Beyond The Rainbow

Welcome, everyone, to episode 20, Beyond the Rainbow. You probably didn't know this, but I write these intros in real time. Typically, I think about them maybe a day or two before releasing a new episode, but I really don't give too much thought into what I want to say, mostly because I really like the real feel and canter that my emotions bring to this part of the Dichotomy Diaries. But for the past few days, I've been thinking extra deep. On how to end my part of this story.

While it seems obvious that I should talk about what happened next, it really isn't all that simple. You see, this part of my life has been the most trying part to date. I hit my lowest of lows. And while what happened to me is sad, devastating, and truly unjust, it isn't all bad. add. These compiled experiences have transformed themselves into a foundation for new beginnings, and better yet, new realizations about myself.

So as I've been thinking about this episode a lot, one thing kept coming to mind. The Wizard of Oz. Why? I'm really not sure. Maybe it was the the multitude of tornadoes that hit Illinois last week that had me all excited and sitting on my front porch storm watching.

Or maybe it's deeper than that. Maybe it's my way of paying homage to little Amanda, who dressed up as Dorothy every Halloween and sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow to win the title Little Miss Northlake back in 1998, the little girl that dreamed of a life nothing short of the Emerald City. Truthfully, when you think about it, the similarity between my life and Dorothy's journey are striking.

I, too, found myself swept away by a whirlwind of circumstances beyond my control and thrust into a world of uncertainty and turmoil. And much like Dorothy's quest to find her way back home, my own journey led me through a maze of deception, manipulation, and worst of all, shattered dreams.

But amidst all the chaos and despair, there was this glimmer of hope, or better yet, a realization that much like Dorothy's companions, I too possessed the strength and resilience to overcome the challenges that were laid before me. Like the Tin Man, I yearned to rediscover the capacity for love and compassion that had been stifled by months of emotional abuse. Like the lion, I sought the courage to confront my fears and stand tall in the quest to share my story.

And like the scarecrow, I endeavored to reclaim the sharpness of mind and clarity of thought that had been clouded by the manipulative tactics of the lion.

As I reflect on the parallels between my life and Dorothy's journey down the yellow brick road, I can't ignore the striking symbolism of the Emerald City, a glittering mirage that promised Dorothy and her protectors everything, yet delivered nothing. For much like the wizard who hid behind the curtain, Dick wove a web of illusions and false promises, concealing his true nature behind a facade of godliness, opulence, and warmth. Pretty profound, ain't it?

I'll let you marinate in that. But first, let's finish up my part. I am eager as hell, just like all of you, to get to these interviews. I'm Amanda Arnye, and this is the Dichotomy Diaries. Alright, so where did we leave off? Oh yeah, that's right. My husband unfriended me on Facebook. He blocked me only to a few weeks later, send me a random text telling me he never loved me in the first place. What a gem.

So after that, I was trying to think on this a little bit. I think that I was kind of in an utter state of shock, if you can imagine. I think I was doing a lot of like social media research to figure out who, because there's always a who in these situations, was the person quote unquote responsible. He's the person that's responsible, but there's always somebody that compels him to act out, I guess, at least in the past. So I found somebody.

It's pretty obvious when you follow, I don't know, 400 people, when when you add a woman and all of her friends that recently visited Las Vegas. So I thought on it for a little while and I was like, you know what? He was just here two weeks ago. So if he's like ready to completely like ghost his wife for this person, I'm sure she doesn't know about me. So I sent her a message and it was well thought out. It wasn't harassing. It was a warning.

With some screenshots and some photos that him and I had taken just two, three weeks before with our dogs at Lake Geneva at the beach. Really just a subtle warning. She didn't read it right away. And so I kind of just like chalked it up to a loss, like, okay, maybe one day she'll read it and she'll be like, oh, thank you. Thank you for the warning. The warning that I never got. I.

I wished that somebody had warned me. But again, as I've said multiple times, I don't even know if I was warned, if I would have listened because he had me wrapped around his finger so tight, you guys. So I kind of was just like sitting around in wow. Disbelief, embarrassment, shame, all of the negative emotions that you could possibly imagine. That's what I was feeling. And to top it off, a few days after this happened, I actually got fired from

my position at my job that I had just recently come back to after short-term disability. ability. That was pretty devastating because here I am now, like, I have no money. He's taken everything. I had a job, which, you know, I could throw myself into my work and I could kind of lull it all away. And now I don't have that. To make matters worse, because I wasn't a resident of Illinois at that point yet, I couldn't even, like, claim unemployment.

It was such a whirlwind of like bad things constantly happening and you know how like they say oh when it rains it pours, like it's been fucking tornadoing for the past three years I'm like when is this gonna let up you guys so now I get to sit around and be with my own thoughts which was such a scary place at that time I remember it was wild and I'm thinking about a lot of things I'm thinking about the fact that I should probably do a podcast or write a book or just start journaling everything.

But first, I kept coming back to this thought that I needed to protect myself. And what I mean by that is in the past, in these scenarios, because this exact scenario, maybe not on such a grandiose scale, but this exact scenario had happened so many times.

And what had happened was that I let him back into my life the moment he showed any sign of human decency which is crazy to say I know but I guess what I'm trying to say is I didn't trust myself to be able to say no but I knew in this moment that this was the point of no return for That if I did not protect myself, I knew that when he came back, I would accept him. And that's a really, really like profound thing for me to say out loud.

