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- [00:00]
Wit Misseldine
Wonder plus subscribers can listen to exclusive episodes of this Is Actually Happening by joining Wonder in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the Show Notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. Hi listeners, this is the last new episode of 2025 for the next three weeks. We'll be rebroadcasting past episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so stay tuned for those rebroadcasts over the holidays. We wish you all a beautiful, safe and restorative holiday season, and we'll be back with brand new episodes starting January 13th. But now onto our new episode today. What if you woke up in a tsunami?
- [00:55]
Ani Naqvi
The darkness comes for us to be able to transmute it into light and then be able to be a torchbearer for others. I genuinely believe that's what we're all here to do on this planet.
- [01:16]
Wit Misseldine
From wondery hi, I'm wit misseldine. You're listening to this is actually happening. Episode 388. What if you woke up in a tsunami? This is actually Happening as brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [02:01]
Steve Nash
Hey basketball fans, Steve Nash here, ready to elevate your basketball IQ? I'm teaming up with LeBron James to bring you the latest season of Mind the Game and we're about to take you deeper into basketball than you've ever gone before. Watch Mind the game now on YouTube Prime Video or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:33]
Ani Naqvi
Both of my parents were born in India. However, after the Second World War, India split into India and Pakistan, so they had to move to Karachi in Pakistan. Amongst all of the violence that was going on in India during the Partition, as our family was born Muslim, they had a lot of trauma themselves when they were growing up because of having to move countries at a very young age. My father had already traveled to Europe as a young man to study at the London School of Economics and he went on to being a barrister or lawyer over here in the uk. My mother actually did a degree in psychology, but it didn't seem to be of much help later on in life in that she managed to marry my father. My parents, they were an arranged marriage. They got married on Valentine's Day in 1971, and I was born in December 1971, so they probably conceived me on their wedding night. My father moved my mother over to the UK so that I was born in the UK with a British passport. My mother was not really speaking much English when she came over. She had to become very resilient quite early on, having a baby straight away, not having a network or her mother or family to help her. My father was very emotionally and physically abusive to both of us and to all of our family. It was a very difficult childhood with my father. My father was a typically ambitious, wanting to be the best kind of Asian male. He'd chosen law as his profession, but he didn't feel that he got the success that he wanted to get. There was a lot of racism and he struggled to find his way here in the uk and unfortunately, career was everything to him. So, unfortunately, my mother and I suffered as a result of my father's frustration and not feeling like he was being accepted. He was a violent man and prone to very quick temper changes, which was very confusing as a young child because one minute I'd be having a great time bouncing around on my dad's lap, and then the next minute I'm on the floor and my head is throbbing. It was like living on eggshells all the time. And my father really did love me. He would dote on me in many ways. But then on the other side, he was also very emotionally abusive. He'd often tell us that we were stupid or call us horrible names. It was that kind of uncertainty, that kind of flipping part that was the real difficult part for me. And obviously this had a big effect on me as a child. I was very withdrawn, I was very shy. I was in a stress response most of the time because of the uncertainty of how his mood was going to be. I had bad sleep because I believe that my autonomic nervous system so wired for danger all the time. One of the many consequences of my father's behavior and his words to myself and to my mother was that you blame yourself. You must be a bad child. You must deserve it. I thought that I was worthless. I believed the things that my father told me because I thought to myself, if my own parent is telling me those things, they must be true. The other thing that was even more damaging for me than the violence itself and the verbal abuse was that afterwards he would send my mother to tell me to go and apologize to him. It made me so angry that I had to go and say sorry for something that I hadn't Done wrong. I could feel the frustration even today was just the injustice of it all. I often would get picked on. I had a lot of racist kind of abuse. I was a target at my school because I was only one of two Asian kids that were there and both of us were number one and number two in the class. I wasn't allowed to go out, I wasn't allowed to play, I wasn't really allowed to socialize with friends. It was very strict at home. So reading was a solace because I could just lose myself in a book. So whilst on the outside I was presenting as this very quiet, shy, reserved child. I would get picked on a lot and then this like red mist would suddenly take over. So much so that I was able to beat up fifth year boys that were picking on me as a first year because the rage that I had inside, this anger and resentment and rage that I had, was just consuming me from the inside and it had no outlet at all. So when I got picked on, I would just go ballistic. My father decided to leave the UK when I turned 16. He decided to go back to Pakistan because his frustration with not finding work had reached a boiling point and he decided that the only place that he could be truly successful was back in his home country. He left when I was 16, which was such a massive relief, it allowed me to be me. However, the me that I was then was very angry. I had a short fuse. I went on full teenage rebellion. And most of my anger was actually directed more towards my mother. It was directed