that race. It occurred to me that could be true. But is just letting thatmassive assumption go unchallenged really the most courageous thing to do?

SPEAKER B

Welcome to The Impossible Man, the true story of how the inability to move allowed one person to tradehis humanity for ODS defying superpowers and how he clawed his way back. So welcome back to thepenultimate episode of The Impossible Man. We have just this and one more episode left to follow. Andas things turned out, it did end up being a second half of act two and then act three in the episode fourand five. Go figure. In this episode, John covers some really, really rough ground. If you remember, at theend of the last episode, john said that he got to a point where he controlled everything but still didn't feelsafe. In this episode, we're going to follow the aftermath that came from that. And then in the finalepisode to air next week, we're going to close the story and just know that there's so much more when wefinish writing the book and that this podcast series has been an overview of the highest level of the storyand there's so much more depth to it. So without further ado, let's continue with The Impossible Man. Allright, John, looks like we're in the home stretch here. I kind of like that there's some structure to the show.Now. We know that it's got two more episodes. We know what the next two episodes are going to cover,and it feels like a satisfying story. In brief. I mean, not fleshed out. That's why people need to get thebook. But does that feel about the same to you?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, I think so. It's a good balance to give everyone a taste of what's coming. You get all the low pointsand some of the high points to come, too.

SPEAKER B

We left kind of off on a cliffhanger in episode two, but there was one thing that just occurred to me almostspontaneously while I was listening back to episode three. I've known you for about a decade now, and Iguess I didn't realize until I heard it on the show. I don't hear you laugh a lot, like, you're a serious guy,even with we know each other reasonably well. So is that just my perception, or are you kind of a seriousdude and it takes a little bit to get you laughing?

SPEAKER A

I'm a pretty serious dude. I would say that over the past two years, since I went through therapy, I laughmore than I used to. With my nurses that are with me, I'm constantly joking, so they're laughing all daylong. My girlfriend, too, also do I do a really big laugh. It takes a lot of muscle in your diaphragm and Idon't have that. So even when I'm laughing so hard, tears are coming out of my eyes. Still not like a bigbooming laugh. It's pretty quiet.

SPEAKER B

It made me think that this can't all be negative for you, that there's at least some stories in here that areamusing, and I hope it's cathartic.

SPEAKER A

It is. One of the concepts from therapy is that if you ask a trauma specialist, will I be able to talk aboutthis without crying? The answer is when you've shed all the tears. So reliving something and experiencingthose emotions in some ways. One theory I heard, which is very interesting, is that trauma is just emotionthat you are resisting experiencing, and if you will experience it, all the trauma goes away.

SPEAKER B

Well, I feel like I've, I don't know, learned about that or experienced it or thought about it recently as wellin a different context because, knock on wood, I haven't personally had a lot of trauma for which I'm reallygrateful. But the idea that negative emotion hurts because you're resisting it to some degree, I mean,obviously there is a base level of stuff there, but it's the resistance. It's the I don't want to feel that. Thattends to dog a lot of people.

SPEAKER A

It's normal to have, quote unquote negative emotions, but where you get into unhealthy territory is whenyou refuse to feel them. And that doesn't always mean verbalizing your emotions. The most emotionallyhealthy people I've seen, they feel the full range of emotions, but they fully experience and then releasethat emotion rapidly. So they're in a state of flow with their emotion, even if they're not speaking. Andthat's what I strive to do.

SPEAKER B

Let me ask you about something else that came out after we pressed stop on the recording last time, andyou said something like therapy or maybe you can recontextualize this for me, that therapy will help youget rid of 95% of trauma. And this is obviously a little hyperbolic. It's not an exact figure, but that the 5%that remains is kind of yours forever. And I posited the idea that maybe that's grit in the oyster. Maybethat's the 5% that you need that makes you stronger.

SPEAKER A

What do you think about that? I think it's very possible, and I've had multiple trauma specialists tell methat that some of it stays with you. Another metaphor I've heard is it's scar tissue that you can completelyheal the wound, but some scar tissue is going to remain, and that scar tissue actually makes that part ofyour body stronger than it was before. So I think there's some truth to that too.

