A Hard Landing, Revisited

Summary

Podcast Summary: RISK! – "A Hard Landing, Revisited"

Date: April 16, 2026
Host: Kevin Allison
Guest: JP Michael
Theme: Revisiting a jaw-dropping story of betrayal, psychological manipulation, and survival first told a decade ago—a deep look at trauma, vulnerability, and the resilience that follows.

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Episode Overview

This special episode of RISK! revisits “A Hard Landing,” the story originally told by JP Michael in 2016 and often cited as one of the podcast’s wildest and most psychologically complex entries. Now, ten years later, host Kevin Allison and JP reflect on the infamous story, discuss its aftermath, and examine what’s changed with time and healing. The conversation is a blend of raw emotional disclosure, narrative technique, and the ongoing impact of trauma and storytelling.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Reflections (00:00–03:29)

• Kevin introduces the episode, emphasizing its legacy and emotional weight.
• JP expresses how surreal it is to revisit the story (“It’s like there’s so much distance now between the version of myself in 2016 and who I was back in 2013 when this happened…” [46:00])
• They highlight how much life has changed—including JP now having children—and the benefit of hindsight.

2. The Original Story Recap (04:00–45:46)

JP’s Narrative Breakdown:

• Moving to NYC at 24 for a job that turns out disappointing and isolating.
• Meeting Claire via online dating; intense intellectual and emotional connection. Claire is supportive, clever, and a cheerleader for JP.
• Claire’s Sudden Illness
  • Severe gastrointestinal issues, lengthy diagnostics, pain, and a sense of medical mystery.
  • JP steps into a caregiving role, describing the strain and fear this introduced (“…being crushed both by the fear of losing somebody so horribly, but also by the pressure of being a primary carer in a society that I wasn't even close to understanding.” [12:57])
• Claire’s Mental Health Deteriorates
  • Neurological symptoms, suicide ideation, aggressive behavior; JP describes direct experiences with ER visits and trauma.
• Introduction of Emma
  • Claire’s best friend, a seemingly well-meaning but troubled figure with a dramatic backstory (past sex work, drug addiction).
  • Relationship with Claire sours; Emma becomes abusive, and a violent, manipulative episode is described, culminating in Claire's self-harm, allegedly egged on by Emma.
• Escalation: Break-ins, Threats, and Psychological Horror
  • Emma’s harassment intensifies—messages, break-ins, bizarre vandalism in Claire’s apartment (“used tampons, dead rodents, and the piece de resistance, human feces…” [19:38]).
  • Mounting stress on JP, lack of sleep, his life unraveling. Describes feeling “like being struck by lightning and eaten by a shark at the same time.” [20:57]
• The Revelation
  • Discovery of heavy metals in Claire’s apartment; suspicion that Emma is poisoning her.
  • Sudden realization: much of the narrative—the illness, the threats, the police, even Emma’s campaign—was constructed by Claire. JP meticulously lays out how the deception unfolded (fake phone numbers, self-inflicted wounds, orchestrated “evidence”).
• Aftermath and Trauma
  • The emotional devastation of discovering it was a hoax targeted at JP.
  • Disorientation upon resuming normal life—feelings of alienation, parallels to post-prison adjustment (“I had literally forgotten how to enjoy a walk in the park…” [42:20]).
  • Long-term crisis of trust and impacts on JP’s identity and relationships.

Memorable Quote:

• “My sense of integrity, my unwillingness to abandon someone who really needed my help, had been used as a weapon against me.” – JP (43:45)

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3. Revisiting & Processing the Story (45:46–91:52)

On Listening Back and Growth

• Kevin and JP reflect on the distance gained over time.
  • JP likens retelling the story to “recreating the hoax...to inflict it on all the listeners” (49:09), highlighting the strange role of a narrator whose story requires deception.

Therapy and Healing

• JP discusses not seeking therapy until five years after the events and how telling the story on RISK! allowed him to process, contain, and eventually move past it. “I found that after doing the podcast, I didn’t need to keep telling it…” (51:56)

Impact on Listeners

• Listeners reached out, some recognizing abusive dynamics in their own lives because of his story (52:59).

Vulnerability, Expat Loneliness, and Manipulation

• Discussion around how being young, isolated, and an expat in NYC made JP more vulnerable (“…there’s a particular kind of loneliness, a particular kind of, oh my God, I’m on the other side of the world.” [57:28]).
• How manipulative personalities often intuitively hone in on the vulnerable.

On Relationship Red Flags

• Detailed breakdown of how easily one can become captured by a manipulator in a relationship, even with conscious awareness of red flags (74:54).
• The tension between wanting to protect oneself and not wanting to close oneself off from connection (“…since then, I’ve met so many completely, completely lovely, genuine, honest people. And I’m just pleased that…I was able to open myself back up...” [55:12])

New Perspectives & Surprising Updates

• Emma’s Perspective: JP recently contacted Emma, finding out she only vaguely remembered him but recalled the “medical mystery” and confirmed their falling out was over the hoax. Emma became the scapegoat in Claire’s narrative, as JP surmised.
• Both reflect on the “meta” nature of storytelling, with JP acknowledging deliberately structuring his narrative to both mislead and then shock listeners, akin to a psychological thriller or the formula of TV’s House (77:10).

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4. Narrative Techniques and Storytelling Craft

• Kevin and JP discuss the process of building the original episode:
  • Streamlining versus including every detail; making the audience feel what JP felt.
  • How the structure borrows from thriller conventions to maximize emotional impact.

Memorable Quote:

• “There is kind of a... you feel like you’re getting your hands dirty as a narrator because you have to... recreate all of that deception.” – JP (82:33)

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5. Reflections on Audience, Adaptation, and Moving Forward

• Exploring the pitfalls of sharing traumatic stories online (harsh feedback being rare but impactful [85:10]).
• Opportunities to adapt the story into film or literature presented themselves, but JP declined, fearing loss of emotional integrity in translation.

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6. Healing, Happy Endings, and What Endures

• JP is now happily married with two children, living on an island, and surrounded by positive people—demonstrating recovery, growth, and resilience.
• Emma is a storyteller/writer; Claire is now a lawyer, involved in civically-minded work.
• Reflecting on how lives advance, wounds heal, but some lessons and scars remain: “I wish I could say that I still wouldn’t think twice before going to someone’s aid. But unfortunately, at least for now, I’m not sure that’s actually true…I still don’t trust people the same way that I used to. But I’m glad to say that I have made real progress and I have hope that maybe someday I’ll get there.” (44:38)

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Notable Quotes

• Kevin Allison [52:18]: “So it really did kind of transform the experience for me. The reaction was really positive and supportive and encouraging... it takes on a life of its own and actually some positive starts to come out of it.”
• JP Michael [43:45]: “My sense of integrity, my unwillingness to abandon someone who really needed my help, had been used as a weapon against me.”
• JP Michael [49:09]: “I had to kind of recreate the hoax that I was victim to so that I could then inflict it on all of the listeners.”
• JP Michael [82:33]: “You feel like you’re getting your hands dirty as, as a narrator because you have to, as I said, you’ve got to recreate all of that deception.”
• Kevin Allison [54:51]: “...the process of becoming kind of falling in love with someone and becoming so intimate with them…it’s. You make yourself vulnerable. You could end up doing all kinds of things.”

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Important Timestamps

• Meeting Claire & Relationship Begins: 04:14–07:41
• Claire’s Illness Emerges: 07:41–14:00
• Emma Enters, Abusive Dynamics: 15:00–22:00
• Break-in & Psychological Escalation: 22:00–26:00
• Heavy Metal Poisoning, Final Crisis: 27:30–32:00
• Hoax Revealed, Aftermath: 32:00–44:38
• Reflection and Processing (10 Years Later): 45:46–57:28
• Emma’s Perspective & Updates: 69:43–74:10
• Storytelling Craft and Narrative Choices: 76:33–79:32
• Resilience, Healing, and Moving On: 91:30–end

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Tone & Language

Conversational, vulnerable, and deeply analytical—true to RISK!’s “surprisingly uncensored” voice. Both Kevin and JP strike a balance between humor, gravitas, and self-deprecation. The reflection is honest, unflinching, and empathetic, allowing complex emotions like grief, regret, and eventual hope.

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Final Takeaways

"A Hard Landing, Revisited" stands as a testament to the harrowing reality that real-life psychological thrillers do sometimes unfold outside of fiction. It is also a moving exploration of the importance of therapy, storytelling, and community in healing from trauma. Most notably, it underscores the ways in which being deeply open and vulnerable can lead to both unparalleled pain and profound growth.

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For more on JP Michael: [jpmichael.carrd.co]
Share your thoughts or revisit past stories: #riskshow on social media, Facebook Risk Podcast Fans group, or email [e-mail]

Today's the day. Take a risk.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Hello, folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and today we are revisiting a story that first appeared on the show 10 years ago. A hard landing by JP Michael, one of the most talked about Risk stories ever. Ever. Now, a few weeks ago, I got on a call with JP and we had an amazing conversation about the story behind the story and what he's realized about all of it since then. It is incredible. So here it is, me and JP Michael revisiting A Hard Landing. Today we're revisiting a story by JP Michael that he first told on the podcast back in the summer of 2016, before the world imploded. And I have a very special guest with me, J.P. michael himself returning finally.

[B]

Hello, J.P. hi, Kevin. Great to see you again.

[A]

Yes, indeed. It's very surreal. We're both a bit older, a bit more battered by life, I would guess.

[B]

Perhaps a little bit. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Especially with small children in the mix.

