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Speaker 1: There's a lot of speculation and stuff about what really

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runs Los Angeles.

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Speaker 2: A lot of it.

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Speaker 1: Does come down to some pretty dark stuff, and when

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you look at how things happen and how many people

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end up abused and including kids and things, it's hard

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to argue with that.

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Speaker 3: She thought that moving to Los Angeles would restart her career,

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but instead she found herself losing time control and nearly

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losing her life. My name is Edwin and here's chris

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true scary story.

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Speaker 2: This starts in Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: I was kind of having a hard time finding a place.

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I flopping back and forth because you know, it's hard

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to find a living situation there is you're not wealthy.

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So it took a couple of attempts. I found this

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place in Lamart Park, which is South LA. There were

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some previous tenants. There was like some household drama going

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on where they ended up moving out, and I was

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the one person left in the unit. I was responsible

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for filling up some of the remaining rooms.

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Speaker 2: I remember.

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Speaker 1: Meeting the first girl, I'll call her Maria. I met

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her on Facebook like a roommate search group. We hit

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it off pretty immediately. We were just a few years apart,

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and after I showed her the place, she basically wanted

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to know what I was doing for the rest of

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the day, and I was going to go catch a

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movie and she ended up going with me and we

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ended up bonding, So she moves in there. The next

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vacancy is filled by a different girl who I knew

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through a friend of mine that I had met just collaborating.

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Speaker 2: I'll call her Leah.

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Speaker 1: We're trying to figure out who we're going to fill

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the last spot with, and Maria tells me.

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Speaker 2: That she has.

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Speaker 1: A friend who she's had some sort of on again,

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off again friend of me tension with. They've known each

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other since they were I think, like in middle school.

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She also mentions that this girl, Danica, and Maria were

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living in their last living situation together before it fell apart,

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and they kind of had to just figure it out

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for a little while. And now they're both sort of

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in a situation looking for a fresh start, like they

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had this sort of reboot where they were staying because

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of just the background of.

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Speaker 2: What was going on.

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Speaker 1: So when Maria goes into what happened, she seems really

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distraught and like this has been weighing on her and

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she explains to me that her great grandmother passed away.

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This was something that was in the news and like

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it was a local story. Her great grandmother passed away

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really suddenly and tragically. Her car flew off the freeway

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in the middle of the morning, like before sunrise, headed

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toward downtown, and nobody really knew what happened. Like she

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was supposed to be on her way to a dialysis

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appointment and nobody really knew what happened.

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Speaker 2: Somebody else was supposed to take her and that didn't happen.

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Speaker 1: Maria tells me that her and and Danica were living

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with her at the time, but when things sort of

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fell apart after this woman passed away, Danica and her

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had to find just temporary living situations until they could

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get something more stable. And she also told me that

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the reason that Danica had to stay with them is

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because she got thrown out of her mother's because they

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just weren't getting along. She also confides in me that

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this girl has had some issues with people, like she

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has trouble getting along with people. Maria's two other friends

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are adamant that, like there's something wrong with this girl,

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and I haven't really gotten to know her yet at

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this point, So I'm like, I don't know, maybe she's

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just insecure, maybe she just doesn't she doesn't, you know,

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just being an impath, just trying to be open hearted.

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With that said, Maria's like, I don't know, do you

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think I should still invite her to move in? And

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what I said is you you know her better than

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I do for sure, So it's up to you if

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you think she deserves a second chance, because maybe she's

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going through something because of everything that's been happening. If

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you think she deserves a second chance, then you know,

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I'm putting.

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Speaker 2: It in your hands.

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Speaker 1: She ends up moving in and all the vacancies are filled.

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Danica in particular had an interest in like the Juju curse,

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which is like this legend that comes out of Nigeria

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and basically it's.

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Speaker 2: Like a sex trafficking curse.

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Speaker 1: This is something that has been written about in pretty

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credible newspapers like The Guardian. It's also been written about

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in like scholarly journals and stuff like that too. I

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was shocked to even see something like that written about

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in the press that way.