SPEAKER B

To give people an idea of what we have in mind for these final two episodes, I'm seeing everything in acts,and I actually told my wife yesterday, I couldn't have written a better character and a better story. Iwouldn't have made any different choices. Your life made all the right choices as far as a satisfying story.

SPEAKER A

You're welcome.

SPEAKER B

Yes, thank you. Makes my job a little easier. So the first episode was the overview. The second episodewas basically act one. Last episode was the first half of act Two, right up to the midpoint. And this onelooks like it's going to be the second half of act Two. And then the final episode will be act Three. So westopped when we said and it was kind of on a cliffhanger. You needed to be safe. That was your goal andyour strategy was to control everything. And I said, hey, can you give me a sneak peek of what's going tohappen going forward? I said, did you get to a point just yes or no? Did you get to a point where youlearned that you could be safe without controlling everybody? And I said it in such a way that I was justassuming a yes and you said no. You said, I basically got to the point where I controlled everything, but Istill wasn't safe. And so I'd like to begin with addressing that and we're going to talk largely about whereyou began to kind of see that that strategy either wasn't working or wasn't effective. I guess that's thesame thing to the point where at the end, I think you're going to have to drop it. Does that sound roughlycorrect?

SPEAKER A

When you're the CEO of the company and you're the founder and you're the 100% shareholder, which bythe way, 100% shareholder, major control sentum, I control everything in my business. I am king. And so Igot to a level there where I had a successful business where I was in complete control. And then I startedto feel the sense of that it wasn't enough. One of my core values has always been to live courageously.And I realized that I was living that value in the world of business. To some extent, I would argue I wasn'tas far along as I thought I was, but I wasn't living that value in other parts of my life, like dating. I was avirgin until I was 31 years old. And part of the reason why is among the severely disabled community,there's this very strong and very real sense that we are unlovable, that no one would ever date us, that weare excluded from that race. And my implicit answer was that's true because anytime I was around girls,they never communicated any sort of attraction my entire life. So my assumption was it was impossiblefor them to be attracted to me. It occurred to me that could be true. But is just letting that massiveassumption go unchallenged really the most courageous thing to do? And the answer was no. So myoriginal intent when I started dating was to actually test that assumption. And my hypothesis is that it wastrue and that I would prove it. And then I would never have to worry about it again.

SPEAKER B

So your stepping into dating had less to do with wanting that particular adventure and more about thisfeeling that if you didn't, you weren't living according to your core value, one of your core values, whichwas to live courageously, is that correct?

SPEAKER A

Yes.

SPEAKER B

Usually someone who is charging forward, wanting to control everybody, living sort of a domineering lifein order to feel safe, usually that strategy comes with a certain degree of obliviousness. You need to feelbulletproof, you need to feel that you can kind of do no wrong, that you are smarter than everyone else,all that stuff. And realizing that you weren't living courageously feels like it flies in the face of that becauseit took an awareness that you weren't living courageously, which a lot of people in your position with thatattitude wouldn't have seen. But then courage itself, like admitting to a lack of courage feels like a realassault to I mean, I would assume that everything else you felt you were doing was courageous. So whatwas that journey like?

SPEAKER A

Where it came from is being around lots of successful entrepreneurs in Austin, Texas and realizing howincredibly self aware they were. It's one of the hallmarks of a great entrepreneur is they know themselves,for better and worse, really well and they're not oblivious to their flaws. And being around that kind ofrubbed off on me and I started being a lot more introspective at first in my business and then later thatkind of spread to my entire life. Because one of the core ideas of entrepreneurship is not only to build asuccessful business, but build a business that serves your life goals, whatever those goals are. And whatthat means is if your life goal is to be home every day at 05:00 to spend time with your family, thenrunning 100 million dollar company is probably not in the cart. On the other hand, maybe running a $1million but highly profitable company is in the cart. So being aware of yourself and who you are and whatyou want and there are really no wrong answers, but it comes through self awareness. And without thatself awareness you cannot be a successful entrepreneur. You will actually drive yourself insane.