[A]

Oh, my God. Okay, well, you and I are gonna listen to the story again after, I guess, 10 years. And because this story's so surprising, there's lots of twists and turns in it, I think it's best for newcomers to the podcast that we don't say anything until after we've listened. I should say, though, that there's mention of self harm and suicidal ideation in the story, but other than that, we'll take a quick break and when we're back, JP and I will revisit and review A Hard Landing.

[C]

Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure.

[A]

Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car.

[C]

Was she brave? She was tired mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required.

[B]

Did she have to find a dragon?

[C]

Nope.

[A]

She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually.

[B]

Was it scary?

[A]

Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be.

[C]

Did the car have a sunroof?

[A]

It did, actually.

[C]

Okay, good story. Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Carvana.

[A]

Delivery fees may apply. Focus features in Blumhouse Obsession When I have a crush on a guy no

[B]

one knows, Be careful.

[A]

I wish Nikki loved me more than anyone in the entire world. Who you wish for. Obsession is 96% fresh on rotten Tomatoes. I love you so, so, so.

[C]

Blood soaked Nightmare fuel, bro.

[B]

Cuckoo.

[A]

Split your foot on her.

[C]

You have been warned.

[A]

Obsession. Rated R. Under 17. Animated without parent only. Theaters May 15 with special engagements in Dolby. Did you ever hear about the selfie

[C]

that solved a murder or the jury that used a Ouija board to speak to a victim? If that made you pause, you need

[A]

to listen to Morning cup of Murder. I'm Karina B. Mr. Fur and every single day on Morning cup of Murder, I tell one chilling true crime story tied to that exact day in history.

[C]

With over 2,500 episodes to binge, you'll never run out of dark stories to start your morning with. Go listen to Morning cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe. This is a story about meeting somebody who completely changed my life. The story begins in January of 2013. I was 24 and had just moved to New York City for work. I barely knew anybody in the city and it quickly turned out that my new job was a bit of a bust.

[B]

When I moved over, I thought that

[C]

I was going to be leading the charge for my company into the North American markets. But then when I arrived, things were very different.

[B]

The guy I was there to work

[C]

for was actually being forced out of

[B]

the company and the work I was

[C]

supposed to be doing wasn't going to be happening. So I had no boss, no co workers. I actually ended up working from my apartment every day, reporting back to London and mainly staring at spreadsheets. So wasn't quite as exciting as I was hoping it would be and didn't have very many connections in the city as a result. So then when I met this girl, Claire, through online dating, it was absolutely fantastic. She was tall, blonde, a few years younger than me, but super smart. She was studying to be a lawyer and had been interning at the un. One of the first things I noticed about her was that she had this kind of look in her eye, like she could see right through that protective layer of BS that people tend to build up around themselves. So for better or for worse, you had no choice but to show yourself as you really were. One of the things that really made me start to appreciate her as a person was I was, you know, feeling a little bit down about the fact that things hadn't worked out the way I wanted to at work. But she was sort of a cheerleader for me. She was really driving me to look for alternative jobs. She was tapping her network to try and find people that had jobs that might have visas with them. And so she was really, really trying to help me out on that front. We would have these sort of long

[B]

and kind of deeply analytical intellectual conversations with each other. So I'd Never met anybody like Claire before, but when you would talk to

[C]

her, you could see how intently she was listening to the things that you were saying and she was really pulling them apart and analyzing them. And she would be very, very challenging in terms of the ideas that you were sharing.

[B]

And it meant that you could have

[C]

these conversations that would take you to these sort of weird and wonderful places that you wouldn't normally have gotten to just by yourself. So we had this very deep and stimulating intellectual connection that I thought was really quite special. Claire and I very quickly connected. And looking back, I think there are two key reasons for this. The first is that she seemed to have this genuine drive that I should try to change as a person. And I think that often that's something that can have a selfish motive behind it, that the person wants to change you into the person that they want you to be. But in Claire's case, it seemed like she genuinely wanted me to better myself so that I could get the things that I wanted to out of life. I think she saw in me a lot of potential that was untapped because I just lacked self belief. She would say, look, you're so smart, but you just don't even realize it. She was worried that I would set my sights too low in life. And so she was always pushing me to dream bigger and reach for the stars, I guess so. Claire was a really amazing and very important source of support for me when I was so far away from home. The second area where I felt this immediate bond was our shared sense of humour. So I'm very much a fan of that kind of comedy where you're laughing so hard that it actually hurts. And the pain that you're feeling isn't just physical. You're feeling a piece of it inside you, almost in your soul, because you're ashamed of the thing that you're laughing at. It's that kind of humour that almost feels like a guilty pleasure. So Claire and I would spend a lot of time trading absolutely disgusting jokes and horrifying insults back and forth, and we would just be dying with laughter.

[B]

Now, given that work was looking like

[C]

a dead end, I wasn't sure how long I'd be in the city for, so I wasn't necessarily on the lookout for a serious relationship. But all the same, I was really, really pleased to have found this connection. For the next few months, Claire and I spent a lot of time together, hanging out mainly in front of the tv. It didn't take very long at all for me to discover that having no Idea how basketball works is no obstacle to a game becoming an absolute matter of life and death, where you find yourself screaming at the tv. I also soon discovered that if we were lucky enough to be in front of a TV on a Saturday afternoon, then we might catch a solid three or four hours of a show called My Cat from Hell, hosted by a man who claimed to be called Jackson Galaxy. But what was important wasn't the unbelievably high caliber of the on screen entertainment. It was actually the conversation that was going on at the same time, which felt very open and direct and authentic, which was really in stark contrast to some of the relationships that I'd experienced up until that point in my life. But then Claire started to get sick. It started with stomach problems. She was having trouble keeping her food down. And this obviously was not at all pleasant for Clare. But it also happened to be an experience that I got to be part of as she lived in a tiny studio apartment with paper thin bathroom walls. And in fact, Claire showed up the next day with a book and she explained to me that this was an I'm sorry that you had to listen to me puking all night apology gift. And I was a little bit taken back by this because it was a really sweet gesture, but it seemed really unnecessary. And then she explained to me that as she had a Jewish mother, her sense of guilt was extremely well developed. So I stopped asking questions and of course accepted the gift early on. It didn't seem like there was a particular cause for alarm. We figured it was probably just a stomach bug that would work itself out in a day or two. Unfortunately, we were extremely wrong about this. It wasn't long before the excruciating abdominal pain started and then the visits to the emergency room. What followed was weeks and weeks of the doctors trying various diagnostic procedures. Claire became intimately acquainted with a wide variety of photographic equipment. And I can tell you from personal experience that that's really not pleasant at all. So she had the whole camera crew going up there. She was being poked and prodded like a lab rat. And they just didn't seem to be getting anywhere. It actually got to the point where there would be groups of doctors and medical students coming into Gorgita because she was the latest puzzle that nobody could solve. It really started to feel like it was some kind of game to them. They would throw out these theories, you know, potential diagnoses, and we would get our hopes up that finally they might have figured this thing out. And then of course, once they checked into it, they would Realize that actually they were way off. So we were riding this roller coaster where again and again we would see light at the end of the tunnel, and then our hopes would just be crushed. Eventually it got to the point where the doctors said, look, the best idea we can come up with is to prescribe this really powerful antibiotic to you. I think it was called xifaxin. And they said, this will clean out all of the bacteria in your system. And so if there's anything bad in there, we'll get it and we'll reset everything. So it really seemed like they had no idea if it was really going to work, but we didn't really have a lot of options. And so Claire started to take the medicine. And at first, absolutely nothing happened. But then slowly but surely, the pain began to subside. And then Claire was vomiting a little bit less. It seemed like finally something was working and Claire might actually be okay. The diagnostic magical mystery tour had finally reached its end. A few days later, Claire tells me that the doctors had been running some follow up tests and they'd seen something else, something new, and that thing was evidence of cancer. Claire's immediate reaction to discovering this was that the best course of action would be to run home and devour the entire contents of her medicine cabinet. Fortunately, I was able to talk her down as far as going out and getting absolutely outrageously drunk once we'd recovered from the hangover from hell. Unfortunately, the bad news just kept coming. The doctors still didn't know what was wrong exactly. What they did know was that if the symptoms continued to progress at the same rate and they couldn't diagnose and treat Claire, then it was very unlikely that she would live to see her 22nd birthday. So Claire and I had many long emotional conversations about what the best thing to do was in light of the possibility that may, maybe she didn't have that much time left. I remember during those conversations her saying, look, I don't want to become one of these people who goes on YouTube and video logs about it. I don't want to write a blog about this. I just wish this wasn't happening. And I just want to get on with my life for as long as I can. And after that, it wasn't that much longer before the neurological symptoms started. She began to have seizures where her whole body would stiff and then she would shake and the eyes would roll back in her head. She began to have irrational behavior and she would get aggressive. And then ultimately it progressed to the stage where she was having suicidal ideation. As well, Claire told me on several occasions that she'd actually flushed her medication down the toilets because she was worried about what she might do if it was in the apartment. There were lots of times where I had to take Claire down to the emergency room. One that really sticks in my mind was the time that I was at her place and she started feeling absolutely awful. And so we decided we were going to take her down to the ER. As we got out onto 46th street, which is a pretty crowded street in midtown Manhattan, she began to projectile vomit all over the place. It was like a fountain. And we had these horrified onlookers looking at this poor girl who was white as a sheet, spraying puke everywhere, like something out of the Exorcist. We had people who were sort of dodging it whilst trying to come over and help us and say, oh, my God, do you need an ambulance? And we said, no, but if you can get us into a cab, that would be amazing. Claire and I spent a lot of time in the hospital together. She was always deeply frustrated with the fact that they still hadn't yet managed to figure out what was wrong with her. And so she would often be wanting to leave and I'd be doing my best to persuade her that she needed to stay so that. That we could really get to the bottom of things. One of the things that really amazed me about Claire's situation was the lack of support that she seemed to have from her friends and family. Claire's father was actually in his 80s and was recovering from open heart surgery. And so her parents seemed to be rather preoccupied with that and just weren't around early on. I remember one of her friends showing up whilst I was in the ward and she just looked like she really didn't want to be there, like it was a massive inconvenience for her. So I really took it upon myself to step in there and try my best to give Claire the support that she so desperately needed. It was the least that I could do, given how helpful that she tried to be to me. And I still valued her friendship and companionship, even if the circumstances weren't ideal. The whole time that I was doing my best to look after her, she was still doing her best to try and look after me too. And I really appreciated that Claire just wasn't the type of person that was going to let cancer stand in her way when she felt that there was a job that desperately needed to be done. Throughout all of this, I was trying so hard to maintain a British stiff upper lip in the hope that Claire wouldn't pick up on the fact that I was actually absolutely terrified. This became practically impossible by the time we were dealing with surgeries, code blues and then stays in the icu. The last thing that Claire needed in the situation was for me to go to pieces. I also didn't want her realizing that the person she used to be was rapidly disappearing. But the truth was that I was being crushed both by the fear of losing somebody so horribly, but also by the pressure of being a primary carer in a society that I wasn't even close to understanding. Having grown up under the socialistic tyranny of universal healthcare in Europe, where they deny you the basic freedom to pay extortionate amounts of money for basic healthcare, the US system just isn't making any sense to me. I'm trying really hard to help Claire navigate her treatment, but I always have in the back of my head this thought that I'm fucking everything up and that ultimately I'm going to fail to avert what was feeling increasingly inevitable in the situation. Back at the very start, I said that this was a story about somebody who completely changed my life. Well, actually it's a story about two people and it's time for us to meet the second. Emma was Claire's best friend. They'd gone to school together back in Boston. The first time I met Emma was in the ward of NYU Hospital. She'd come down to visit Claire for the weekend, but that Saturday, as we often did, we'd ended up at the er, so she came to meet us down at the hospital. Emma was a very short, curvy dark haired girl who was very charming and bubbly. And I remember that when she arrived she practically bounded into the room. She had with her this assortment of food and drink and other supplies, supplies that she brought along for Claire. And I remember thinking to myself, thank God, finally the cavalry's here. But it's important to be aware of the fact that there was another side to Emma. She'd had a difficult past. As a teenager, she'd had issues with her mental health and then drug addiction. And that eventually led to her being kicked out by her family. She then turned to the prostitution business to support herself and finance her college degree. But more recently she had moved on from that and was doing much better on all fronts. But the key thing is that during that very dark period in Emma's life where even her own family wasn't there for her, Claire had been there and she'd been a rock that she could rely on. And the thing about Claire's illness was that it meant that she couldn't continue to play that role in Emma's life. She couldn't offer that same level of support that she'd become very much dependence on. And Emma did not handle this at all well. In fact, she completely and utterly lost it.