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Speaker 2: At the time.

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Speaker 1: Her boyfriend, who she was just really starting to see

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he's from there. He was kind of telling her, like

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some of the legends and stuff, and telling her things

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about magic and things. And this is not to bring

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up anybody's belief system, because there are there are people

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who who have spiritual practices that are misunderstood. But I'm

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talking about this information being in the hands of this

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particular person. She just seemed so intrigued by it, and she.

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Speaker 2: Was the one who told us about it. Things are

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going fine. We're getting along enough. We're very different types.

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There's some tension between.

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Speaker 1: Danica and Leah a little bit, but it's nothing to.

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Speaker 2: Boil over yet.

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Speaker 1: I'm just kind of going through life working a day job.

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Weird things have started happening to me already, Like I'm

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dealing with some back pain and stuff like that. I'm

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commuting on public transit to get to work, so it's

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not an ideal situation, but we're all kind of making

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it work as twenty somethings. A little bit of time

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passes the closeness between me and Maria, with that being

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Danica's best friend, I think some tension maybe started to

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build there, But things also started going really well in

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my life. I was co hosting a podcast of my own.

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I'd lost a day job, but I had been hired

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doing something else that was remote and I could be comfortable.

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Me and my roommates had just done a game show together,

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Common Knowledge on GSN, so things were kind of starting

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to pick up. I was having some interesting experiences that

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were aligning with what people talk about when you start

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having spiritual awakening. I'd had some supernatural experiences previously, like

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I'd gone to the Aiggans Museum and had some interesting

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contact also, like premonitions and stuff kind of running my family,

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but I was having these interesting awakenings and stuff like

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that at the same time. People had their crystals, people

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were going to psychic readings, and I was more of

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a fledgling and that sort of a thing than anybody.

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There had been other little cues too that maybe maybe

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there was some disdain there as well, like I had

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a birthday party and she didn't seem to like watching

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me enjoy myself and have fun. There was also a

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friend that I had from work who I was kind

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of trying to figure out how he felt about me,

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how I felt about him. At the time, I wasn't

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even sure that I still wanted to date man, but

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she just had a really interesting dynamic with him, despite.

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Speaker 2: Being a relationship of her own.

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Speaker 1: I distinctly remember I was kind of at a low

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point because I just lost a friend of mine suddenly

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and I couldn't make it home to his memorial.

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Speaker 2: Or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: When I found out about that, Danica gave me this

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look like, I know I'm supposed to comfort you, but

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I feel really uncomfortable. It was just a very uncomfortable

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moment like that just stuck in my mind.

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Speaker 2: One day, there was a.

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Speaker 1: Stain in the toilet or something like that. She was

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just like, oh, do you mind like wiping off the toilet.

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Not to be gross, but there's menstrual blood on it.

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At the time, I was not menstruating because I had

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a birth controling plant, which stops menstruation in people. But

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it's like we all share the chores, and I was like,

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you know what, fine, Like I don't want to I

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don't want to embarrass anybody. I don't want to hunt

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anyone down and figure out who it is, and I'm

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not doing anything. In hindsight, it's interesting that she asked

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me to do it because of the way menstruation gets

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used in certain dark practices, I picked up other interesting

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habits that just didn't make sense to me. This was

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when I when my hair was in dreadlocks, and I

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just remember kind of picking the ends of my locks

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and leaving like the little beady ends around which I

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come from a creole background, and that's like creole one

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on one, do not leave your hair anywhere that strange

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person can find it. But I was just absent mindedly

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doing all these strange things. There was also incidents where

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I walked into my room and there was like strange

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powder on my floor. Like I would look at the

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bottom of my feet and say, why is it like dusty?