SPEAKER B

Do you think that this was attempting to fill that toolbox even further than what we were talking aboutbefore? So you mentioned that when you watched all the movies you weren't trying to learn to relate topeople for its own sake because you were looking for connections. It was more that if you understoodpeople better, you would be able to control them better. Was this the same sort of thing that the end goalwas control and hence safety?

SPEAKER A

There was starting to be a break in that I would say it was just the opening fissures. Yes, there was a lot ofthat. But there was also a sense of once I got around other super successful entrepreneurs, and we'retalking billionaires. My sense was they have something that I don't, and I want it. And that somethingwasn't money. It was actually a sense of being a sense of peace, a sense of being the best version ofthemselves. And that desire to have that, that's kind of what sparked this journey.

SPEAKER B

So I'm dying to get into the story of the dating, but I want to kind of sniff around the edges of it first assort of an epiphenomenon of this change. So is there a cause and effect here? You mentioned in the lastor maybe it was in the first episode, you said that the realizations that maybe you needed a change instrategy began around the age of 31, when you started dating. Now you've just repeated 31. And you saidthat a lot of this was caused by being around other entrepreneurs and realizing that they were self aware.And so you were looking to get what they had that made them successful, in which case included selfawareness. So was this cause and effect that the entrepreneurs were? First you moved to Austin, wereexposed to more people, and then this realization came, you know what? I should face that big datingboondoggle that I have. Or was it the same time but unrelated, or was it the other way around?

SPEAKER A

No, it was in direct order. I moved to Austin, I was around them. I started to get more introspective andmore self aware around my business, and then that self awareness started to spread to my entire life.

SPEAKER B

What caused the change to Austin? Was that something that coincidentally gave you this realization, orwas this part of a larger thing?

SPEAKER A

Before I moved to Austin, I was living all around southern Florida, around Miami, for about two and a halfyears. And I was very, very lonely. Achingly, unbearably lonely. And it eventually occurred to me it wasbecause there were no entrepreneurs there at the time.

SPEAKER B

Did you have entrepreneurs around you before that, for you to have that realization before that?

SPEAKER A

When I lived in Sacramento, which is near San Francisco, there were a lot of entrepreneurs there, and Ireally enjoyed that. I'd also started to do it to get in conferences and made a lot of friends in person. Andall of that gave me a sense of I feel less alone when I'm with these people. So I made a list of all of myfavorite entrepreneurs and their zip codes, and because I'm a nerd, put all of this in a spreadsheet. Andthen I plotted it on Google Maps and Austin had the most dots. So I called my assistant and I said, I'mmoving to Austin.

SPEAKER B

Was there any awareness that some internal stuff might have been exacerbating, that loneliness, or did itfeel purely geographical?

SPEAKER A

It felt purely geographical. It wasn't, but that's what I thought at the time.

SPEAKER B

I'm guessing it went Sacramento, Mexico, Florida, austin. Is that correct?

SPEAKER A

I lived most of my life in North Carolina. Then in 2010, I moved to Montoland, Mexico. And then for thenext three and a half years, I went back and forth between there and Sacramento. I did live in San Diegofor a couple of months, but I was kind of in this phase of flitting around and trying all kinds of places tosee where I liked living. And the idea was, you have all these places people dream of living san Diego, SanFrancisco, Miami. I'm going to go live in all those places and see what I like. And so I lived on the beachfor, I don't know, five years.

SPEAKER B

I'm guessing that what you did in terms of not just moving but moving a lot, and you moved back andforth between Mazatlan and Sacramento. I'm guessing that's atypical for somebody with SMA or any othersevere handicap. Did that occur to you?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, I've never heard of it before.

SPEAKER B

Did people question that or even people close to you in terms of the difficulty and stress on you?