towards my father, but it was like, why didn't you do anything? I remember one of my most hopeful memories was we're talking in the bathroom. She's crying and I'm crying and she's like, okay, I'm going to leave, I'm going to leave him now. And I was thinking, oh my God, thank God, we're going to get out of this. And then she never did. I understand that she was also a victim herself. She did the best that she could do under the circumstances. Also, she was the one that worked all the time. My mum was the one that went out to work. My father never ended up being the breadwinner at all. It was my mother. She did three jobs at one point to put food on the table and pay the mortgage. So I had to be very independent from a very young age and take care of myself. When I went to college, my personality completely changed. I was no longer this reserved, shy, quiet person. The first year was a vice president and the second year was the president of the students union. I carried on being quite gregarious through college and that's when I really got into the recreational sort of drug scene, which was really kicking off in the early 90s, the rave scene. I got a year behind at uni and I didn't graduate till I was already 24. I really wanted to work as a journalist. I wanted to get a job at the BBC to be a broadcast journalist at the BBC. And eventually I ended up getting a job at the BBC. One of the key reasons that I probably wanted to go into journalism was because of my sense of injustice that I had when I was growing up. And this kind of like changing the world thing that I wanted to do, really wanting to make the world a better place. This sense of injustice when I was growing up has permeated everything that I do in my life in the sense that I always want to fight for the little person that isn't having their voice heard and feeling like this was a great platform in which to be able to change the world back then. I thought that you could have large scale impact on the world and really change the way that things happen. I hit my kind of life goals quite a young age. I remember thinking when I hit that goal, oh, I've hit my goal. Working in news is very stressful and you have to develop a very thick skin because we'll be reporting on murder, rape, plane crashes, natural disasters, death, destruction all the time. It is a very depressing job. And I think that I never really was very thick skinned. I think I've always been a very sensitive person. I realized how biased the reporting is because as a journalist you get to see all of the news wires and then you get to see what's actually getting printed and what's actually getting aired. I was very idealistic when I was growing up. I wanted to bring the truth into people's homes so that it would change the world. And when I realized what the news really is, I realized that I wasn't going to change anything. So I stayed there for about five years or so. And then I decided this is not for me. Then I decided I wanted to do something that I felt had more meaning. I moved to Australia. It was the time of the Sydney Olympics and I wanted to be a part of the Olympics. And I managed to get a job working on the Olympic program. It was good fun. My best friend from uni, she joined me to travel around after I'd finished working, which was fantastic. And after my traveling around Australia, I decided to come back to the uk. I was working for a government agency that kind of dealt with prisons and probation and things like that. And from there went on to the Department of Justice, and that's where I was working at the time that I decided to go on holiday. My best friend is half Sri Lankan and so had decided to go and live and set up a business over there. I knew what a beautiful island it was she was opening up for Christmas, so it was perfect for me to have a best friend that's got a guest house and a hotel on the east coast of Sri Lanka, which is right on the beach. Said goodbye to all of my colleagues at work. Got there a few days before Christmas and I was going to be there for a whole month. I had just turned 33 and one Christmas day. We're very excited. I'm helping my friend put up all the decorations at Galaxy Lounge on the east coast of Sri Lanka in Aragon Bay. She just got pregnant with her new boyfriend that she met that year. Most of the people in the hut that were travelers and stuff or on holiday, we all had Christmas lunch together. There was a Swedish couple in the hut next to mine. There was this family from the uk. In the evening, a few of us, we all went around the bay to different hotels and bars to go and say Happy Christmas to other people. And there was a party going on in one of the other hotels as well. When that party finished in the kind of early hours of the morning of the 26th of December, we went back to our hotel. Then a few of us carried on playing cards, having a few more drinks until around 3, 4 in the morning, probably. So I stumble into bed very inebriated, having had a lovely, beautiful day in absolute paradise. Blue skies, white sandy bays, the Indian Ocean lapping. The temperature is hot. And tropical palm trees swaying with coconuts. The perfect Christmas holiday to get away from dreary London. It was just bliss.
- [15:15]
Wit Misseldine
Today's episode is brought to you by Quint. Eating, chilling, spending time with friends, seeing family and perhaps a bit of podcasting is what I'll be doing for this holiday season. Now I just need to find a wardrobe to work with it all. And there's no better place to get these essentials than from Quince. Their outerwear lineup is no joke. Down jackets, wool topcoats and leather styles that are built to last. Each piece is made from premium materials by trusted factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. I'm kind of obsessed with their alpaca wool overcoat. Yes, of course, it's ultra soft, but it's also surprisingly warm with deep hand pockets to keep me toasty. Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with quints. Don't wait. Go to quints.com happening for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com happening Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com happening hey basketball fans, Steve Nash.