[B]

Claire showed me some of the messages

[C]

that Emma was sending, and it was clear that she was feeling a very intense sense of betrayal and abandonment. She was also saying unpleasant things, like she was ashamed of Claire and the way she was behaving and what a poor friend she was. This back and forth was continuing for a period of weeks, I think. And Claire was telling me that, yeah, it was getting worse. Things were getting more aggressive and out of control over time. Eventually, Emma's aggression progressed beyond just words. On another Saturday afternoon spent in the er, I'm standing next to Claire's bed, and I notice that there's something funny about her wrist. And I reach out and I grab her arm so that I can pull it closer and get a better look. And she's trying to squirm away so that I can't see, but I do. And what is there is a series of red lines carved into the flesh of her wrist. And I asked her what happened, where did this come from? And she told me. And she said she'd been at her apartment and Emma had shown up, and she had her own key to the place she could let herself in. And when she arrived, she was in a total rage. Maybe she was on drugs or something like that, but she got in there and she just unloaded this horrific tirade of abuse on her. She was dredging up any painful personal stuff that she could from the past that she confided in Emma about and turning anything she could into a weapon to basically hurt Claire as much as she could. Eventually, it got to the point where she was just standing over Claire, who was in tears, and telling her that she was a completely worthless human being, a terrible friend, and she just had no value as a person. And then she said, you know what? You should just kill yourself. You should do the world a favor. And at this point, she reached over to the kitchen counter and pulled a knife from the block. And then she slashed Claire's wrist, handed her the blade, and told her to finish the job. And then Emma left. Claire was sat alone on the floor of her apartment in cascades of tears, slashing her own wrist. Eventually, she stopped and she got to her hospital. And fortunately, the cuts weren't too bad. As she was telling me that I could just feel the eyes bulging in my head and probably my jaw dropping as well. I was just really struggling to find some words that might offer a degree of comfort to Claire. And I remember saying that whilst Emma was Claire's friend, she should really not listen to the things that she'd been saying. She was clearly profoundly troubled and I told her that she should do her best not to let this distract her from getting better. Claire told me that she'd already demanded that the key was returned and I told her that that wasn't going to be enough. She needed to get the locks changed. Even if she got the key back, how was she going to know that Emma hadn't made a copy? A few days later, I'm sat working in my apartment and the phone ring. It's Claire. She says, look, I don't want to freak you out, but I just got back from the police station, so of course I immediately freak out internally. But then I ask her, okay, what's going on? She tells me that she got the key back, but it was in an envelope full of razor blades. She says that Emma's completely lost it and she's got no idea what she might do next. The police were going to speak to her that afternoon and I asked her, did you get your locks changed yet? She says no, she hasn't. And so I tell her to leave the apartment and come and stay with me until she does. Later that evening, Claire and I are hanging out at my place and her phone rings. When she picks up, she very quickly goes as white as a sheet. It's the staff at her building and they're reporting that there's been a break in at her place. A neighbour had heard a lot of noise coming from her apartment and had phoned down to the front desk. When the doorstaff had gone upstairs to investigate, they had discovered that the entire place had been ransacked. We had absolutely no idea where Emma or any of her friends might be. So we decided the safest thing to do would be to wait until morning to go and inspect the damage. Now, I'm an inherently cautious kind of guy and I thought it was important that we could defend ourselves on the off chance that somebody came looking for Claire at my place. So I conducted an extremely thorough search of the entire apartment and quickly arrived at the conclusion that the most deadly item in my possession was. Was a frying pan. And so we slept with that next to the bed that night. In the morning I offered to call out of work so that I could accompany Claire to the apartment, but she didn't want me to miss any more work on her account. And she said it would be fine, as the cops and the building staff would be there with her. So she went there alone. When she arrived, she was greeted by a scene of total devastation. Just about everything in the apartment that could be knifed or smashed had been, and there was garbage strewn everywhere. This included, among other things, used tampons, dead rodents, and the piece de resistance, human feces. She sent me a few choice pictures and it really wasn't a pretty scene at all. And so Claire spent a lot of time there over the next few days, cleaning the place up with the help of her building staff. Eventually it would get to the point where the only evidence remaining that there was ever a break in was where the really deep scratches that had been carved into the floorboards of the apartment. But Emma was still out there, and her campaign of harassment was continuing, with increasingly threatening messages now being sent to Claire from a burner phone. And on more than one occasion, Claire told me that she suspected that people had been in the apartment again. At this stage, I really had no idea what to think anymore. And things were really beginning to take their toll. Between dealing with work and looking after Claire, I was probably getting less than 4 hours sleep most nights. And I was always on edge that the phone was about to ring and bring even more bad news. The stress was beginning to affect me physically. My hair was going grey and it was thinning at the temples. I just couldn't fathom the extent to which the universe seemed to be willing to shit on one person. Contracting a rare illness at a young age is very unlucky, but it does happen. And having a friend with a shady past flip out and come after you is also extremely unlucky. But again, it happens to some people. But having both of those things happen to you at the same time, it's like being struck by lightning and eaten by a shark at the same time. Did stuff like that really happen to people? Well, what if the two horrendously unlucky things that Claire was going through weren't a coincidence? What if they were actually linked to each other? Just as I was thinking that the situation couldn't possibly spin any further out of control, I received what was probably the most shocking phone call of my entire life. It was Claire. She'd been at the apartment with the cops who'd come over to do some follow up on the break in. One of the cops had noticed something. There were three bottles of soda out on the kitchen counter. And the seals were missing on all of the bottles, even though they were full. They began to check around, and sure enough, the seals were missing on just about every container in the apartment. The police took some of the containers away for testing, and just about everything in Claire's apartment Was contaminated with heavy metals. When I heard this, I jumped onto google and I searched for heavy metal poisoning. Lo and behold, Claire's symptoms appeared on the screen in front of me. The second thing I searched for was heavy metal poisoning and cancer. And hits came up on the screen. Suddenly it started to make sick, twisted sense. While it had never really added up for Emma to go after Claire so aggressively after she contracted such a serious illness, if you reversed the order of those two events, Then a completely different picture began to emerge. What if Emma had actually relapsed and turned on Claire much earlier than anybody had realized? What if she was the reason that Claire was sick? What if she'd actually been poisoning her? And then I thought back to that time at the hospital when Emma showed up with that ridiculous amount of food and drink with her. Finally, we had the right diagnosis. We got the contaminated items out of Claire's apartment, and she could begin treatments. But unfortunately, a lot of the damage that heavy metals can cause to the human body Isn't actually reversible. Also, while the police could bring in Emma for questioning, they didn't have enough evidence to actually charge her. This was ultimately too much for Claire to take. One afternoon, my phone buzzed, and it was a text message from Claire. And it said, I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. And I immediately tried to call her, and eventually I got through. The first thing I heard was the sound of the wind blowing, Followed by absolutely inconsolable sobbing. She's not making an awful lot of sense. And she keeps saying the same things over and over again. I can't keep doing this. It's over. She killed me. She fucking killed me. I managed to calm her down enough to ask a question. Where are you? Eventually, I get a response. She's on the edge of the Queensborough bridge. This was a conversation that I was not at all prepared to handle. I'd never had to do anything approaching talking somebody down from the edge before, and fortunately, I haven't had to since. But I knew that if I didn't figure this out fast, then something awful was about to happen. So I just kept her talking. I kept asking if we can meet up and talk about it. And while I have my phone in my left hand, I'm using my right hand to email Claire's mother to ask her to call her immediately. And then I email my friend Dan and ask him to call 911 and let them know that there's somebody threatening to jump off the Queensborough Bridge. After what was probably the longest couple of minutes of my life, Claire stops mid sentence and tells me that I'm gonna have to hold on. Somebody's calling her. It's her mother. After probably less than a minute, she comes back on the line and she is furious.