SPEAKER A

People close to me were very supportive. I have a very OD relationship with the rest of severely disabledadults. On the one hand, I have immense empathy for what they're going through. On the other hand, Ihave no sympathy whatsoever, even less than other people. And in general, my life is evidence that if theyare holding themselves back because they're making certain excuses, my life is evidence that most ofwhat they believe is bullshit. And so I make other disabled people intensely uncomfortable.

SPEAKER B

How is it with people who aren't disabled? Because when I hear somebody say, I can't do X, honestly, youspring to mind a lot.

SPEAKER A

I mean, everyone has excuses, by the way, including me. I tend to break through them more often thanyour average person, but everyone makes excuses. Every person has limiting beliefs, and I tend to have avery keen sense for when either my myself or when someone else is playing the victim. And I tend to callpeople out. I've even said to members of my team before, you are not a victim, don't act like one. Andthat's a startling thing for people to hear. On the other hand, I've had people who I have very hardconversations with, which is typically some version of you are playing the victim, you need to stop. AndI'm telling you right now, this is going to ruin your life if you continue. That is a conversation where peopleget angry, where they cry. I've had those conversations on sales calls. But on the other hand, I've hadhundreds of people come back to me and said, Change my life. No one had ever told me that before.

SPEAKER B

Speaking of limiting beliefs, let's circle back to the mindset of beginning dating. So you said that you did itbecause it occurred to you that this was an unaddressed belief and that you were failing to becourageous if you didn't face it, but that you expected it to turn out to be true. So can you delve a little bitdeeper into the beginning of that journey?

SPEAKER A

I applied the same strategy that worked for me on everything else. It was a game of incredible, intensevolume, not only of study, but also dating. So I started by buying every book and every course on dating. Imean, we're talking 30 plus books and I don't know, 50 grand in courses. And I went through it just like Ido everything else. It was just sort of the worst thing in the world is ignorance. Let me learn everything Ican. And I learned a lot. But I still believed that I would be out of luck because even in the datingcommunity, there is no one who has great relationships with women who is disabled. The closest wasSean what was his last name?

SPEAKER B

His name was Sean Stevenson.

SPEAKER A

Yes. Sean recently passed away. I got to meet him before he died. He was inspiring to me. He wasmarried. He was a doctorate level psychologist, and he was like 2ft tall. Amazing person. But there reallywasn't anyone who, in my mind was successful with women. So my initial thought was, I'm right, but let'sfind out for sure. So I started inviting every girl I came across, whether I was attracted to her or not, to adate. I had a dating coach, and his assignment was, you asked for six phone numbers a day. I asked forlike 30. My phone was eventually full of literally over 500 numbers, and I would take them to a coffeedate. And some days I would literally go on dates for five or 6 hours. I would have them back to back towhere one girl would leave and another way come in.

SPEAKER B

So let's go ahead and address a potential elephant in the room. And that's that. You are approachingdating in a very mechanistic way. Most people who date, no matter what their situation or condition is, donot. Maybe people don't even know that a dating coach that that's a thing. And most people certainlyhaven't hired them. And there is something, although it would be really hard to put a finger on why, butthere is something that tends to hit people the wrong way. Once you subject something that peopleconsider to be sort of a matter of the heart or something that is just supposed to be done by pixies andfairies, when you subject that to anything that could be clocked on a spreadsheet, anything that is aprocedure, anything that is bulk action, what's your response to that?

SPEAKER A

I have two responses. Number one, I was approaching it again from the same sense of control. I want tocontrol the outcome. I want to be as attractive as I possibly can. I wasn't trying to fake anything. That'sone thing I always believe was wrong. I never presented myself as anything but who I was. I never lied toanyone ever. It's my number one rule, is complete and total honesty. The second thing is I believe a lot ofpeople are naive, that dating is something that happens naturally. Everything we do in the dating processis an attempt to present our best self, even down to what clothes we choose or what words we say. Andso to believe that presenting your best self is not a skill that gets better with practice is naive. So Iactually think that more men and women should be a lot more open about the idea of gaining experienceand practice and skill with their love life. And I think we would have better relationships, not from the lensof let me manipulate people into liking me, from the lens of let me present the best version of myself thatI possibly can.