- [16:20]
Steve Nash
Here ready to elevate your basketball IQ? I'm teaming up with LeBron James to bring you the latest season of Mind the Game and we're about to take you deeper into basketball than you've ever gone before. We're breaking down the real game, the X's and O's that actually matter. In every episode we'll share elite level strategy, dive into career defining moments and explain the why behind plays that changed a game, a team or a championship. LeBron and I have lived this game at the highest level for decades. We've been in those pressure moments and made those game changing decisions and learned from the greatest basketball minds in history. Now we're pulling back the curtain and sharing that knowledge with you. Time to go beyond the highlights and get into the real heart of basketball. Watch Mind the Game now now on YouTube Prime Video or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:17]
Ani Naqvi
So I go to bed and I was fast asleep in my hut when I started to hear all of these kind of muffled sounds outside, like shouting. I had my earplugs in and my eye mask and I was thinking, what is this ruckus going on outside? Before I even had a chance to think, the door to my hut suddenly flung open and water began flooding in. At first it began flooding in at kind of knee height and I remember thinking, oh my God, my passport, which was on a kind of piece of furniture right near the door. Just as I had that thought, the whole hut stood started erupting with water. The water started to crash into the room from all of the directions of the door and I was submerged underwater in literally milliseconds. I have no clue as to what has happened. One minute I'm in my cozy slumber and the next I am fighting for my life, drowning. And this ton of water coming in and at such speed. You are so small and insignificant and the water is going around so fast. The only way I can describe it is like being a grain of rice in a washing machine and every single object in the room becomes a missile that is being thrown at you. My suitcase, the Furniture, the bed, it's all tumbling around. And it's also pitch black in there. The water was black as it was coming in. The little light that you had from the doors and the windows was completely gone. You're completely disorientated. You don't have any clue which way is up or down. Every second you're gulping in dirty mouthfuls of seawater whilst trying to breathe at the same time. Your eyes are, like, stinging. My eardrums are, like, bursting with the rush of the sound and everything. The water is gushing up your nose, but imagine that it's like that, but a billion times worse. So the water's, like going in your nose and then that sharpness against the back of your throat as well. It was just so horrible, so terrifying. And you're literally just doing what you can. Catch one breath here, catch one breath there, and trying to survive this onslaught. The force of the wave was so strong, you were completely and utterly powerless against it. People say to me, oh, were you able to swim? You have no idea how fast that water was traveling. There's no swimming involved. My legs were akimbo. I was trying to do something, but I wasn't able to. I was completely and utterly powerless. I am trying to find air, but I don't know which way is up and down because I'm blinded. I can't see anything. I suddenly realized that I was on the bottom of the hut and the bottom of the water. So that's why I wasn't able to get any air. And so at least I was able to reorient myself. My head was the other way around in the washing machine, and my feet were on the bottom. I could kind of, like come up and get more air. Now the water is still going over my head. So now I'm at the top of the hut and I've only got 2 inches of air left before the hut is completely submerged with water. And so I'm literally there with my face up, with my head back to try and get the last bits of air that I can. I don't know if you can even begin to imagine what it's like to be asleep one second, and then the next second you're underwater and drowning and fighting for your life. It's really interesting what the brain does when you're in survival mode. This whole thing about your life flashes before your eyes. It really is true. My life flashed before my eyes. I would get these little snippets of my life because I honestly did think I was going to Die in that dark hut. But in that hut, a voice came to me, very strong voice, and it said, remember this moment, Annie. You do not want to die. And that voice really stayed with me. It was a constant reminder. You do not want to. To die. You want to live. I'd suffered from periods of depression throughout my whole life because of, you know, what I had experienced when I was growing up. That period of time that I worked at the BBC didn't help my depression. I was having this real existential crisis in my early 30s and late 20s. And I was thinking, what is the point of life? What are we really here for? I had a successful job. I was earning good money. I had bought a house. I was financially successful. I had a good friendship group. I had a lot of the things that society tells us is supposed to make us happy. And I was not happy. So all that depression that I had in those moments, it would have been so easy to have just given up and be swept away, and nobody would have known anything because a quarter of a million people died in the tsunami. I would have just been another victim of the tsunami. But I fought tooth and nail with every breath, with every muscle that I had. I fought tooth and nail to stay alive. This voice had come in, but I'm still powerless, not able to really do anything. Even though I didn't want to die, I didn't have any choice in it. I could not do anything. Time really slowed down in those moments. One moment can feel like an eternity. I felt like it was hours that I was in there, but it was definitely minutes, not maybe hours. But eventually the hut began to disintegrate. And the great thing about that was it started to let little shards of light into the hut. I was able to orient myself towards the light and up at the top of the hut so that I could breathe. Eventually, the hut disintegrated, and then you're being washed inland with the tsunami. And now I can see so many other people in the water with me, and they're all dead. Every single one of them is dead. And I'm looking at them with white foam around the mouths, and I'm looking at them and I'm thinking, oh, my God, this was huge. I remember thinking, I must get to the Jeep, because my friend had a Jeep. And then I realized that the Jeep was rolling around next to me and I was drinking diesel water at the same time because I'm still half underwater and half on the surface trying to get air. I actually got trapped underneath a falling building. This Building fell on me and then I got trapped face first somehow. And this was the second time that I thought I was going to die. And I was thinking, oh my God, that's it, I'm not getting out of this. And then the most bizarre thing was just like that voice came to me and said, remember this moment. You do not want to die. Another voice came to me and said, remember your palm reading? It said you were going to have a near death experience, but you were going to survive it. This is that experience. And at that very same time, the debris that was holding me down shifted out of the way and I resurfaced once more. It's like I had a guardian angel telling me, no, remember, this is your near death experience. So I'm being washed inland and I'm seeing all