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Like if you leave the window open even on like

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the windy is, there's not going to be a layer

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of dust like this. Just crazy things were happening. There

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was like a there was a dead bird on our

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step at one point. Just all this weird stuff was

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going on. Just a little bit after I started working

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my new remote job, I started having these losses of

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control and blackouts, brownouts. Basically I ended up wandering the

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street and I ended up getting fifty one fifty over

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and over again. When I say over and over again,

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I still don't know how many times because I can't

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access my medical records. Believe it or not, Awful things

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also started happening to me, like I got attacked multiple

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times on the street by strangers. I was sexually assaulted

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multiple times, once in a hospital, once on the street.

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It's almost like I was marked for something. I also

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ended up injuring myself multiple times too.

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Speaker 2: I had an.

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Speaker 1: Ankle end up in like a splint, like half of

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the cast. Sometime later, I'm walking down Crenshaw trying to

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get something to eat. It's evening time, and this dude

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randomly comes up to me, punches me in the face

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once and then walks off, and I have to like

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lip home. I don't want to call the cops. I

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don't want to do anything like that. The more I'm

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going through these things and the more I'm confused, I'm

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not sure what it is. I know that this started

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out feeling like spiritual awakening symptoms, but then it just

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got really dark. Danica's fiance he had been there when

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I kind of had a loss of control. It almost

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like felt out on Danica's bed. I knocked on her

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door and fell out on her bed, and he had

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something in his bag ready, like some sort of liquid

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that smelled like pure alcohol, and he just immediately went

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for it and like threw it on me and started.

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It sounded like he was praying, so I think that

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he was trying to bless me for whatever. But at

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the same time, this makes me wonder if she took

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some of the knowledge that he had for good and decided.

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Speaker 2: To turn it into something nasty.

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Speaker 1: At one point, it was decided that I just needed

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to leave the apartment. Other people got involved because there

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were friends of mine from the industry. They also tried

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to get in touch with members of my family when

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I would end up in the hospital, and friends that

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were back home on the East Coast. Basically, it had

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been decid, you need to just go home, like just

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go home, and by home, they didn't mean back to

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Philly necessarily, they meant where I am now, which is

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where my dad lives, which is fade though, North Carolina.

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I know that even if it was something that was

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traditionally diagnosible, I would have had a much easier time

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managing it in LA where I could at least get

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help with insurance more easily and just have more of.

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Speaker 2: A social safety net.

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Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of bad stuff out there,

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but in the South it's really hard for poor people.

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Speaker 2: To get help too.

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Speaker 1: I hadn't experienced anything like that, because it's just like,

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why are we not trying to get other tests done?

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Like why are we not trying to see if it's medical?

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It could be a tumor, it could be anything, but

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it's just like, Nope, you got a diagnosis and you

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need to just go. It's like that in La right,

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It's like tag, you're out, Just give up your place

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in line. Just fail, like just fail already. I was

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just like, I'm trying to pull myself together. I'm trying

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to keep my career moving forward. But the more that

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I tried to stay, it's like the more the tension was.

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I was also getting affirmed in some really interesting ways

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that what I was going through was spiritual. My career

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was starting to take off. I had movies that were

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getting optioned, that were about to get funded and about

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to get produced, and this just intersected with all this.

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I did have some psychic abilities opening up. People started

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coming to me for readings. I ended up doing readings

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for some prominent people. I also got invited to be

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a psychic card reader vendor at some vendor fairs. I

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got to talk about this a little bit on some

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podcasts and things too, just psychic stuff, not particularly this story.

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So there was a balance, but it didn't seem like

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they cared that I was actually being proven in what

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I was saying. It seemed like that just caused more

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resentment and things just got worse. Danica and I really

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started to butt heads. There were times where she basically

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menaced me, threatened me Maria too. It was just like

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they just needed me, like they just needed me to go.

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After a while, it came down to them inviting other

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people over to kind of bully me, people that I

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didn't know, to kind of make me feel uncomfortable in

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the apartment and like bully me to make me feel

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like if I said anything, if I stood out for myself,

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like I could end up jumped. I had friends too,

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but I didn't want there to be any sort of altercations.