[B]

You called my mom?

[C]

You don't fucking talk to her. I tell her that I'm sorry, but I just didn't know what else to do. I again plead for her to get off the bridge and come and talk about it and warn her that if she doesn't, then we're going to have to call the police. She really doesn't want the cops involved. So she finally agrees that she's going to come down. So I drop everything with work and rush to Claire's apartment to meet her. When I get there, she looks me dead in the eye and says, I wish I'd done it. This story ends after one more day and one last phone call. It was Claire and she's in a complete panic. She says, I took some pills from an old bottle and I've started feeling really awful and it's getting worse. I'm really worried that maybe Emma slipped something in there. We hightail it to Lennox Hill ER and this time we have my friend Dan along for the ride and also Claire's friend Ruth, who had just a few days earlier moved back to New York. She seemed to be absolutely devastated by what was happening to Claire. When we arrive at Lenox Hill emergency room, I tell the staff on the front desk that we think that Claire may have ingested poison. And I quickly run through the whole story with Emma. The poor lady on the front desk totally freaks out and goes into overdrive to get Claire admitted. But while that's going on, the other nurse says to me out of earshot of everybody else, I'm really sorry, but I have to ask you this, is there any mental health history? And I'm a little bit taken back by this, but I reply that no, there isn't, as far as I'm aware. Once we get inside the er, what seems to be the most senior doctor on duty comes to talk to us. We go through the whole story about the poisoning, the harassment and the treatment that Claire has been receiving. She asks us for the names of the doctors and detectives who've been involved so that she can speak to them and get a better idea of what we're dealing with. Claire provides us information and then the doctor goes off to make phone calls. We're then asked to step out while the nurses get to work. After maybe about 10 minutes, that same doctor comes back and she silently motions for the three of us to move away from the curtained area. Once we're out of earshot, she tells us that she went and made the phone calls and the people on the other end of the phone didn't know what she was talking about. None of the individuals that Claire had named actually existed. And then she asks us if anybody has actually seen any cops. And I explained that there were break ins and I saw the damage, but then she said, yeah, but did you actually talk to a cop after that? Before I can reply, we're interrupted. Claire shouts from behind us, I didn't authorize any of this. You shouldn't be talking about this. It's an active investigation and all of this is confidential. Look, I want to leave.

[B]

I'm going to refuse treatment.

[C]

She's up out of her bed and she's now standing in the middle of the reward in her gown. The doctor replies, I'm sorry, but you can't leave. You need to get back into bed. Claire challenges her, you don't have any legal basis to keep me here. I'm going to leave. As the words come out of her mouth, I'm suddenly aware that there's movement in my peripheral vision. Nurses and security are now silently sweeping in to surround Claire. Then the doctor says, if we think there's something wrong with you that might endanger you or others, then we can't let you leave. You need to get back into bed because if you try to leave, we're going to have to inject you with something that's going to make you feel all woozy and then handcuff you. But that will make it much harder for us to figure this all out. Eventually, the staff offer to move Claire to her private room to make her feel more comfortable. And after a while she agrees. When we get into this room, we have company. There's a lady sat in the corner with a clipboard on her lap and she's writing things down on it every once in a while. And from where I'm standing next to Claire's bed, I can read upside down that at the top of this clipboard is written suspected paranoid delusions. I really don't know what to think at this stage. But I do know that I have to try and give Claire a shot at avoiding the psych ward. So I ask if I can have a moment alone with Claire, and the hospital employee goes and stands outside the door, guarding it. On the off chance that I was planning an impromptu jailbreak. I tell Claire that she needs to give the doctors some more information, a better explanation of what's been going on, because currently the story isn't checking out and they think that she's mentally ill. But she's quite firm that there's nothing more to share, and she says that the phone calls probably didn't check out because everything relating to the case against Emma is extremely confidential. After my conversation with Claire, I'm spending a lot of time walking backwards and forwards to the water cooler because it provides a few minutes in which I can talk to the others to try and figure out what the hell is going on. When we get back from probably the third trip in 20 minutes, there is a hospital administrator stood in Claire's room, and she asks us, are any of you related to the patients? We tell her, no, we're just her friends. And she says, in that case, I'm going to have to ask you all to leave. And we get kicked out into the waiting room. We're not really sure what to do at this point. Dan goes outside to make some calls because there's no cell phone signal inside. And I was just left with Ruth, who I didn't really know, but I was just talking to her about everything that was going on. I remember I was saying, this has been such a crazy week. I can't even begin to make sense of what's happening. It was only a few days ago that Claire was calling me and saying that she was stuck in ICU and there were no family members who could get to her, and she was terrified that she wasn't going to get out again. As I was saying this, Ruth started to look confused. And then she said to me, wait, which night was that? And I thought for a second and said, I think that was on Thursday nights. The second that these words left my lips, I'd never seen all of the blood drain from somebody's face so quickly. She just said, but I was at her apartment on Thursday. We were in front of the TV smoking pot and eating pizza. And in that moment, this single little thread was cut loose. And I knew that if I started to pull on this, then an entire web was about to unravel. I remember I just leapt out of my seat without saying anything to Ruth and ran straight out to the sidewalk because I needed to get cell phone signal and I needed to phone Claire's mum. I was hyperventilating and shaking and I remember that I was struggling to dial the number because my fingers were shaking so much. So when I got through, I immediately began bombarding this poor woman with questions. But I really, really needed answers. I started checking facts one by one, and with very few exceptions, they don't check out at all. Claire's mother knew about the break in, but had only learned about it a few days before. She'd actually texted me earlier that week to check in because she hadn't heard from Claire in a while. And in my response, I alluded to some of the things that had been going on. It was only after this that Claire had actually mentioned anything to her. The doctors had been in contact with Claire's mother that day, so she was very aware that there was something really strange going on. But crucially, she had absolutely no knowledge of the cancer diagnosis, the poisoning or any of the treatment and surgeries. And this was unbelievably confusing because I'd received text messages sent from her phone that mentioned many of those things. There were still so many unanswered questions, but the conversation did confirm two things. Claire wasn't imagining this. She was faking and I was the intended audience of her hoax. Once I was there, not, I was walking back inside to go and talk to the doctor and I received a text message from Claire. It said, don't worry, the police are here now and it's all getting sorted out. You're going to be let back in soon. I get there to talk to the doctor and say, I just received this message and I'm pretty sure that it's not true. And she told me, no, it wasn't. There were no police. Then I said, well, look, for what it's worth, I don't think she's delusional. I think this is all a massive hoax that she's been using to manipulate. And the doctor thanked me for sharing the information, but said it was now out of her hands. Claire was going to be held for the next three days and evaluated by the psychiatric team. So I walked back outside and Ruth and Dan asked me, what are we going to do now? And it didn't take us very long to realise that there was only one sensible option at a time like this. Go to a bar and try very hard to drink the place dry. As we're in the cab going down Lexington Avenue My phone rings. It's Claire. She's telling me the same story that was in the text message. I cut across her and say, look, we've already left the hospital. We know exactly what's going on and if you want to get out, you're going to have to start telling the truth. And then I hung up and switched off the phone. Over the next few days, I spent a lot of time, including many of the hours when I should have been sleeping, picking apart the last three months. What I was able to figure out made my blood run cold. Claire had most likely been deliberately overdosing on her anxiety medication in order to poison herself and fake symptoms more disturbing than that, she'd been cutting herself in order to fake surgical scars. Early on, I would often ask why her parents weren't more involved. Then she came back from a visit home sporting a huge black eye, which, in retrospect, I guess, was probably just makeup. But in any case, it was more than sufficient to stop me from asking that question anymore. On the occasions that her mother was in the city visiting, she would steal her mother's phone and use it to send fake health updates to me, claiming that treatment or surgery was underway. And as for the appointments that I collected her from, she was probably just going down to the hospital and sitting in their lobby waiting for me. Along the way, she'd acted out dozens of phone conversations with cops and doctors, with nobody at the other end of the line. And what about Emma's campaign of harassment? Well, that was relatively simple to fake. Claire simply entered her own phone number into her phonebook and labelled it as being Emma. She could then send threats to herself and just delete the outbound messages to be left with an unbroken stream of harassment that looked like it was coming from Emma. And as for the break in, Claire faked the phone call from the doorman, went home, trashed the place just enough for a decent photoshoot, and then sent me the pictures. A question that really needs to be answered is what was the deal with Emma? Well, firstly, all of that stuff about her difficult past, that is, as far as I'm aware, actually true. So when we were really worried about how far things might escalate and what. What might possibly happen to Claire, we actually went looking around online and we managed to find an old online advert from when she was a call girl, for example. I did think about contacting Emma and trying to understand what had happened, but I was worried that maybe that might be opening a can of worms and inviting more drama that I really just didn't want to deal with. As for all the other stuff, well, I don't know for sure, but my best guess is that the two of them did fall out with other. Each. Each other. But I think the real reason for that was that Emma knew about Claire's hoax, and she didn't agree with it at all. Claire then used the relapse as a cover story that also conveniently discredited Emma in case she tried to intervene. She then developed this story as a secondary means of keeping me under pressure and under control. She was just smart enough to scour WebMD until she found a diagnosis that connected the two parallel threads of her lie and shored the whole story up. Probably the most important question of all is, why did Claire even do any of this? Well, back at the beginning of the story, I mentioned that I wasn't really looking for a serious relationship because I didn't know if I'd be in the country for long. And I was transparent about this with Claire. Her response was to tell me that this was okay, and she understood that I wasn't really in a position to commit to something. And then she spent the next three months pretending to be dying. While Claire was in the psych ward, she called me several times. She was desperately trying to find a way to salvage her hoax and to lie her way out of the corner that she was now backed into. I debunked everything that she was telling me, but she would not come clean. She just would not stop lying. Eventually, I decided that enough was enough. I wasn't taking any more of this, and I blocked my numbers that she was calling from. I then focused my attention on Claire's parents. I tried to explain everything that had gone on in as much detail as possible in the hope that they would pass this information on to the doctors who might find it diagnostically useful. I later learned from Ruth that they had, in fact, taken Claire out of hospital as quickly as they could. They were worried that Claire's friends would ostracize her, so they were downplaying the whole incident and also actively trying to discredit me. When I heard this, it was the last straw. I cut all contact, and I never saw Claire or any of her family again. To this day, I have no idea if she got the help that she needed or if anybody else has fallen victim to what I was put through. In the aftermath. I was initially just glad that things didn't go any further. Fortunately, I never came home to find a bunny boiling on the stove, which I was particularly thankful for given that I didn't own a pet rabbit, I thought I had my life back. But then I quickly realized that I had changed. I'd just grown accustomed to living in a state of constant crisis, always dealing with matters of life, death. Through that, I had somehow forgotten how to deal with the mundanity of regular life. I remember going for a walk in Central park on this really beautiful day. Everybody was out enjoying the sunshine, and I just felt like an outsider because participating in a scene like this had just become an alien concept to me. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I had literally forgotten how to enjoy a walk in the park because I just spent three months living in a universe where there was just no space for anything like that. I almost wondered if this was what it was like to get out of prison, for example, where you are confronted with a reality that just no longer makes the kind of intuitive and natural sense that it once did, and you're forced to actually relearn everything from scratch. Claire and I had so many long and emotional conversations about mortality, and I had prayed with all of my might for her to be okay. And I am not religious in the slightest. Towards the end, I was even trying to work out what her funeral might be like. What was I going to say? And how was I going to handle being there with all of these people who'd failed to support her as she'd stared death in the face? I spent a lot of time, time grappling with the notion that my sense of integrity, my unwillingness to abandon someone who really needed my help had been used as a weapon against me. When your virtues become the rope that is used to hang you with, it's so tough because your instinct for self preservation kicks in and it starts telling you that they're not virtues, they're weaknesses. And I wish I could say that I still wouldn't think twice, twice before going to someone's aid. But unfortunately, at least for now, I'm not sure that's actually true. I still don't trust people the same way that I used to. But I'm glad to say that I have made real progress and I have hope that maybe someday I'll get there. I've often wondered if I should have seen through the hoax in spite of Claire's absolutely Oscar worthy performance. There were definitely times when things weren't adding up and I knew in my gut that something wasn't quite right. But I never even came close to suspecting the full extent of what was actually going on. It just never occurred to me that someone in my life could be capable of such a thing because it was so far outside of my own frame of reference on what constitutes reasonable behaviour. So I guess the moral of the story, if there is one, is that even if you wouldn't dream of doing something in a million years, be aware that someone else still might. And they could very well be standing right in front of you.