these dead bodies around, and then I'm thinking to myself, okay, if you don't stop, you can also get knocked unconscious like these people, and then you will drown. I was like, okay, I need to stop. I need to grab hold of something. And I got very lucky because I saw my friend and her boyfriend standing on something as I was being swept past. They didn't see me though. And one of my first thoughts had been for my best friend because she was pregnant. I was thinking, oh my God, is the baby going to survive this onslaught? It was such a massive relief to see themselves standing there. I was trying to grab hold of things, but I really could not grab hold of anything. But I got very lucky and I got thrown into the path of a tree and it winded me completely because of the speed I was going. But I held onto that tree for dear life. The water was still going over my head a lot of the time as well. So I'm still, still struggling to breathe, drinking lots of sea water at the same time as trying to stay alive and breathe. The tsunami eventually got sucked back out to sea again, but didn't get completely sucked out because, you know, I was still chest height the water and all I wanted to do was get to my friends. I realized I had sustained lots of injuries. I had cuts and scrapes all over my legs and my arms. My entire one side of my face was like completely bloody and bruised. And everything from that building that I got stuck underneath, I was covered in mud and twigs and my arms were leaden from holding onto that tree. They felt so heavy. I put my feet onto the ground and the floor is covered with everything that goes into making our lives, like telephone wires, electrical wires, chicken wire, buildings, broken bricks, glass, everything was all on the floor. I had to half hobble and half swim to where I could see my friends. And I could hear the voices of other survivors calling out for their loved ones. Lucy, Steven. It was so eerie because it was so quiet in the aftermath. It was eerily quiet. And then you've got these very discordant, shocked voices calling out for their loved ones. All I could think was, I've got to get to my friends. I've got to get to my friends. I eventually get to my friends. But she didn't even recognize me. I was calling her name and she was like, annie, is that you? Yes. Oh, my God. I thought you were dead. I was going to come and get you. We had to run. And then we embraced and I became a bit hysterical. We were all in our own shock. I just was happy to be with them. But we had all sustained different injuries. Her partner had this massive injury, and I really wanted to go back to the beach straight away because he kept saying, I need to get the first aid kit from Galaxy, which is the name of the hotel. She was saying, there is no Galaxy. There is no first aid box. But he was in his shock. And so we just followed, hobbling back to the beach. And then we started hearing screams again, and we saw people running back towards us. It was the second tsunami coming in. It was the tsunami coming back in. For a second go. We're just about to traverse this really strong river that had formed from the tsunami, but then we had to turn around and go back the way that we'd come. The human body is so resilient. Somehow the adrenaline shot through again and gave us all another burst of energy to be able to run, because I swear to you, I didn't think I'd be able to do anything like that. But obviously, with the danger of clicking at our heels, we had to. We got so lucky because some local people turned to us and said, come this way. And they led us to this small hill that just appeared from nowhere. We got to this hill and climbed it, and it was big enough to be safe from the second wave, but not high enough to be safe on higher ground. I get goosebumps when I think about this now because you could see all the people running. I'm pretty sure I saw the Swedish guy, his surfboard, and I said, isn't that Stefan? And then the water came over and it was like glass. It just washed over people, and everybody disappeared. There was this German guy that was standing next to us, and he just looked so horrified. The look on his face will be burnt on my memory forever. I said, are you okay? And he said, my girlfriend, my fiance, a minute ago we were holding hands and now I've lost her. It was so sad and hopeless. And I just said to him, look, she may still be alive. You never know. She may still be alive. All my clothes got ripped off me while I was in the tsunami. The only thing that I had on was, was a T shirt. So I'm wandering around in a very half naked state in this quite Muslim village in Sri Lanka. So I'm thinking I need to cover myself up. I found a sarong on a washing line and thought, no, I don't think anyone's going to care that I've taken this arong because of everything that's happened. When we made it to higher ground, that's when I collapsed and I became hysterical for a short period of time. And then we heard choppers coming in the distance and my friend Sri was like, okay, I'm gonna try and take Wayne and see if I can get him on the chopper because of his injury. I was there, hysterical. She was trying to sort out her boyfriend whilst being pregnant. There's all these other survivors wandering around, calling out for their loved ones. And again this voice comes to me and says, come on, Annie, people need you. Snap out of this. People need you. That suddenly gave me this strength. I got up and I started to go round and I found the Swedish couple. And then this doctor that was about to leave on the chopper was like, has anybody here got any medical experience? And the Swedish girl, Annelie, said, I was at med school for a couple of years. And he was like, okay. And he gave her the keys to the small room that had a few bandages and Tylenol and just basic supplies like that, super basic. And said, you'll have to do this, I have to go to this other place. And just went off in the chopper, leaving us completely on our own and stranded. Me and her boyfriend Stefan, we basically started to go around and administer first aid to all of the people, trying to tell people to breathe properly, just triage as much as possible and to help others as much as possible. This was the first time I really had any agency in anything. The first time I was able to do something and to help myself and to help others as well. Eventually a jeep came up to higher ground and I was thinking, how did a jeep get out? But the first thing that I thought was, oh my gosh, they will have access to a radio. My old journalistic instincts kicked in So I went and commandeered the jeep and started to listen to the radio. This was probably around late morning on the 26th of December. We're getting some reports that there may have been an earthquake in Indonesia that has triggered a potential tsunami. Multiple countries in Asia were affected. We had seven tsunamis in our area and the fifth wave took out the bridge that connected us to the mainland. Basically we are completely stranded at this point. We are surrounded by a leopard filled jungle, a killer tsunami on the other side and a crocodile filled lagoon. We have no way of getting in and out of our little kind of place, peninsula that's been formed. My journalistic instincts kicked in and I know that news will get reported if there are British or American tourists. I was like, okay, we need to get press coverage on our plight, otherwise we're not going to get saved. I don't know how, but I remember the number of the BBC from when I'd worked there five years before, the number of