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But the friends that I knew who were out there,

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they witnessed just like some weird aggressive behavior, like there

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was no concern for my well being. So after a while,

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I was just like, this doesn't feel like, oh, you're struggling.

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Speaker 2: We hate to see you struggle. We just want you safe.

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Speaker 1: It was just like tag you're out, you're crazy, go

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home after one, particularly just like rough Stretch where they

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got the new landlord's son involved because the house was

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sold in the midst of all.

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Speaker 2: That, I just was like, it's not worth it. I'm

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going to reset.

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Speaker 1: I've reset before, I'm going to reset. That was like

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four years ago, basically a little over four years ago

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now since I left, I've not experienced anything like that.

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I've not had any losses of control. I've not had

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any wandering spells. I haven't needed to have any hospital stays,

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any emergencies that I had it was due to like anxiety,

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like it felt like my heart rate was elevated, But

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I didn't have anything that could be classified under a

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fifty one fifty, nothing like that. I know, people just

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want to believe that I had a breakdown, and they

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want to believe that maybe I'm trying to like salvage

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the situation and use it to get back in the industry.

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I promise you that's not it. You can't make up

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what happened to Maria's great grandmother.

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Speaker 2: What's so wild?

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Speaker 1: Is. It took me a while to even bring that

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context together. So when Maria first moved in, she had

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a bunch of her stuff and I still have some

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of those those items too.

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Speaker 2: But she gave me a ring. I never took it off.

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Speaker 1: It was so beautiful to me that she would give

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me that ring, and it was very much my style.

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She even said like, this isn't really me, but I

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feel like.

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Speaker 2: It matches you, and it was. It was gorgeous.

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Speaker 1: It was like a black stone on a silver ring,

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and that's usually like protection. She also gave me like

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an item of her of her clothing, like a blouse

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or something that I haven't really worn since during one

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of my first losses of control. Though that ring ended

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up coming off. Maybe there was some resentment like if

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anybody should have that ring, it should be it should

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be someone who knew her or whatever. I'm just thinking,

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like three incidents, that's a pattern, right, Like in writing

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and anything, three equals a pattern. It's like, what has

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to happen for a third time, Like do they they

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take over somebody else's apartment, because I really don't think

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it's a coincidence that that's why they had to leave

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their last living situation, somebody who lost control and flew

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off a freeway, and then all of a sudden, I'm

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having losses of control, and then I have to leave

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my apartment that I lived in first, and the people

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that I invited just to fill the the the vacancies

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they got to stay. I really do feel a connection

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to this lady, the great grandmother. I feel a connection

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to her, and I feel like she wanted me to

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know that this was what I signed up for by

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going out there. There's a lot of speculation and stuff

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about what really runs Los Angeles. A lot of it

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does come down to some pretty dark stuff, and when

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you look at how things happen and how many people

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end up abused and including kids and things, it's hard

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to argue with that. I think there are multiple curses

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that happen around the entertainment industry. I think there are

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multiple curses that happen just around what success means in

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this country, if not like the entire Western world. The

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psychology behind metaphysics is just a really definitive answer on

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what's really at the bottom of the physical issues that

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we're dealing with. If you look at just how the

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like the actual laws and stuff work out there. There's

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a lot of loopholes too for people to get.

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Speaker 2: Away with things.

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Speaker 1: Landlords are always finding sneaky ways to get people out

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of units so that instead of just collecting regular rent,

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they can keep getting like first, last and deposit over

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and over again. There's just all this gray area that's

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out there that really leads to some very harmful stuff.

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Makes me wonder how many people got labeled a certain

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way for having an experience like what I had, People

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who couldn't make it out, or people who if they

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did make it out, they wouldn't have the ability to

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contextualize it. There's also just the culture of like what

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does it take to make it? Because they keep saying

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it's not enough to be good, to be smart, it's

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not enough to be talented, it's not enough to work hard.