[A]

Wow, that was really something to hear all these years later, especially for me, now that I'm a bit older and wiser about some things. How was it for you?

[B]

I'd say almost like listening to a different person telling the story. It's like there's so much distance now between the version of myself in 2016 and who I was back in 2013

[C]

when this happened, which is 13 years ago. And I guess, you know, 10 years

[B]

since I told it and, you know, things have shifted. I also love the sound design. It makes it sound so cinematic.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then also there's a couple of different takes in there. And the one that we did face to face, I was so nervous that I could barely string a sentence together. I could barely breathe. So it was funny to hear that again as well.

[A]

Did we record one where we were literally in the same room with one another?

[B]

No, we did it over zoom. I was in a tiny box room in my office at the company I worked at. But then there's bits of it which I spent weeks or months just re recording every single line until I felt it was perfect because I was such a. Like a perfectionist about everything. And I kind of still am, but maybe less so these days.

[A]

Well, we were too, because we were really quizzing you. You know what I mean? Because it's such a detailed. We were like. I mean, it was really like working on a screenplay for a sort of psychological thriller where you have to be like asking all these questions because, you know, there's so much mind. Mind fucking going on in the story that. That we too were pretty rough on you, constantly quizzing you. I remember that. All right, and we have to take a break and then I will return to quizzing and grilling you only now in 2026.

[B]

I'll brace myself.

[A]

Hey, folks, I want to remind you it would be impossible to bring you stories like these without your support. You can join our [e-mail] risk or send a one time donation to patreon paypal me riskshow. From sauce to dust to nuggets, it's Taco Bell's new Diablo dusted crispy chicken Nuggets. Are they mild? If they were mild, they'd have to change the name to Little Rascal Nuggets or Minor Nuisance Nuggets. Definitely Diablo new Diablo Dusted Crispy Chicken Nuggets. A brand new classic only a Taco bell at participating U.S. taco Bell locations for a limited time and while supplies last, the right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. @blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure right now. Get up to 45% off site wide, plus get a free professional measure. @blinds.com rules and restrictions apply. So did you pin that thought that you were just about to ask me?

[B]

Yeah, I guess it's kind of having a slightly different perspective on the whole thing, but it's like I had to kind of recreate the hoax that I was victim to so that I could then inflict it on all of the listeners. So it was very, very weird to be recreating that. And it's kind of fun that we can kind of talk about it now where I'm not kind of doing this kind of weird kind of tightrope walk, tap dance thing where I'm trying to misdirect and set up all of the twists and all the threads and lay out that puzzle that we're going to reveal at the end, you know?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Like a lot of people when they come to work on stories for the show, they don't quite get that you, the storyteller, should stay in the perspective that they were in when the events were happening. That can be very hard for people. People love to generalize and summarize and spoil things all the time. You know, I was just working on a story the other day with someone who, you know, she's. The story is all about this. Well, this very mysterious and strange person she's dating.

[C]

And.

[A]

And she starts the whole thing by saying, well, my husband, here's how we first met. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Start with thinking he was a strange and mysterious person. It's kind of the opposite of eor story. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that. Like, listening back to it now you can talk about it from the perspective of well, you were also probably dealing with just a bit of like, PTSD. How long was it from? So it was 2013 when it all happened and it was 2016 when you were sharing it.

[C]

Yeah. So it was kind of a three year gap.

[B]

And yeah, I. It's crazy. I didn't get any kind of therapy or support or anything until five years ago. I did like, some therapy and that was, that was very, very helpful. And I think that might have put me in a different place coming into that particular experience if I'd done that work. But, you know, you don't get to send the clock back and, and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Just sort of thinking back to it. Yeah, I think I was pretty much shell shocked. Like the whole story was like always living in the back of my mind. I think it was living in my nervous system as well. And I was kind of that person that would. You'd end up talking to at a party and I'd end up kind of going, you know, after a few drinks, like this thing happened to me and, you know, it would just be coming out and I wouldn't be able to relay really what had happened because it was so crazy and so complicated as well. So I think risk was. Was really great because it enabled me to kind of organize all of it and then kind of put it in a container.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I felt like I actually managed to recreate at least some of. Of what that whole journey was like. Um, yeah, And I found that after doing the podcast, I didn't need to. To keep telling it. I didn't need to keep thinking about it, I didn't need to keep replaying it.

[A]

That's incredible.

[B]

And if anybody was. Was interested, you know, I could always just say, hey, you can, you can go and listen to the story here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it really did kind of transform the experience for me. The kind of. The reaction was like really positive and supportive and encouraging. And that kind of again, added this extra layer of like taking something which was quite, you know, traumatic, and then it kind of takes on a life of his own and actually some positive starts to come out of it. I think you even had maybe a couple of people that either wrote into you or maybe commented on Facebook that said that it had prompted them to take a closer look at their relationships and they'd been able to get out of similar situations because of that. So. So it was amazing that it prompted that for some people and it really benefited them.