the BBC switchboard. So I called the BBC and the receptionist was giving me a hard time and not putting me through. Eventually I did get through to a journalist and I said, you need to get us help. We're stranded here. We've got no potable water, the well has been contaminated by dead bodies, the food is running low. Already there are people with various injuries. Sure enough, an hour later the High Commissioner calls me back and is like, we're aware we are going to rescue you, but unfortunately all of the choppers are in the south at the moment and we're not going to be able to get to you before nightfall. So it must be kind of about mid afternoon at this point. And there's this sort of scream going around the camp because we've congregated as a group around myself and the jeep where I'm making the phone calls and everything. He says to me, we'll send the army to bring you food and potable water. And in the distance someone calls out, get them to bring cigarettes as well. So I said to him, can you also get some cigarettes as well? He's like, yes, we'll bring some cigarettes. So they brought some supplies round later that evening. At this point I've become the de facto leader in the group somehow. And I've got this middle aged Israeli woman on one arm and then this middle aged French guy on the other arm and. And then I've got this little girl, she was six years old, literally standing on my foot and having her arms all around the leg and sobbing profusely. She's like ane, please get us out of here. Please get us out of here. Even now I feel the emotion when I think back to her. She had this very big blue eyes, these big tears running down this muddy face of hers and just feeling, oh, my God, how can I help this little girl? The army comes round and they're basically saying to us, there's going to be another tsunami. We need you to move to even higher ground than where we are now. We've got to drive along the coast, along the seafront and go to this other town, Panama, with the big cliff on the top. Just as soon as he says that, everyone around me starts wailing and screaming, screaming and shouting, I don't want to go. I don't want to go. They terrified of ever seeing the water again, let alone driving along the coast. Then I was like racking my brain to think of, what can I do here? What can I do? Obviously I don't want to say, everybody stay. And then there is another tsunami and then I'm responsible or partially responsible for the deaths of dozens, hundreds of other people. So again, I thought to myself, you know what? I'm going to call the BBC. They would have had seismologists on all day. They'll know if there's going to be another tsunami. That was my solution. Called the BBC again and I spoke to that journalist and I said, is there going to be another tsunami? We're getting reports that we're going to have to move to even higher ground. And she said, no, this is not what is going to happen. According to our reports from the seismologist, there's not going to be another tsunami. That's not the reports that we're getting. We are getting eyewitness reports in India and Sri Lanka of people panicking and thinking that there's going to be another tsunami. But there is no scientific evidence to back that up. I relayed all of that information to the group and I said, it is your decision whether you trust the BBC or if you want to go with the army. And every single person stayed and the army went off and then we made camp for the night. Even though we had all decided to stay there surreptitiously, I believe we were all looking for which is the highest tree around so that we could climb up a tree for safety. I did not get any rest. Around 4 or 5 in the morning, I actually heard the choppers coming over from the distance. Myself and Annalee did our best to try and get people onto the choppers. The following day in the Order of the severity of people's injuries. But of course, people that have survived such a big trauma, especially if they had children, just ran for the choppers as soon as they arrived. In these kind of situations, you see the best and the worst of humanity often. There were some amazing people in the camp. One lady, she was making finger puppets for the children to keep them occupied. There was a guy who had a broken leg who, when it was his turn to get on the chop, I said, it's your go. He said, no, I'm okay. I'll wait for the last one. There were real moments of kindness and community that brought people together. But then on the other hand, some people's shock and trauma was too great for them and they felt it necessary to run for the choppers. Eventually, once I'd managed to get everybody else onto the chopper, myself, Annelie, her boyfriend at the time, Stefan and Sree, we got the last chopper out with a guy called Nate Berkis. They're extremely dehydrated at this point. Heads are throbbing. The heat is just excruciating. You just completely spent. You've survived drowning multiple times. You've then run around like a headless chicken for the next 48 hours, trying to help people and trying to get rescued. Then we got airlifted to safety, which was in itself another very traumatic experience because there were no doors on the helicopter. They're tilting to one side as they're flying over, so you're feeling like you're all going to fall out of the chopper at the same time. You really start to get a bird's eye view of what's actually happened. It was so shocking because everything was flat as a pancake. We got goosebumps all over us and really started to realize that this was a huge, big disaster. We are flown to a little town called Ampara, military kind of base. So it was just myself and Nate, Stefan and Annelie that were together now. The following day, we went to the hospital to go and meet up with Sri and Wayne as well, and then ended up driving back to Colombo later on that day. We ended up going to this guest house in the middle of the hill country looking like extras from Michael Jackson thriller. None of us have got any money, of course, and we don't have any shoes or anything. And we tried to look, we just need to use your facilities. When they heard that we were in Aragon Bay, they were like, big sight. Big kind of like intake of breath and like, yes, yes, okay, yes. I'm still chatting to the guy from the High Commissioner throughout the day as well. And he said, you must come and see me as soon as you get into Colombo. I must thank you for everything that you've done. We went there still in these dirty, blood stained clothes, walking into this massive colonial mansion and everything is in white. Where are we going to sit? He was just like, have a seat. Can't thank you enough for all the help, et cetera. I remember saying to him, what are you doing for the relief effort and everything? And he said, they've got teams going out here, there and everywhere. And I said to him, if you need any help with any of that, then I'd be more than happy to help. He looked at me with this face that kind of made me realize that I was also a victim in all of this. He said, look, that's very kind of you to offer, but we've got people and you just need to rest and recuperate and we just want to thank you so much for all your efforts so far. That was the first moment that I started to internally crumble a little bit because doing things for other people was my coping mechanism. It made me feel like I was being helpful and useful, but it also stopped me from really going deep into my own headspace. When he looked at me in that way, it felt, oh, you're no longer that person. So who am I now?