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I'm like, okay, well what does it take? What does

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it actually take? Right? And people don't ever really want

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to say. It's like this this unspoken thing. There's also

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kind of like this climate of no matter how close

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you were to people, if you're not in town, you

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kind of don't exist. They don't maintain contact. So it's

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like almost like were you ever really there. It's almost

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like a just like a like what they call a

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liminal space all of its own. In a way, this

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kind of started with a roommate horror story because what

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was going.

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Speaker 2: On between the people who were there when I moved

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in was very intense. Maybe there's something about this.

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Speaker 1: House too, I don't know, but this generation has it

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has to reckon with what it's like being forced to

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cram like four grown adults between their twenties and thirties,

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sometimes their forties.

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Speaker 2: Into one apartment.

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Speaker 1: In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, like

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California has the fourth biggest economy in the world, the

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governor said.

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Speaker 2: And that's as a state.

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Speaker 1: But that's how so many people live there, just a

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bunch of strangers crammed into a single apartment. Sometimes you

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got people sleeping in bunk feds. I had to stay

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at some hostels and stuff for a little while while.

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Speaker 2: I was looking to get into a permanent place.

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Speaker 1: So I think this is one of those sort of

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just one of those horror stories that also can come

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down to just like the horrors of capitalism and just

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us just having to.

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Speaker 2: Live a certain way.

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Speaker 1: Just because we haven't been allowed to grow out of

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it into a more humane sort of system. And I

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hope that's not like too preachy or anything, but I

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definitely feel like we have more than enough resources for

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people to be able to have their own space, not

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just to have their basic needs met, but to have

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like dignified and comfortable lives.

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Speaker 2: You know, I.

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Speaker 1: Haven't really been the same since physical health wise is

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taking a huge toll on me, but I have not

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had any losses of clarity whatsoever. This is the kind

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of thing that you see people talk about online, but

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people kind of lose sympathy because, well, you wanted to

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be out there, well, you wanted to.

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Speaker 2: Be a star.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's like, you know what

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California with Southern California, what Los Angeles is supposed to

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represent in terms of the dream and in terms of

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00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,200
progress and in terms of inclusion, And it's almost like

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it's almost like a lore, like a fly trap, where

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00:26:02,559 --> 00:26:05,200
you're made to think you're getting one thing, but you're

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00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:07,240
totally getting something else when you get there.

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Speaker 3: Chris, thank you so much for the conversation that we

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had during this call, and also for sharing your experiences

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here with the rest of us. At the true scary

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story community. During our call, I kept saying this over

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and over. It was it's a very haunting story, and

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I couldn't place my finger on why, like what made

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00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,839
it so eerie to me? And I was thinking also

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maybe I'm because I'm from southern California, right from Los Angeles,

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and I always stayed away from what they call like

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the entertainment area I guess of Los Angeles, but I

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did know a lot of people who dove right in

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and have always been curious as to how that works out.

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But I'm glad we we also talked about some conspiration sees,

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some things about you know, that undercurrent of Los Angeles

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00:27:04,079 --> 00:27:06,400
and everything that's in there, and I'm sure it's the

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00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,240
same in other places of the big cities, maybe small towns.

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How there's something there, like something that's just always going

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to be there, something that's very difficult to get rid of.

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I'm interested in knowing what you thought of this story,

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00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,200
like as in what did you get out of it?

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Because for me, I lean more into the Los Angeles part,

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but I'm interested in finding out anyway. This episode was

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edited and sound designed by Sarah Vorheis Wendel A VW

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00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,559
Sound with additional production by me Edwin Coo Arrubiaz and

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00:27:33,599 --> 00:27:36,279
The Scary FMT. Do you want to share your story

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00:27:36,279 --> 00:27:39,160
with us, head on over to true scarystory dot com.

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00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:41,440
You fill out the form and we get in touch

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with you anyway. That's all I got for you this week.

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Thank you very much for listening. I could scary everyone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So