[A]

That's incredible. Yeah, this is a perfect. I was just talking the other Day about how, like, child sexual abuse is one of those issues that when I started Risk, I was so ignorant about compared to now that I've heard a lot of Risk stories about it. And this kind of falls into this category of. We just recently did an episode about Munchausen's by Proxy, a woman who is, like, basically slowly killing her children and deliberately. And so there's all this, like, mind fuckery that she's doing with her family and all. And I think that, yeah, like, telling these kinds of stories are really important because you get into the nitty gritty of it and you see how, you know, like, any romantic relationship is rather hard to express what it's like to people who are not in the relationship, because every relationship is unique and there's just a intimacy there that's hard to describe and all that sort of thing. And so, yeah, like, the process of becoming kind of falling in love with someone and becoming so intimate with them, it's. You make yourself vulnerable. You could end up doing all kinds of things. A lot of people end up in insane in situations because of falling in love with someone and things going haywire. So the fact that you were able to kind of go step by step and show us how it happened, I think was really profound. And I think that really is helpful to people to have a deeper understanding of these sorts of things.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's a kind of a funny one because you kind of look back at

[C]

the end and you kind of go,

[B]

well, can you really kind of legislate for encountering this type of person? Can you really protect yourself? And, you know, I think you mentioned, like, vulnerability, and it's like you'd have to completely close yourself off from the

[C]

world

[B]

because, you know, it's been 13 years since then, and I've not encountered anybody even close to, you know, that level of, I don't know what, like, unusualness and just sort of, I guess, abusiveness in the way that they kind of relate to the people in their lives. So, yeah. And, like, at the end of that, I was very much like, I have issues with trust. I don't know how I'm gonna manage. And to be honest, since then, I've met so many completely, completely lovely, genuine, honest people. And I'm just pleased that. I think. I think Risk helped me on that healing journey where gradually I was able to kind of open myself back up to that and not just sit in that space where, you know, you feel like the world or the universe, your whole worldview becomes more like oh, this is a malevolent place that you're living in. Actually, you know, I.

[A]

Absolutely. I really. I'm a big, big believer that you can't look at past experience and you can't stop taking risks because you got burnt. You know what I mean? I always think of that monologue from Moonstruck where Cher is talking about how painful love is with Nicolas Cage and he kind of yells at her. He's like, yeah, if you're going to experience love, you have to be willing to. To get up. It's painful. And I'm a big believer in that. You know, like. Like there are risks that come with things. So you can't get burnt once and just assume it's always going to be that way. But at the same time, having just moved to Bangkok six months ago and not really having deep, long friendships here, not having a partner, not having much money, you know, just all of these. I've never felt more vulnerable and more out on a ledge with my life than I have been in these past six months. And so re. Listening to your story. I was like, oh, you. How old were you when this story takes place?

[B]

I think I was 24. I turned 25 during kind of the. I think it's six or seven months

[C]

that the whole thing spans.

[A]

Yeah. So super young in a city where you don't know people that expat, experience, people don't understand that there's a particular kind of loneliness, a particular kind of, oh, my God, I'm on the other side of the world. Am I going to fit in here? Am I going to find my people? Where do I belong? And then you, like me in the story, have to do most of your work at home. So it's. You're kind of stuck in a little box and have a hard time meeting people because of that. So you were just particularly vulnerable at that point in the story. And I think that some people who have this sort of manipulative, whatever it is in their psychology pick up on that. They're like, oh, that guy is in a vulnerable place in his life right now.

[B]

Yeah, it kind of. Well, I think that's the thing is, like, in the front portion, we're kind of replaying certain parts of the relationship. And, you know, you can kind of view them in a. In kind of a positive face value way, or you can replay it and go, actually, this is somebody where the

[C]

wheels are turning and they're.

[B]

They're pulling people apart and they're working out how to push their buttons and how to Manipulate. And it can be quite chilling when

[C]

you look at it through that lens.

[B]

I think there is kind of a contrast for me, which was, I guess you've moved from spending a long time living in the States, New York, having a whole community there, and now you're out on the other side of the world. And for me it's like I never really felt at home in the UK and this was kind of my opportunity to go out and kind of do my own thing and have a new start. And to be honest, I think it's preposterous that I even ended up there in the first place, given that the company ended up not knowing what to do with me once they'd sent me there and they didn't have a plan to look after. You know, they sent a couple of like 20 year olds over to New York City and then didn't keep an eye on them, basically. What could go wrong? So anyway, I have this like wonderful opportunity and obviously everybody grows up seeing New York all over TV and all over the movies and they think it's going to be just like being in Friends. And you have this sort of almost like you have a parasocial relationship with the city of New York and then, you know, kind of you turn up and yeah, it can cheer you up and spit you out really quickly, but just to kind of have the opportunity, that new start and then I'd say within a couple of months I've encountered this person that's then going to totally derail, you know, my life for quite some time. Yeah, so, yeah, it's a, it's a really strange thing. But I guess the other thing is that you kind of get the perspective with time about how all of these things sort of fit together. And I always find that whenever something terrible has happened to you and somebody goes, oh, everything happens for a reason, you just want to punch that person in the face. But then with a bit more experience, you kind of see the, kind of the, the causal relationships between things. I want to see if I can lay this out because this is a slightly complicated one, but it kind of

[C]

shows how these things sort of fit together.

[B]

But so my, my now wife, when she was 21, she was traveling in Thailand actually, and she encountered a girl in Pai, which is like this cool sort of hippie village up in the north, and bumped into this girl from New York called Jess and they really hit it off, had an amazing time together for a few weeks. But this is like pre social media, so you just sort of part ways and that's it. You don't really stay in touch. And it turned out that this girl Jess was my next door neighbor and good friend in New York City. She winds up being. Being in one of the photographs on my dating profile. And it's actually the same site where I met Claire from the story. And my now wife spots this girl and just says, hey, is this. Is that Jess that I remember from Thailand eight years ago? And it was the same person. And for that reason, we ended up, you know, going out for a drink and meeting. And then here's the thing. She said, she said, I used to be a professional writer, and this was as I was working on the. The podcast. So I literally kind of told her the whole thing on our second dates. And. Yeah, and it was. It was crazy because she kind of sat there and you could see her really thinking about it, and she was like, interesting. And she's like, wait a minute, I think you probably need a hug. Do you need a hug?

[A]

Let's.

[B]

I'm gonna give you a hug. And then she was like, whoa, that. That sounds like a screenplay. It's like Fight Club or one of those things. And we were just chatting about it this morning and, you know, she said, well, when I'd sort of alluded to the fact that I had this sort of crazy experience, she sort of assumed that I'd been like, kidnapped at gunpoint or like handcuffed to a radiator or been in a war zone or something like that. And like, she comes from kind of a, let's say, a slightly more colorful background than me where there are more sorts of crazy things going around and sort of these sort of crazy characters that are doing all sorts of outlandish things. So she was like, much less phased by the material than most people are when you. When you tell them that kind of story.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah. So it's a weird one, but like, I. I needed to be there and have that experience in order to end up where I am now. And, you know, where I am now is a really good place. You know, I have a wife, I

[C]

have two small kids.

[B]

You know, we live on a. On an island together. And it's. It's a fantastic.

[C]

Yeah,

[A]

that is a total revelation to me. First of all, it's. So I always tell people when they're working on Stories for Risk or even in my workshops, tell it to a friend who you think is emotionally intelligent and would care and have that experience of trying it out just in real life, sharing it with a person. And so it's so cool to hear that that was happening when you were working on the story with us. Holy shit.

[B]

That's another interesting one, actually, because. So I got on to, like, Risk because I had a friend who was, like, just getting into podcasts around the time that the first season of Serial came out, and everyone was saying, you've got to listen to this thing, it's incredible. But then he said, actually, that's not my favorite but podcast. My favorite podcast is Risk. And I think he came down to some of the live shows in New York and things like that. And I kind of was listening to it. And you have all of these wonderful, creative, funny, entertaining people and all these really, like, poignant stories where people have been really vulnerable or really philosophical. And I was just sitting there going like, I am not any of those things, but I do have this, like, just total mind fucking story with, like, I don't know, like, it's up there with kind of most of the twists I've ever come across in these sorts of weird psychological stories. So I thought, well, I'll pitch it. And you said, great, you know, record it. And I think it took me over a year to actually go get that recording in. And what actually gave me the final push was I started a new job and they were very into, like, the Silicon Valley, like, culture. Like, I kind of. In retrospect, I think it's kind of like brainwashing your employees so that. So that they really buy into your mission and all that sort of stuff. But they put us in a room in Silicon Valley for a week, and they were exploring a lot of like, you know, Brene Brown vulnerability, kind of growth, mindset, getting out of your comfort zone, all that kind of thing. And they made us all kind of tell a room of people about a story where we'd failed and somebody disclosed something very like, let's just say, very personally harrowing. And it was very, very brave for them to do that. It wasn't a situation where they'd done anything wrong at all. But I kind of thought, well, if that person's willing to do that, then I said, hey, I've been working on this thing. This maybe fits with the theme of we're trying to get out of the comfort zone. And if you'll allow me to, I'll literally tell the room and we'll record it and I'll send it in. And so I did it. I told the story there and then I didn't quite get it right. So I then did some revision and extra work. On it. But that kind of gave me that push I needed to get there. Otherwise it probably never would have gotten to the stage of being properly recorded with you guys and actually released.