SPEAKER B

Take me through how that went because I have so many questions and I'm sure that people are going topeople listening are going to have so many questions because what happens with you in dating is going tobe different from what is happening to a lot of people who are listening. But it's also a very unique set ofsituations. It's a very unique set of circumstances because you aren't doing a lot of the things that a lot ofpeople do when they date. So what was the response of the people that you were having these dateswith? What was your success rate like? What did people say? How did you feel? All that stuff.

SPEAKER A

I tracked it on the spreadsheet and it was their response to me, my response to them. Initially, it wasextremely awkward. The very first girl that I went on the date with, I ended up three years later finding heragain on dating apps. And we went on another date and she became my girlfriend for two years. But thefirst date between us, very awkward. And it was just because I was nervous. I didn't know what to say. Ididn't know how to present myself. And she was the same way. It was the first date she had ever been ontoo. So we connected a little bit over that, but otherwise neither one of us knew how to lead. And so itjust kind of never went anywhere. Eventually I got to where my response was almost always, let's say 90%of the time, I'd love to see you again. And it was genuine because I would ask like, when? And they wouldgive me a day and the time. The reason why that was true is because, number one, I presented myselfwith complete honesty and number two, I was intensely curious about them. And I approached it with thespirit of curiosity and the spirit of I want to understand what you're looking for, how you think about thispeople love talking about that. So I would have these two hour conversations with complete strangers incoffee shops. By the end of the conversation, they would have told me the most intimate details of theirlove life and I learned a lot really fast.

SPEAKER B

How are you meeting them? It's a two part question when you say that you were asking for phonenumbers and stuff. I'm trying to imagine if you were in like a mingling sort of environment where you wereface to face to begin with or whether these were on dating apps. And then the second part of thequestion is, were they surprised when they met you or did they know that they were going to meetsomebody who can't move?

SPEAKER A

It was both in person and online. In person. It was literally any woman without a wedding ring initially,because my goal was.

SPEAKER B

Just to learn you would start a little bit of small talk and then ask if you could have their phone number.

SPEAKER A

In the beginning, I sucked at this. I got coaching on this, the very best beginner opener. And all the guysout there, listen up. Hello. My name is John. I find you very attractive and I just couldn't stop myself fromcoming over and saying, would you like to grab a cup of coffee sometime? That's it.

SPEAKER B

My 2023 radar says that that might not always be well received. You didn't have any trouble with thatline?

SPEAKER A

I'm not saying it's the best line, but it's the best beginner line. I would get probably about 50 50. And bythe way, when a girl doesn't want to give you her number, she says, oh, I have a boyfriend, even when shedoesn't. So you typically don't get harsh rejections. At least I didn't. My goal in the beginning was just todo it. I mean, at the time, 50% was pretty good. Eventually it got up to nearly 100% as I got really, reallygood at it. And that's less about what you say and more about the energy that she feels from you.

SPEAKER B

Well, I could delve into the nuances of dating for hours and hours and we will off the podcast, we will, butwe need to keep moving on or this is going to be a six hour episode. So you ended up in was this thesame relationship with the woman that we're going to call Hummingbird to protect her privacy?

SPEAKER A

No, she was my second girlfriend. My first girlfriend was a stewardess. I won't say which airline. And bythe way, for anyone listening, I'm fully comfortable sharing my story, but I don't feel like it's fair to identifythe woman I dated. Feels like that would be uncool. So I dated her. She was my first girlfriend and shetold me straight up I was 31, she was 30. She was gorgeous, half black, half Japanese, very sweet. That'swhere I lost my fragility. She was an amazing first girlfriend. Exactly what I needed. And about, I don'tknow, six months into it, it became clear to me, without going into a lot of detail, that she was in love. Andshe started dropping hints about marriage, which was a shock to me. I never thought that would happen.And that proved my hypothesis that I wasn't unlovable. She really did truly, truly love me. And I finally toldher one day I didn't feel the same way. And I couldn't continue because I felt guilty knowing she felt oneway. And I felt she was a really, really good friend. She was my girlfriend, but I wasn't in love.

