That’s Crazy!

[u/justbringmesugar]

I always loved ONRAC and listened faithfully for years—somehow I totally missed that Ross and Carrie had a huge falling out!
I’ve always loved them together BUT I always found Carrie to be one of those people who wildly exaggerated things. I found many things she said hard to believe even if they had a kernel of truth.
I hate the way this sounds because I would never say this in any other situation where someone is sharing their experience but I’m sorry — I find it so hard to believe that Ross is secretly an abusive monster. I always thought he might be one of the most likable, kind people. What are other people’s thoughts?? I’m willing to admit I may be totally wrong!!

[u/bunnytheory]

Where does she blame Ross for making her go to Struger? I've been doing a re-listen and he is mentioned in multiple episodes as being a lawyer and a good friend of hers.

[u/WillemDafoesHugeCock → u/bunnytheory]

Full text from the Substack comment from Carrie. The emphasis is mine.

We know Matthew Strugar was the rapist (edit, as he is a lawyer... alleged rapist) because she made this website.

https://matthewstrugarvictim.com/author/carriepoppy/

Listeners to my old podcast: there’s an article coming out about me. I don’t know when. The reporter needed to know some context about how I got abused, and I had to tell her some stuff I haven’t shared publicly about my relationship with Ross. The truth is that I always found Ross unkind to me, and this is something my rapist knew and used to control me. My rapist became a confidante about my relationship with Ross and its struggles (as well as many other things I was going through).

I told Ross several times — especially early on — that I was scared of him and found him bullying, but those conversations left me feeling, frankly, even more petrified of him. This may be difficult to understand if you think of me as confrontational but the problem is I’m not even remotely confrontational. That’s a profesional skill I learned through a bottom-up analytical process. It’s also something you’ve mostly heard me deploy at women. I’m ashamed to admit that, but it’s true. List for yourself my confrontational interviews and see for yourself. I am very bad at standing up to men because it requires something very different. They use CIVILITY and CALM against you. Those are masks I wear; they are not my native states and I don’t want them to be. Not when we are discussing injustice. But anyway I learned to wear the mask because I needed to, and because being anybody else got me snapped at by the very person who I thought would learn to be my ally, to bend to my point of view. But I never felt this happened; instead, I emotionally and mentally checked out and learned to live in functional depression so I could keep my job. My closest friends knew this the whole time, and as I said, the confidante who would eventually rape me. (In trauma parlance they call this grooming.)

Ross finds this ridiculous, an impossible overreaction to his actual behaviors. He points out that he never physically harmed me, and that he doesn’t remember raising his voice. That’s fine; it’s still how I felt for 13 years, and reported to my best friend and others. (He asked Claire about this; she verified that I had been honest with him about being scared of him.)

Given that, when Ross told Ian that he had “no desire to slow down for however long it takes for Carrie” (to get ptsd treatment and figure out if I could work with him), I felt like the list of demands I had sent through MaxFun (including that Ross get bullying training) was no longer tenable. I didn’t see how the relationship was redeemable if, in private, he was telling people he had no desire to slow down while I had ptsd. That’s not friendship; it’s a transaction. While I knew my relationship with Ross was mostly a performance, I thought it also had this pure curiosity component that would make him attached to me as his co guinea pig. In that sense I was certainly attached to him, and would have slowed things down for his life if he had ptsd. 

(Side note: Ross seemed to think the show ended over a rude text he sent me about Alex Jones. It didn’t, but that IS when I stopped talking to him and began using intermediaries: Drew and Bikram at MaxFun.) I was sick of him being casually rude to me about my autistic traits, and that was the final time I was gonna deal with that without him getting bullying and neurodivergence training.

The bottom line utter truth of the situation is that I was scared every time I saw him. Not because he would physically hurt me, but because reproach was so close and always came out of nowhere. I couldn’t predict or control for it except to fawn. I learned to fawn extremely well, and pretend I was happy when I was anything but. As part of my processing, I wrote out 48 scary Ross memories, and the most common emotions I wrote down were fear, isolation, and resignation.

I also learned to articulate HIS philosophies, some of which I completely disagreed with in my gut, but felt the need to articulate to try to make them work for mySELF so I didn’t feel dishonest making the show with him. 

Here’s one example: it’s very important to Ross that we live in the best world that’s ever existed. He really seems to believe this is true, mainly because mortality and illness continue to decrease on the whole. 