- [42:58]
Lindsey Graham
In 1993, three 8 year old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. As the small town local police struggled to solve the crime, rumors soon spread that the killings were the work of a satanic cult. Suspicion landed on three local teenagers, but there was no real evidence linking them to the murders. Still, that would not protect them. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, three teenage boys are falsely accused of a vicious triple homicide. But their story doesn't end with their trials or convictions. Instead, their plight will capture the imagination of the entire country and spark a campaign for justice that will last for almost two decades. Follow American Scandal on the Wonder Yhar or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of American scandal. The West Memphis 3 early and ad free right now on Wondery.
- [44:03]
Ani Naqvi
We ended up getting flights back on New Year's Eve to our respective homes. And I couldn't get my head around how everything at home was neat and tidy and ordered. The cushions were in the same place as they were when I'd left. The ornaments were all neatly in their same place. And I could not get my head around the difference between what I had just left in Aragon Bay. If you could ever think of what the end of the world would look like, that's what it looked like at the time. And coming home to all this disorder and normality, it really spun me out mentally. All my injuries got infected. I had a food poisoning, bacteria from ingesting so much dirty water from the sea, and many other things like that. It did take a long time to heal from that trauma. My PTSD came out in so many different ways. Your survival instincts are on such high alert that even a noise 200 meters away would have me screaming. It was incredibly exhausting because you cannot live in that way. Even now, I prefer to sit in a restaurant facing the door so that I can look out for any tsunamis that might be coming for me with which is completely unrealistic. However, that's the kind of the imprint of the trauma there. I couldn't sleep for many weeks. I also got this thing called Bell's palsy, which is like paralysis on one side of the face. I didn't even want to leave the house because I felt like I looked awful with this kind of one side of my face drooping. But I've had PTSD for so many different things now. They all tend to blur into one sometimes. And then I can't figure out which event is this related to. But one of the things that was a bit of a shift that happened in the tsunami. I've had this really terrible inner critic my entire life. It's called Pete paranoia. It's told me that I'm worthless, I'm useless, I'm a waste of space. It tells me that my friends don't really love me, that they're whispering behind my back, that they are just making fun of me. It tells me really mean and horrible stuff. And it had always told me those things. But after the tsunami, when it would say those things to me, I then had another part of me that was like, hold on a minute. If you were that bad, would you really have been the person that helped all of those people? How do you think you have all these friends? I actually had an argument to use against that horrible peak paranoia that I had as an inner critic and doesn't have nearly as much power over me as it did back then. After the tsunami, I got a call from Nate saying that Oprah was going to be doing a tsunami special program, and he really wanted me to come and to tell my story as well, so 10 days after, just arrived home, and then at the special Oprah Tsunami program, I had a lot of survivor guilt, because as the numbers began to roll in, week on week, first it was like 20,000, then it was 40,000, then it was 60,000, then it was 80,000, and eventually it got up to that quarter of a million figure that I'm talking about. You don't feel like you deserve to have survived. I didn't have children. I wasn't married. Of course my parents and my sister would be upset, but in the grand scheme of things, I didn't feel like my life was as worthy as somebody else's was, which was also part of my own internal feelings of not feeling good enough that I had from when I was a child that kind of were hungover into my adult life. I think I had survivor guilt from the very beginning. Actually, the survivor's guilt really happened in the aftermath of the tsunami, when you can hear other people calling out for their loved ones and walking around like zombies. I remember then thinking, why did you survive? You don't have anybody. You don't deserve to be alive. And also I'd found my friends, like, immediately. Yeah. So I felt even more guilty about that as well, because so many people lost their loved ones. I remember when I was talking to Oprah, I said to Oprah in my interview that it was a miracle that any of us had survived, that we owed it to the people that hadn't survived to make the most of our lives and make our lives mean something. That kind of survivor guilt, it stayed with me even up until now. But I've turned it into something positive. I turned the guilt around and turned it into purpose. I've made that my mission in life, which is to have a positive impact and transform the lives of over a quarter of a million people. And that's in honor of the same number of people that died in the tsunami. That's why I've pushed myself into all sorts of different things. I managed to get a job in Iraq during the war, working for an NGO in the red zone to help the people that were being displaced by the war. And that went some way to me feeling like I was making a positive impact in the world and doing something with this second chance that I'd been given. And when I came Back to the UK, I joined the UK's largest charity, which is Cancer Research UK, as one of their senior leaders. 