[A]

That's incredible. Yeah. I have friends who have worked high up in big corporations who express a lot of, like, mixed feelings, iffy feelings about workshops and corporations that really lean on that Brene Brown be vulnerable here at work and all. But I myself have led. Like, for example, I once led a workshop through our school, the story studio for Google. And it was. I forget what department of Google, but it was people from all over the world. It was like, big shots from Google who were flying in from countries all over the world. And the guy who asked me to do the workshop was a fan of Risk, and he said, I don't want us to be working on stories about work because that's what we normally do with the story studio, is help people tell professional stories. But no, he wanted these kinds of stories. And I led a workshop like that, and it was really kind of moving experience. But, yeah, you do have to be careful that you're actually in good hands sometimes with stuff like that. You know, we try to be. We've had so much experience in almost 17 years of doing the show that we are very, very careful about how we set down parameters. And, you know, there are a lot of. You mentioned me saying, great, recorded, and you coming back, like, a year or so later, I will tell people, why don't you give it a year or two and come back to us? Sometimes if I feel like, oh, it feels like this person has a lot of processing still to do of this thing. I'm curious what it was like going through it in therapy. You said you got some new insight into this whole saga in therapy years later.

[B]

Yeah, I'd say that I had certain kind of, let's say, insecurities, and in my childhood, like, I'd say it's a mixed bag, you know, some emotional neglect in there, isolated instances of abuse, quite a lot of abuse from my older brother. But, you know, kids are kids, but kind of internalizing a lot of that and thinking that there's something wrong with me, you know, you know, I'm defective or broken or, you know, bad in some way and maybe carrying that with me. So when you're in these situations where it's kind of like, you know, you're in a difficult spot, but if you walk away, you fear that you're the abandoner, you're the bad guy, you know, you're. And you don't really feel. Feel like you have something to fall back on in terms of being secure in kind of who you are and that you're not an evil person if

[C]

you say I have to step back from this.

[A]

Right, yeah.

[B]

I'd say that I ended up in a few relationships where I kind of ended up feeling a bit trapped and unable to walk away

[A]

because you were being a little bit of the caretaker or the wounded healer, maybe too much.

[B]

Yeah, well, exploring a lot around that, the drama triangle stuff and trying to be the rescue and those sorts of things and that pattern kind of playing out. So. So, yeah, I mean, one of the things you said is like, what would you. What would you say to like 24 year old James if you could go back? And I would just be. I'd probably just say, like, good God, man. Like, stop whatever you're doing and go and book in a session with a therapist and do some work and you'll benefit a lot, you know? You know, and I think it's something that everybody can benefit from, but it might have made a few stages of my life a little bit easier than they were. I was maybe doing things the hard way a bit, you know?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Holy shit. Have you. Do you know anything about characters in the story since then? Have you looked in at any of that?

[B]

Yeah, I've actually got another twist, but. So I stayed in touch with Ruth that, you know, the friend who was there all at the end, Dan, he was the best man at my wedding. I'm not sure if he ever actually listened to the podcast, but he was like, oh, well, I was there, you know. But yeah, so you sort of mentioned this over email and I thought, well, I'll do a bit of Googling. And I can see that Claire is now a lawyer. She's doing something quite civically minded. And my hope is that she's doing positive things and maybe she took something away from the experience that enabled her to kind of grow and move in a different direction with future relationships, shall we say. But then I started Googling Emma and I got onto a Facebook post that said that she had won a storytelling slam. And the theme was about something about like the mask slipping or all being revealed or something. And I was just. I was just too curious to not send a note. So literally last night I sent a LinkedIn message because that was the only way I could find of contacting her. And within about a minute she said, I don't actually remember you, but I'm doing a lot of work on storytelling and writing and you should call me now. And so I phoned her and we spoke on the phone for about 20 minutes and kind of talked about some of the high level bits of what had happened. And then she said, actually, can I listen? And I said, yeah, okay. I'll warn you that, you know, you don't necessarily get the fairest rap in the whole thing. But she said, don't worry, I think I can, I can handle this. And so at about 3 o' clock this morning, she started sending me, you know, WhatsApp messages about, you know, everything that she thought. And I'd say that kind of, to summarize, she sort of said that, yeah, I remember this. And actually this incident led us to end a very close friendship. And essentially she kind of got brought into this sort of medical mystery. Yeah. And while she was, she was kind of visiting Claire, she then began talking about our relationship. And she kind of talked about how like I was kind of pulling away a bit and trying to sort of put some boundaries in because, you know, I. This is something that maybe isn't that clear in the, in the podcast, but we kind of dated for two or three months and it was, it was great. I really liked her, but I wasn't seeing this being a, like the long term right thing. This wasn't the one. And it was when I began to say, hey, maybe we're better off just being friends that all of this started to kick in.

[A]

So I think that is in the story, I think that's suggested in the future story.

[B]

I think I bring that in maybe at the end. And again, that's one of those, like, it's one of those weird storytelling tricks where kind of I want everybody to really root for Claire at the front so that then at the end, it's like just the portrayal, you know, is, is as brutal as possible. But anyway, she said that she kind of connected the dots and said, hey, you're hoaxing this, aren't you? You're trying to manipulate this guy and keep him around. And she never actually admitted to it, but she kept saying, like, I know what you're doing, you shouldn't be doing this. You can walk away, just say that you're getting better or something, but you don't have to go down this path. And it got to the point where she actually cut off contacts because it was continuing and she just didn't really want to be involved or be on the sidelines. And she said that she's actually reached out about three times since and there's been no willingness to kind of engage. And she kind of said basically what I hypothesized at the end was pretty much the cases that, you know, they fell out over the knowledge of the hoax. And then she kind of became this kind of scapegoat, this extra piece that she could kind of pin more sort of dramatic life threatening situations on that would kind of draw me back in. So there was this very like, established pattern of like every time I kind of said, whoa, like I can't be the sole person here to support you with everything, like, I'm gonna lose it, you know. Every time I said, like, I need some space, there'll be a few days and then there'll be another phone call and some other terrible things going on. And it was like, will you help me? Will you help me? And it's one of those things where even now, knowing what I know, I don't know whether you can really say no, sorry, ask someone else, you know, and put the phone down. It's just. Yeah, so that's the scary thing about it. It's like, it's that. Can you really protect yourself if someone's willing to go that far?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that in relationships, whether they're friendships or, or love relationships, you know, it's just not cut and dried like you. You can have awareness about things for sure. You can learn how to look for red flags and you can you. But you can also fool yourself. You can also like state, I think this is what's going on. I think I should pull away. You can have a conscious knowledge of, here's the healthiest thing for me to do. And this is my plan to do the healthy thing, but then still have some part of your heart

[C]

that is

[A]

still kind of pulling you toward them. So.

[C]

Oof.

[B]

And I think there's also that tension between, like, okay, you're kind of wise to some of the things that people might be capable of now, but then are you just projecting one insane outlier experience and letting that taint the way that you view people in general? Exactly. So I think there's probably some stuff around, like certain people doubting whether it really happens that we could probably explore.

[A]

Sure, yeah. I mean, I remember that a. I think it was a big, big fan of the show who, who comments on things to us all the time, who emailed us at one point saying, I'm curious as to whether or not that story is completely true. And I remember writing back because they're a friend of the show. Oh, well, just to follow the Logistics of the story. Asked you so many questions and went through things that we felt quite confident and that. But that's happened before where some people have suspected that a story isn't quite true. But I was a little surprised in this particular case because it was so mindfully and carefully constructed and told, you know.

[B]

Yeah. Listening to it like later when it's like I'm not still, you know, I'm just more distanced from the visceral knowledge of being there myself, I can see why someone might go, this does sound like, you know, thriller book or you know, a lot of people compare it to like Gone Girl and things like that.

[A]

Right, right, right.

[B]

And so, so I can kind of understand where that comes from. And I think the way that I approached the story was I kind of viewed it as being about, about the

[C]

twists and turns really.

[B]

Like, I think, I think because everything was kind of pre me really doing any internal reflection therapy, that kind of thing. It's not like I could come up with like really poignant, vulnerable insights into the, you know, the human psyche and the way that some of your storytellers do. But we had about probably 10 to 12 weeks of relatively normal dating and then I'd say at least three months

[C]

of just total chaos and carnage.

[B]

And so it's kind of like I had about 10,000 jigsaw pieces and I had to work out how can I make this something which is going to be easy to follow and consume and not. It's not going to turn into like a six hour multi part, you know, taking over risk for months or something. And so I did actually look at kind of how these types of narratives work in fiction. And the closest comparison I could get was I thought that most of the plot beats kind of mapped onto the way like an episode of House often goes, which is kind of there's an, there's an illness and then there's a forced dawn and then there's a twist and then there's suddenly a switch back on the twist at the end and then he figures it all out and you know, and that's. It's about the same kind of runtime as well. So I kind of, I kind of segmented the story and I just said, right, well let's take every single piece out that I don't need in order to take people through that journey. So I've tried to take out as much of the fat as possible.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then the first draft, like the kind of relationship between us was underdeveloped and so we spent more Time, as I said, trying to make it so that people could really understand and buy into that and also, like, really start to root for Claire as being this kind of nice person in this horrendous situation. And then in my first draft, it was kind of like I figured it all out, and then I never heard from anyone ever again. Okay, thanks. Bye. And there was no, like, epilogue about kind of what was the fallout and those sorts of things. So. So, yeah, I mean, that was kind of the process. And, yeah, I can see that people feel it kind of mirrors fiction, because it does. It's kind of. I kind of deconstructed how those things work, and then I tried to use my pieces to thread something together.