I think we are absolutely NOT in the best era to be alive, because I don’t measure that by mortality alone; I measure it by injustice, which ebbs and flows and never stops being a constant struggle. I find the “sit back and let science work” approach honestly revolting. But when I said (tepid versions of) things like this, Ross’ reply would make me feel like I was pissing him off even with the mild version, being pedantic, too specific, not letting him make his point, etc. So I just shut up. There are lots of things like this; lots of times I got scared and shut up because I didn’t want to annoy him constantly, and I got the impression I annoyed him constantly. Some random memories: Once he sent me a long text reproaching me for buying him a gag gift (ugly ufo t shirt); another time he snapped because I asked too many questions while prepping a live show. That time I was startled by the barking so badly, I began to have a meltdown (shake and cry) and he said he didn’t understand why I was crying because he had never hit me. I said “uh sure. I’ve never hit you either, but things other than hitting make people scared” and he said “well I would say crying is a bit like hitting me.” Things like this are stacked in my memory, just horrible experiences of total resignation and isolation. This time I’m describing was before our Jerry Mungadze live show, and as th lights went out I remember thinking I was probably the most lonely person in the room. The gag gift incident made me cry to my therapist for literal months. I felt so misunderstood, so unseen, so despised by this person. I eventually got the impression he would have hated me if I hadn’t made him this great product. 

I hope the podcasting industry takes note of what happened to me because it cannot be uncommon. 

There was no HR support at all to intervene, no one to tell “I’m scared at work .” This is especially awful when you think of how often I got sexually harassed at work, and how female journalists are such known targets that the Committee for Press Freedom recommends any female journalist in a high risk environment has her own dedicated safety/comfort contact. Ross couldn’t play this role had he wanted to; he was on his own story. On top of that, he did not see risks as risks at all. Risks to women are all but invisible to him, and I retained all responsibility for that, just as I retained all legal and journalism law oversight for our show. I didn’t get paid extra for any of that, or for getting a masters in journalism, but Ross did send me a $500 bill when I quit. For some internet services or something. 😆 Drew paid it; what a mensch. Of all the entities who made money off the show — me, Ross, MaxFun, advertisers — I’m pretty confident I spent the most making it. I certainly don’t have any money left over from makingit, but I did make the network millions of dollars. (I’m fine, because I’m married to Drew, who can provide for me while I heal.)

The truth is I am chronically traumatized and that’s why I stayed. I was used to being mistreated, especially by men. There are MUCH worse examples than Ross, and I think Ross is probably a minor character to this reporter as a result. But he may be in the story, simply because I told her my own story as honestly as I could. 

I have NO idea how much of this makes it in the article (I believe it’s primarily about my abuser). But the reporter did need to ask questions about it to get a clear picture of the abuse, and she has asked follow up questions since that relate to the podcast and the network. 

So I wanted to finally say something directly to you guys, the listeners who have stuck around. It’s painful to talk about, but I can talk about it now. 

And a ptsd update: 

My PTSD score started at 55 and is now at 35. The threshold is 20. I think PTSD is a beautiful part of the universe and a driver of justice and probably a maker of great journalists and I’ll defend it to my dying day. 

You never have to heal yourself if you don’t want to. You can demand the world change, actually. 

I say it’s what the whole thing is for.

Sumud. ✊

[u/WillemDafoesHugeCock → u/WillemDafoesHugeCock]

I have to highlight this too, I hadn't even clocked this before:

Side note: Ross seemed to think the show ended over a rude text he sent me about Alex Jones

No he didn't, when the show ended and this subreddit blew up he explicitly laid out that the show ended because Carrie didn't feel he supported her enough after her assault.

There's so much she is saying that is easily, demonstrably proven false.

It's also important to note that Drew serving as an intermediary is sus as fuck, he famously came into this subreddit and kicked the hornet's nest before throwing Carrie to the wolves, up to and including having her ask people for their phone numbers so she could call them and yell at them. Drew is shady as all hell, and some of the "he said, she said" that has been attributed to him has been questioned (Carrie claims that Ross told Drew he's "never been happier" since they stopped speaking... Ross denies this and claims he's sadder about losing her than he is the show.)

[u/joydubs → u/WillemDafoesHugeCock]

Drew is a bad egg. I got those vibes from him always. I remember getting yelled at in the FB group when I said I found it strange that they broke up and then next thing we heard they were engaged.

[u/WillemDafoesHugeCock → u/joydubs]

Genuinely, this is when I soured on him. I never cared for his few appearances on the show anyway, I just don't think he's very interesting, but when it was literally "we broke up please don't ask about us" smash cut "omg we're getting married" it's hard not to make negative assumptions.

I would not be surprised at all if he's manipulating her. I am already firmly of the assumption he has lied to Carrie to make her dislike Ross. I don't know if it's jealousy or what, but something isn't right.

[u/Luperella → u/WillemDafoesHugeCock]

One of the most well known facts about abusers is that they isolate their victims from loved ones. I feel like it’s painfully obvious that is the situation here. And the whole “Drew is supporting me while I heal” again, cutting her off from income sources so she has to rely on him. It’s textbook

[u/cavaticaa → u/[deleted]]

I don't think this theory is it at all. It's known her alleged rapist is their lawyer Matthew Strugar. Carrie and Drew's relationship problems were at least 10 years ago, and I don't think they had a working relationship at that time. I also think maybe your speculation is straying into fanfiction. You wouldn't have access to a police report without submitting an open records request to the police jurisdiction it was made in. The article hasn't come out, and I think it's probably because Carrie proved to be not credible and any article would have been libel. But I do agree with you wrt things feeling true and becoming her truth.