2010, just after the financial crisis, six years after the tsunami, the kind of bottom fell out of the charity market. I am in my late 30s now. I was in limbo during August in 2010, and I already had spotted something and thought, oh, I really should go to the doctors and get this checked out. But I didn't really think that it was anything serious. And then I was wondering what to do, and I came across this yoga and fitness holiday in Greece that had this ridiculously low price. I went off and I met my husband there. He happened to be the male teacher. He was doing a yoga nidra meditation in the evening, and I fell asleep during his yoga nidra meditation. And I think I fell in love with him in that moment because he spoke in a very calm way, but with his strong, thick Italian accent. On the Friday, we ended up going into town for dinner, and it was this night that we were, like, sitting close together. Our knees were touching. And it only took us three days to work out that we were soulmates because we felt so comfortable around each other. It was so amazing that he came into my life so grounded, really embodying, practicing love and kindness. He's like a Buddhist monk, but in a real life and still living as a householder. I had been single for a while. I had really given up on finding my person in this life. And then six months later, there he is. But one month later, I got this diagnosis of cancer, stage two, which was a massive shock to me. I felt beaten down by life. And he really was a bit of an angel that got sent to me. I have to say, when he came along, it was a massive ray of sunshine. I was so ecstatic. I was over the moon. We had one month to six weeks of feeling absolute bliss before everything came tumbling down. A few years later, I had recurrence. I've been diagnosed five times with recurrence. Then there was a kind of something in the lymph nodes. And four years later, I got diagnosed with stage four as well. And at that point, I was, like, totally fed up. And I lost my father one week after telling him about my diagnosis. And I feel that he may have unconsciously known that perhaps he played a role in this. With him passing, I feel like there was a lot of stuff that was released. A lot of pain and anger did come out in a big kind of outpouring. I remember thinking in Sri Lanka, when the people found out that so and so had died, their father, their mother, their whatever, that they would want wail and beat on the floor in a way that we don't do in the West. Yeah, it was such a raw expression of grief, and it Felt really uncomfortable for me. But then when my father passed away, I did exactly the same thing. Him passing away so soon after telling him about my diagnosis made me actually realize that he did actually love me. I know it sounds strange, but if he didn't love me, then he wouldn't have cared that I had this diagnosis. And instead he cared so much that he had a sudden heart attack when he didn't have any heart problems at all. I just intuitively know that a lot of it was grief, guilt and anything else that might be in there. I think that all of us have got light and shade in us. And I think that most of the time in society in general, we deny that shadow part of ourselves. Anybody could be a murderer, A good person can do bad things, and we're all part of the same one consciousness. I do prescribe to some schools of thought that say that our souls choose the journey that we're on and we may have a soul contract with somebody. And I know that's quite difficult for some people to hear. This is just my own belief system. Nobody else needs to believe this, but obviously I got very fascinated with near death experiences, Having had three near death experiences of my own. So I read quite a lot around it. And it does resonate with me that you would have chose this life specifically with the aim in mind to grow and learn and to transmute a lot of that darkness. I find that a lot more empowering to feel like I had got this soul contract rather than thinking that I was a victim to somebody else's bad behavior. One of the times I was having one of these near death experiences, I had an out of body experience where I was looking down at myself. And then I realized, oh, nothing and nobody can hurt you because this life is an illusion. I still exist outside of my body. So there is nothing or no one that can hurt me because this isn't who I really am. I know that is again a very difficult thing for people to get their heads around. And look, everybody's at different points in their healing journey. Just because I have experienced or believe in certain things doesn't mean to say that other people have to. What I'm saying is that my own personal experience has been one where I have realized that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. We're not human beings having a spiritual experience. In that time I had multiple cancer diagnoses and got the stage four diagnosis. That is really when I started to do real transformational work. I went into remission and I've been in remission ever since. So that's been over 10 years now. Of course that may change and if and when that changes, then I'll take whatever's coming next in my stride. Now that I've really worked on myself. Until that time, I'd been this very volatile, fiery, kind of don't mess with me type of person. I just thought I was horrible all the time, really. The changes came when I started in 2017 to do a 10 day Vipassana meditation course. I had tried many different tools and techniques, NLP and hypnotherapy, but nothing had really made a significant change. But when I came out of that 10 day meditation course, I was a changed person and I was so enamored by it that I then went and did another course every three months later. And I did that for about two or three years. I've done about 20 of them now. That really changed my neuroplasticity. I rewired my brain and that is my specialty in what I do with my executive clients now as a coach and a mentor, I help them move from the surviving brain into the thriving brain. And I've healed myself through those tools and the techniques. Most people are operating from their survival brain and that's partly to do with the negativity bias that we all have. Being diagnosed with stage four, I had to learn to live in the present moment because otherwise I was driving myself insane with the thoughts of when am I going to die, how am I going to die? I was forced to live in the present moment. So it was hugely important for my mental health to stay and live in the present moment because it's just as likely that I'll get run over by a bus or a car or something else than to die of cancer. But we can allow that fear to consume us. But then what's the point of that? There's no life to be had. If you're consumed by fear, if you're so scared you can't leave your house, or if you're so scared of being run over that you, you won't do anything, what's the point of that kind of life? You can't live like that. That's not a life. That's just an