SPEAKER B

And so then hummingbird came after this.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, that was my nickname for her. We used to joke that she was a hummingbird and she ran intowindows. So I always told her, like, when she left, said bye. It was Bye. Watch out for windows. She calledme a tortoise because I'm kind of slow and I've got a really thick shell, and I'm also very wise.

SPEAKER B

So what was that relationship like? How did it differ?

SPEAKER A

She was much younger than me. She was 26. I was, at that time, 32, 32, 33. She was brilliant. She was adoctor. She knew everything about my condition. She was fascinated by me as a biological specimen,mental specimen, everything. And we dated non exclusively for a few months. She was seeing a fewpeople, I was seeing a few people. And we eventually, after a few months, decided to go exclusive, felldeeply, deeply in love, and even started talking about getting married.

SPEAKER B

How was your arc progressing during this stage where previously you had learned something aboutemotion, but you'd learned it in a utilitarian fashion. So was it acquiring a more personal, more intimate,more other people focused sort of event to it?

SPEAKER A

It was learning how to become a really great boyfriend in all the possible senses, in an authentic, honestway. So it was still a little bit about controlling. It was still about, if I'm a really, really good boyfriend, you'llnever leave me, which isn't true, by the way.

SPEAKER B

That was your mentality, was that was why you were putting in that effort? Correct. For control.

SPEAKER A

And I had never been in love before, and I didn't just fall in love. I was Keto heels. Like, I would have diedfor this woman. She was the first thing I thought about in the morning. She was the last thing I thoughtabout before I went to sleep.

SPEAKER B

So romance goes, or love goes hand in hand with a certain amount of surrender and vulnerability. Youcan't fully experience those things unless you open up and are vulnerable, and meanwhile, you're trying tobe safe, which requires, at least at this point, control. So was there some internal struggle going there?Because you had to kind of lose yourself, and that's the opposite of what you normally do?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, there was a huge amount of. Struggle. I broke up with her three times during the process of datingher, and it was always through the lens of, I'm not on board with what you're doing if this is what you wantto do. Like, for example, she used to go to festivals around Austin and get really high from marijuana.We're not talking a little bit. We're talking, like, smoking for two days straight. And I just wasn't into that.And I said that that's what you're into. It's cool, but I'm not your guy. I'm never going with you to thosethings. And she stopped going to festivals. She was a very, very independent woman, and it was aprocess of me learning to be vulnerable and also me becoming the dominant partner in that relationshipthat was in control, and I expected her to submit, and that was not an easy thing to do for her.

SPEAKER B

So looking back, do you think that it may be more mature or further down the path? Way to look at itwould have been, you do your thing and I'll do my thing because you don't need to be in control, or doesit still feel like that would have been a point of contention?

SPEAKER A

That's the way I presented it, but that's not what I was feeling. What I was feeling was, I'm going to tell youthis, and then you're going to stop.

SPEAKER B

And she wasn't into that. She didn't want to be controlled. And so that led to the breakups.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, but then she would change her mind and come back to me and say, I absolutely love you. If this isthat big of a deal for you, then do you think.

SPEAKER B

That that was indeed the real reason, from your perspective, or do you think part of it was what I wassaying before, where you had to make yourself vulnerable?

SPEAKER A

There were some things it took me a long time to tell her. It took me almost a year to tell her she was mysecond girlfriend. I was always really vague about how many girls I dated. She was much moreexperienced. Even that the age of 26. The the other things physical vulnerability, like, about my disease isnot really hard for me. Vulnerability about my emotions, that was hard for me. Telling her that I loved herfor the first time was a very difficult for me to do.