[A]

So often when we're coaching a person on a story, like, the biggest issue is streamlining. The biggest issue is, all right, you can't include all of that context. You can't include every incident that happened. And what you're really going for is helping us to feel the way you felt. You know what I mean? What you're really aiming to do is focusing on the incidents that best show the progression of the emotional journey.

[C]

And.

[A]

And so that's one of the trickiest parts about telling almost any story, but it's the ones that involve a lot of, like, mental illness or a crime getting more and more complicated that can. People can really get lost and start drowning in the details. And so I think you did a really great job, actually. And I think that sometimes there's great value in stories that simply kind of try to cut to this happened and don't necessarily on risk. We're willing to do the Edgar Allan Poe sort of thing of just ending with what happened last and leaving the listener being like, wait, what the fuck? You know what I mean? Having to kind of think through, but did that guy get better? All that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I mean, it's great to have those kinds of stories where people have been in therapy and are unpacking, you know, deeper layers in it that way. But in your case, I was just thrilled that you had been through something so complex and were able to help us understand how you felt.

[B]

And I think the interesting thing for the guys who are like, did this really happen? Did this really happen? It's like, there's a load of stuff that I. I didn't put in.

[A]

Because you thought it would be too unbelievable.

[B]

I thought it'd be too unbelievable, but also, I thought. I thought. So some people probably think that I was full of shit, or some people would start to Figure out that Claire was full of shit. So it's like, you know, I wanted to kind of make sure that I didn't mess up the landing of that kind of final reveal where just like reality just shatters and. But yeah, so things I didn't mention, it's just kind of like, you know, multiple break ins. And Emma's supposedly got friends who are involved in the mob and I'm running around and I'm buying like security equipment and surveillance equipment and we're bugging the apartment and. And then like she said that oh, she showed up at my job and she had a gun and. And it's one of those things where it's like if I put that all on the table in front of you, you kind of go eh, no, no. But if you're being drip fed this and you're kind of in this kind of continuous state of, you know, chaos and fight and flight and you just don't know what's going on, it's a lot harder to put the pieces together. And the thing that kind of came up for me was like the example of like, you know, the. You put the frog in, in the pot and you, you boil it slowly. And I was like, well actually that's not it. It's more like putting the frog in a pressure cooker. And then at some point there's a, like a catastrophic failure of containment and it's just. It all explodes and, and yeah, and then, and then to say, well, I'm now going to recreate that. There's something kind of. I don't know, there is kind of a. Almost like you feel like you're getting your hands dirty as, as a narrator because you have to, as I said, you've got to recreate all of that deception. And you know, you do feel a

[C]

bit bad about, about it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're. You're kind of mind fucking the audience the way that you were mind fucked, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know it's funny, I just. A friend recommended. Oh, you might get a better understanding of some of the things that happen between foreigners in Thailand and Thais and the communication gaps and all that sort of thing. If you read this novel called Private Dancer, which is kind of a Bangkok noir kind of story where a guy comes from Britain to Bangkok and falls in love with a sex worker who dances at a bar. And it's funny because in order to be novel length it has to just really keep coming back and back and back to this girl doing deceptive things to him and you, the reader, being more and more like, dude, wake the fuck up. Like, yes, she's being deceptive in certain ways, but you're more upset at this feeling idiot British guy who is the narrator. It's just like, okay. And it's funny because I've talked to straight men who live in Bangkok since I've read the novel, and they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. That novel captures what really does happen to a lot of guys. The Heart can be. Can make you do all kinds of things and just have repeated discoveries that someone is lying to you and just keep falling deeper into the web. And what's kind of interesting about the novel is that it's much more critical of the foreigners than the Thais, who have a different relationship with sex, work and love and money and all that sort of thing and are just like, you know, not necessarily trying to be so deceptive, but trying to, like, run a business of giving people their fantasies, you know? So, yeah, it's. One does have to be careful about balancing it all. And it is kind of hard sometimes to show how lost in the details you can get in a relationship like that.

[B]

Yeah. And I think one of the kind of big fears for me to put

[C]

this story out was are people are

[B]

just gonna go, God, what an idiot. What a moron. How could he have not seen this? You know? And I think I only got, like, one negative comment on Reddit, and it was somebody who was just like, I can't believe people are still talking about this stuff. And, you know, he was trying so hard to make it interesting and dramatic, and it was very obvious that she had a split personality. And I was like, oh, you didn't listen to the whole thing then? Okay. But then they were like, God, I feel dumber having listened to this now. And I was just like, well, you know, fair enough. You can't please everybody.

[A]

Oh, absolutely, Absolutely. It's. Paying attention to the comments can be very, very. You know, that can be a mistake in and of itself.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, I paid very close attention, and it was actually. Which is almost unheard of on the Internet. It's like, everybody was, like, very positive and supportive and sweet and. And then, like, one of the people you were working with on the Risk book said, hey, have you thought about turning this into a novel? And some other people said, hey, we might be interested in turning this into a screenplay. And I was kind of like, the story really worked in the format of the.

[C]

The podcast.

[B]

And my fear would be that by adapting into Another format. I didn't really know how you could kind of pull off all of the. The moves and the deception and the magic trick in. In a way that works as well. And there was a fear that I would take something that, like, had gone really well and I could feel, like, really good about and then have it adapted into something which I wasn't feeling so good about, you know, so I ended up not really pursuing those threads as a result. But. But it was fantastic to kind of get the people approaching with those sorts of opportunities.

[A]

Yeah. Because, you know, working on a. A novel or. Or a screenplay, there's. There's, like. I said that, like that. That Private Dancer novel, I got so frustrated with it because it was just, you know, they have to make it long to be a novel and to fit certain conventions of that length of entertainment and whatnot.

[C]

And.

[A]

And so, yeah, there have been other risk stories that have been potentially, or still are potentially going to become movies. And that's always a huge concern is that whatever studio is going to start manipulating the material so that it no longer has what emotional truth that we were really trying to cleave to in the way that we made the thing. You know, it's tricky.

[B]

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I didn't. I didn't go along with that. But it's interesting, the kind of novel that you mentioned, just because literally the pretty much the only detail that I said was kind of true was that she. She was a sex worker in the

[C]

past,

[B]

you know, but she said, like, the stories about, you know, drug issues and mental health issues, you know, fabricated. And.

[C]

And she said that she.

[B]

She got financially cut off because she partied too hard at college, bought bad grades, and she realized that she can make a lot more money doing that than waitressing. So she ended up doing that for a while.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So. So I was pretty nervous to actually kind of have a direct conversation with this kind of villainized, mythologized kind of figure, like.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like, because she kind of has this kind of supernatural quality. Like, it doesn't. It was, like, much more obvious when you kind of factor in all of the things that I was told that didn't necessarily make the final cut of the story, but it was just this kind of ability to almost be anywhere and do anything and always get away with it and always be one step ahead of it. And it kind of reminds me of, you know, the Dark Knight with. With Heath Ledger as the Joker. And it's just that kind of. It's that kind of like, Supernatural quality where it's just like, how is he doing all this? And so, yeah, she said that it was just kind of crazy to hear kind of how that had all been presented because from her perspective, like, we met like twice, so I'm just like this kind of extra, this cameo in her journey.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

So for her it was like she'd heard about what was going on. She. This led to a falling out with a close friend. She was really sad to lose that friends. And she said, like listening to the part of the, of the story where I was kind of talking about kind of the ways that Claire connects with people, she said that made her really miss her actually. But yeah, to just kind of like suddenly pull back the curtain and realize what was kind of going on behind like the scenes. I guess for her, I guess it was a pretty, pretty crazy thing to hear out of the blue, 13 years later.

[A]

Yeah, well, the fact that she is now a writer, that's so helpful in this situation because there are other people who are like, not the main characters in Risk stories, but are like supporting characters who might write in and say, hey, there's more to me than that, or what, even though you know it's a fake name and you know you can't identify them. And then there are other people who just instinctively understand, oh, that was this person's perception of me. And I understand how telling a story goes. So like, interesting that the way I show up there. But my experience was actually pretty different. So her being understanding about that is pretty, pretty cool.

[B]

It reminds me that Ruth sent the recording to her mum and she just said, ah, smoking pot and eating pizza.

[C]

That's my girl.

[A]

That's incredible. We get that all the time too, where a parent listens and all they care about is one little detail about that kind of thing. All right, well, this has been such a treat. Sometimes you revisit a story with someone and not that much has changed or they don't have new insight into it. But this has been really fascinating. This whole story from the very beginning has been super fascinating. So I'm glad to hear that you're, you know, you've got a happy family now and, you know, that's exciting. That's really great.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, when we emigrated here like six years ago and you know, it's having that, that new start again and encountering only really fantastic, positive people and, and really getting the start that you were hoping for. So that's been a nice kind of a do over, I guess. You know, it's Fabulous.

[A]

Incredible. All right, well, thank you so much, jp.

[B]

Thank you very much, Kevin. It's been really fantastic to chat with you indeed.

[A]

And that is that. You can find JP online at jpmichael c a r r d co and let us know what you thought of JP's story. And if you have a Risk favorite you'd like us to revisit with the Storyteller these days, let us know. We're on all the socials riskshow. Or you can join us at the Risk Podcast Fans discussion group on Facebook or on Reddit@r riskpodcast. Or you can just email me directly at kevinrisk-show.com Folks, today's the day.

[C]

Take a risk.

[B]

All right.

[A]

That was such a great conversation. Gosh, that was one of the best one of these we've done. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your [e-mail] to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome, Columbia. Engineered for whatever.