existence. The tsunami has been a pivotal part of everything that I've done in my life. This purpose was born out of the tsunami to positively impact and transform the lives of a quarter of a million people and also recognizing who I really was. People say that it's those moments when we are in something like a tsunami that really shows what our true character is. I really love that because my true character in those moments was one that I was very proud of. And like I said, this horrible inner critic voice I had would tell me everything that was different. I know now that the tsunami was a valuable lesson for me in feeling like I had more self worth than I was giving myself credit for. Turning this survivor's guilt into a purpose and a mission. I think we all have resistance to change, but can you accept what is there without trying to control? Can you have trust and faith in a bigger plan than what you can see right now? Don't get me wrong, when I'm in that was in the middle of all of those traumas, I was not seeing the plus side. I was not seeing the opportunity. It's only with the benefit of hindsight that I can look back at something and say, oh, yeah, I really grew and learned about this, about myself from this experience. Having some kind of a faith or trust in something bigger than ourselves. I believe that there is a kind of a bigger plan. And we can't always see it when we're in the middle of something, but you can see it afterwards. What we tend to do is we cling onto an old identity of ours that's no longer serving us. Some of the biggest challenges that we have is to continuously let go of an old identity. It's letting go of the old version of you and moving into the new version of you that is the hardest thing, I think, for most of us to do. And I had to drag my old self kicking and screaming into the future, whereas now I don't have to drag myself kicking and screaming. It's still, still hard work because again, we tend to resist change. But I know that there is a better version of me around the corner every time something like that comes along. I was very much a victim mindset back in those days. Why me? This is not fair. Why do all these bad things happen to me? Really was a why me? Situation. Until Andrea, my husband, was like, why not you? That really made me pause because I was like, actually, why not me? Everybody goes around saying, why me? Why me? But why not me? Why do we think that life is about being protected from anything bad or challenging that can happen to us? And so that was the start of a big reframe for me. I used to be very prone to get angry and aggressive very quickly. I calmed down massively, and now I'm a very chilled person. It's not that I've changed who I am, because I don't think you ultimately change the core of who you are. But what I did was I got rid of all of those saboteurs, as I call them, coping mechanisms that we all develop in our formative years to protect us. There's lots of them. There's the people pleaser, there's the victim, the overachiever, there's the professor, perfectionist, the controller, the restless, there's over vigilant, all sorts of them. And we developed these. We're now formative years. But think of it like this. We're operating the same script that we had when we were three years old, when we're 53 years old. And of course, that same operating system is no longer fit for purpose. But that's what we're all doing. We're running around with the operating system that was downloaded when we were three years old. Then we think that's who we are. That's not who we are. Who we are is the person behind the saboteurs. Of course, your saboteurs are your greatest strengths before they become your saboteurs. But that shadow side of us is more coming from that fear. We need the survival brain function. We can't live without it. At the same time, if we. We allow that survival brain function to be so dominant, nobody would ever leave their homes. I had created new neuropathways in the thriving part of my brain, and I had started to delete old pathways that were in my surviving part of the brain that are there for a good reason, especially when you've had violence or abuse growing up. But it's really important to me that there is hope and that every challenge can be an opportunity for growth. That the darkness comes for us to be able to transmute it into light and then be able to be a torchbearer for others. When you have big life challenges and you're able to transmute them and turn darkness into light, you're very well equipped then to help and support other people. I genuinely believe that's what we're all here to do on this planet.
- [64:06]
Wit Misseldine
Today's episode featured Ani Naqvi. Ani's book entitled Tsunami the Wave that Saved My Life and Can Save Yours is available where books are sold. If you'd like to reach out to Ani, you can find her email, socials and a link to her book in the show Notes. From Wondery. You're listening to this is actually Happening. If you love what we do, please rate and review the show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or on the Wondery app to listen ad free and get access to the entire back catalog. In the episode notes you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors. By supporting them, you help us bring you our show for free. I'm your host Wit Misseldine. Today's episode was co produced by me, Andrew Waits and Sarah Marinelli with special thanks to the this Is Actually Happening team including Ellen Westberg. The opening music features the song Sleep Paralysis by Scott Velasquez. You can join the community on the this Is Actually Happening discussion group on Facebook or follow us on Instagram actuallyhappening on the show's website thisisactuallyhappening.com you can find out more about the podcast. Contact us with any questions, submit your own story or visit the store where you can find this Is Actually Happening designs on stickers, T shirts, wall art, hoodies and more. That's thisisactuallyhappening.com and finally, if you'd like to become an ongoing supporter of what we do, go to patreon.com happening even $2 to $5 a month goes a long way to support our vision. Thank you for listening. If you like this Is Actually Happening, you can listen to every episode ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
- [65:57]
Ani Naqvi
Prime.
- [65:57]
Wit Misseldine
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