SPEAKER B

I know that at some point I asked you about you were controlling people so that you could feel safe.Imagining you got to a certain point where you realized you could feel safe without controlling people, andyou said, no, that the real lesson was that you had to learn that you would never be entirely safe and hadto be okay with it. Was there any sort of version of that in this where you kind of had to surrender to somedegree or could have surrendered and didn't? To the idea that substitute safe for not knowing what theother person's going to do. And you began to think along those lines?

SPEAKER A

Yeah, I told her I loved her before she told me she loved me, even though I thought I was pretty sure sheloved me. And I did it through the lens of wanting to live courageously, but I became increasinglyemotional, increasingly volatile, not in a dangerous way, but in a sort of wasn't the normal, controlled Johnthat I used to be because I was no longer completely in charge of my life or my emotions. She had a biginfluence on that, and that loss of control was terrifying.

SPEAKER B

And then I'm guessing that everything was happily ever after. From that point, you'd learned your lesson,and life has been entirely on 100% rosy. Is that correct?

SPEAKER A

No. When we started talking about getting married, we kind of agreed that we would get married. Therewere no rings. We agreed that she was going to move in with me. And she went to tell her best friend at abar in downtown Austin. And she told her friend they were happy. She came outside and she was walkingback to her car, which was about a block away, and two guys grabbed her and pulled her into an alleywayand just brutally, brutally raped her.

SPEAKER B

And what did that do to I mean, obviously it devastated her. What was the aftermath there for yourrelationship?

SPEAKER A

She didn't call the cops. I think she had some brain damage from being beaten. She fought like a tiger,but against two ruined men, it didn't matter. And she went and got back in her car and drove home to seeme. She woke me up, touched my arm, and I woke up and I looked at her and her face was just her faceand her hair were just full of blood because I guess they had beaten crooked against the pavement. It'samazing she could even drive home. She said something terrible happened. Asked her if she wanted tocall the cops. She said no. She was afraid it would ruin her career. Because there's a stigma that onceyou've been raped, that you were damaged somehow. It's still a very male dominated field. Health care.We made it through one day, terrible day. She got cleaned up. We went to bed. We went to sleep, and Iwoke up with her standing over me again with the phone in her hand calling 911. And she says, there arebombs strapped to the house. Send the bomb squad.

SPEAKER B

And I assume the bomb squad came.

SPEAKER A

Yeah.

SPEAKER B

Did she end up in some sort of treatment? I mean, it sounds like it broke her. I know that you're not withher and that this ended. So was that it? Was that the end right there?

SPEAKER A

No. She had a complete what they call a psychotic break. Psychotic in the medical sense, not in the yourpsychotic sense that a lot of people use it. Psychosis is where you're living in a different reality thaneveryone else. She was seeing things, experiencing things that I was not. No one else was. I don't know.Doctors don't know if it was due to the rape, if it was due to brain injury, if it was some sort of hiddenschizophrenia that was buried in her that got triggered. But she spent the next six months in a privatemental hospital and became a different person. She became convinced that I was hunting down peopleshe loved and murdering them. And then when those people then presented themselves to her and said,I'm still alive, she would say, It's not you. You're a copy. So I stayed with her through all of this and wenton for about six months after that. So about a year from the incident to the end of the relationship, sheeventually started to recover. She eventually started to realize more about what was real and what wasn't.She was unable to work. She got intense anxiety around any man, and I was completely powerless tohelp her. There was nothing I could do. And that powerlessness. And to see someone I loved with all ofmy heart breaking and falling to pieces and being able to do nothing about it, that broke me.

SPEAKER B

So that concludes the next to last episode of The Impossible Man. You know the score by now. If youwant to get in touch, John is at. Johnmarrow Jonmorrowi am not on any social media, but you can find meon my website@johnnybtruant.com, J-O-H-N-N-Y-B-T-R-U-A-N-T. If you go ahead and sign up for mywebsite, you'll be kept in the loop and you can follow progress of the book and everything else. So thankyou for listening, and we will continue with the final episode of The Impossible Man.