This Is Actually Happening

“I could live with the nightmares. I could live with the panic attacks. But the thing that was tearing me apart was questioning if everything I know in my life was real at all.” Producer: Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A lifelong friendship filled with care, love and personal growth takes a shocking turn in the aftermath of a brutal act of violence. Social Media:  Instagram: @actuallyhappen...

“You try to take off your skin to try to get rid of this voice, and it goes all the way down to the bone.” Producer: Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A man suffering the deep generational traumas of poverty, racism, abuse and mental illness finds transformative power in an ancient plant medicine. Today’s episode featured Dexter L. Booth . Dexter is the author of the poetry collection,  Scratc...

“The idea that they had plucked me from this terrible life…and it was all going to be sunflowers and rainbows and shit…I just view that as a fantasy.” Producer: Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A young black girl born to a drug-addicted mother is adopted by white, middle-class parents, only to face more sinister taboos as she becomes a stranger within her own family. Social Media:  Instagram:...

“I had to go through having taken everything away from me to come to the conclusion that … you’ll come back a person that’s wiser and a more full, satisfied human.” Producer: Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A young man looking for a quick way to get rid of student loan debt gambles with his life and nearly pays the ultimate price Social Media:  Instagram: @actuallyhappening Website:  ww...

“When somebody hurts you and then they’re like, ‘now you have to take care of him, you’re responsible for him…’ I didn’t know how to feel.” Producer: Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A young woman is forced to make a decision about the fate of a father she never knew. Social Media:  Instagram: @actuallyhappening Website:  www.thisisactuallyhappening.com Support the Show:  Support Th...

“I had total grief and sadness and fear and also just disbelief that it happened. But it’s different when you lose somebody who hurt you.” Producer: Whit Missildine Episode Summary: After surviving a family broken by drug addiction and mental illness, a woman finds out her mother’s death was tied to one of the most notorious crimes in American history. Today’s episode featured Nova Reeves. To find...

Today, I'm introducing the podcast What Was That Like, by Scott Johnson. Featuring real people in unreal situations, What Was That Like covers similar, jaw-dropping stories to This Is Actually Happening, but with its own uniquely fascinating format and style. Today's show will feature a full episode from What Was That Like titled, "Tyson was abducted," about a man who, walking through a parking lo...

“I had this secret inside me that I felt was my one and only friend and companion that took me away from all the pain and anxiety that I had moving through my life.” Producer: Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A young girl’s world is turned upside-down by the early death of her father, but starving herself to cope with the pain becomes a sinister companion Social Media:  Instagram: @actuallyha...

“This fake face I was putting on for everybody was my only sense of normality when my whole life is already changed. I didn’t want to admit that stuff was wrong, and I did it in such a convincing way that the majority of people believed me.” Producer: Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A man becomes a hero during a horrific act of war only to face the worst of it after he survives. Today's episode&n...

“I was sure that this was his mental illness and not something wrong with me until I started hearing it in my head. And that was when I started to think, 'maybe I’m actually going crazy'.” Producers: Sara Marinelli, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A woman finds respite from childhood anxieties in relationships only to enter a spiral of mental illness and unexplained phenomena.  Social Media:...

“My earliest memories as a child were fear and anxiety…I was never able to control the situation and that unknown just haunted me.” Producer/Editor : Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A girl straddles many worlds growing up biracial with a single white mother whose new boyfriend brings chaos into a peaceful home. Today’s episode featured Arielle Hermanson. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram...

 “I misused my position of power to get my needs met…How is it that if we’re called by God to this ministry we could possibly do such a destructive thing?” Producers/Editors : Nigel Coutinho, Stephanie Lepp, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A priest struggles to transform his life after facing the consequences of his most shameful secret.  Today's episode featured Gil Gustafson. This epi...

“We have so much less control than we think we do….Death is really close at hand and we do not do ourselves often any favors by forgetting that.” Producer:  Whit Missildine Episode Summary: Firmly established in adulthood with a great career behind her and a wonderful life, a woman suddenly finds herself to be an unlikely perpetrator of the most horrible transgression.  Social Media:&nbs...

“It’s much better to try to move forward with your life and accept that things are nebulous, and there are no clear answers.” Producer:  Whit Missildine Editors : Sara Marinelli, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: After finally being accepted to an elite college sorority, a woman makes a new best friend whose terminal illness leaves her consumed by uncertainty.  Social Media:  Instagr...

“I completely lost touch with reality. You can’t rely on those around you, and you can’t rely on what’s within you. That’s the most terrifying thing in the world.” Producer:  Whit Missildine Episode Summary: Struggling to find his identity after college, a man suddenly suffers from panic attack that leads to a terrifying downward spiral.  Social Media:  Instagram: @actuallyhappening...

“I’m the kind of person where I like to know answers. I don’t like secrets I don’t like surprises…I really want to know what brought him to that. I really want to know why.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editors: Nigel Coutinho, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: After his best friend contracts a rare disease, a man’s friendship deepens as they grow into adulthood together, only to end with...

“All those thoughts were going through my head like you’re worthless, you’re a loser, you’re a failure, you can’t be happy, you can’t feel love…just this feeling of profound failure.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editors : Sara Marinelli, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A woman sinks into a psychological black hole following what was supposed to be the greatest moment of her life. Socia...

“Am I at fault? Am I not a victim? Should I not be able to say that because I let it happen? I don’t know if in the human heart there will ever be black and white answers to something like that.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editor : Whit Missildine Episode Summary: Leaving her sheltered but complicated evangelical Christian past, a woman explores a kinky relationship that leads her to s...

“I didn’t really realize that it was a thing that was happening to me. I don’t really know how to describe that feeling, but it was just so hard to understand.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editors : Nigel Coutinho, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A woman finally establishes herself in a job she loves when a customer commits an act that will change her life forever. Social Media: ...

“I just felt something inside of me that was so sickening. It’s just like this point of realization, almost like your biggest fear in that moment had come true.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editor : Whit Missildine Episode Summary: Growing up in a small Midwest town, a teenage girl forms a close friendship with a boy from a nearby town, when things unexpectedly take a very dark turn. So...

“It’s just confusing thinking about even today what I’m supposed to feel about the whole thing…humans aren’t really built to fully understand that kind of relationship.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editor : Whit Missildine Episode Summary: Struggling with depression and gender dysphoria, a person finds solace in an online community, but relationships become shockingly complicated by the...

“The worst thing that anxiety does is make you think that you have control to change something, like if I can constantly be in control of everything then nothing bad will happen.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editors : Nigel Coutinho, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A family who for years struggled to cope with the aftermath of a traumatic injury now faces a far more terrifying unknown:...

“It’s like this weird tunnel of reality collapsing and you want to hold on to where you just were at where none of this happened, but now you have this thing that you have to absorb somehow.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editors : Nigel Coutinho, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: A woman is three months pregnant when her husband’s pursuit of a fugitive turns their world upside down. Today...

“I don’t know what I was thinking but I just kept feeling like the waves of shame because of the shame I made them feel.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editor : Whit Missildine Episode Summary: Growing up in a household full of both love and violence in Mississippi, Kiese Laymon struggles with generational trauma, career success, and addiction before finally facing the silences of his pas...

“I did have the feeling that someone was gonna come back and do something horrible again after that.”   Producer:  Whit Missildine Editors : Nigel Coutinho, Whit Missildine Episode Summary: Terra Newell is thrown a nightmare scenario as her mother’s new love life spins out of control, while the ordeal takes on a new life as the centerpiece of the famous Dirty John podcast and TV series....