But I remember thinking it and I remember feeling like, how do I protect myself? What will keep him from ever speaking to me again? And then I realized that I had the answer all along. Talking to his exes would be my insurance policy against myself. So that's exactly what I did. So I grabbed a whiteboard, and I started a timeline. I started from the very beginning. And then I Instagrammed his ex-wife, his ex-fiance, and his ex-girlfriend.

His ex-wife immediately got back to me and called me while she was on a beach vacation with her family. Such a wonderful gem of a human being, I swear. The ex-fiancee got back to me right away and called me, and we talked for probably an hour. The ex-girlfriend and I audio messaged back and forth for a while because of schedules conflicting and whatnot, and then we had a rather long call. All of these women welcomed me with open arms.

And on top of that, I don't know how to, like, explain this, but it was like they knew I would be coming to them. And, honestly, that didn't feel so great that they knew that eventually I would be reaching out to them. But it kind of gave me a little bit of, like, peace, knowing that this whole time, they were like, we'll answer when she messages. When Amanda comes running, we'll be there to support her. And so that was a truly profound week of understanding that what I had gone through.

All three of these women had also gone through on a similar scale. Each conversation was super unique in that they, all three of these women, they're so amazing. They each had their own way of reassuring me that everything was going to be okay, but also kind of like coddling me at the the same time. And they were like, you know what? I was there. I made the same choices. And kind of at the same time, too, like affirming that my experience was dreadful and that they remembered it.

So, you know, these conversations, I had one with each of them.

And what kind of carried out throughout the next week or so was really like them checking in on me face times here and there how are you doing do you need anything and I felt super grateful for that because in this time again remember I don't have that many close friends at all not like I don't have close friends that know what's going on I have Marissa and I have a few other friends but like that's it so these women who don't know me at all and rightfully probably should

not like me were so helpful, you guys. At some point over the course of the next two weeks, let's just say, I don't remember exactly the timeline. I remembered that when Dick was in town visiting me this past time that we were in my Jeep and he wanted to listen to like Big Booty Mix or something, like he always listens to that shit on YouTube. And he, I put it on and I think there was like commercials or something. And he's like, like, give me your phone. Let me log into my YouTube because

he had YouTube premium. Okay. So YouTube uses Google to log in. So he was logged in with Google on my phone. And I don't know when and this came to me, but I'm like, if he's logged in with Google on my phone, that means that not only can I see his email, but I can see his Google search history. And let me tell you, seeing someone's Google search history is like taking a look inside their brain. And what I found was not the brain of the person I thought that I knew.

I thought that I had married an intelligent man. No, no, no, no, no, no. And then it got me to thinking, because I saw all of these absolutely absurd Google searches, like for basic shit that you should know. Not kidding. I think there was a Google search that was like, where is UConn? Like the school. UConn? U-C-O-N-N? You don't know that that's in Connecticut, Mr. Sports Savant?

Like this shit was wild, you guys. It got me to thinking like, how many things that I have connected with him over, intelligent things, were actually not in his brain or part of who he was at all. So I looked in the search history and I went back, back all the way to June of 2021. And do you know that the days that we were first communicating, there were Google searches, who is Dante?

Translate this into Italian. All of the things that made me feel connected to him were things that he put into Google and then spit back out to me to really hook me. So that's just one of those things that if you think about whether or not someone is intentionally manipulating you or intentionally trying to hook you for whatever the reason may be in their fucked up mind, that was intentional. He could have really just said, I don't know who Dante is.

Why don't you tell me? We could have connected over like the teaching experience. But to act like you know things that are very deep and just rooted in my heart and mean a lot to me, that is straight up swindling. So back to this timeline. I have the three X's that I've known about for a while on there, right? Well, as I'm having conversations with each of them, they would kind of like say things along the lines of, well, have you talked to so-and-so? Or what about this girl?

And I'd be like, I don't even know who you're talking about. But then I would have a name, I would add it to the timeline, I would find them on social media, and I would reach out simply just asking about their experiences and if they felt comfortable to share with me because I was going through what I was at the time. Also, once word got around that I was inquiring, people started to come out of the woodwork.

There were people in my inbox telling me that they experienced the same thing as me and that they have watched mine and Dick's relationship for years wanting to reach out and warn me, but that they quote-unquote did not feel like it was their place. In total, I uncovered 17 women, including myself, that had experienced Dick and his manipulation to some extent. The ex-wife and ex-fiance really helped me through a two-week period that I don't think I could have made it through without them.

I sincerely Sincerely so thankful for both of you because even to this day, I mean, I spoke to them both earlier today. I'm like just so in disbelief of the kindness of strangers. And with both of them having gone through what they went through at his hand, they have every right to just be like, Like, I don't want to talk about that. I am done. Like, no, moving on. The kindness of strangers really just emphasized my desire to help others. Dick demonized these women. He made me dislike them.

I didn't even know who they were, what they were about, their story, nothing. I believed him and his word for what it was, and I made judgments about them based off of lies. eyes. And he did so intentionally so that I would never even think to speak to them, let alone ask their side of the story. Initially, some of these women were hesitant when I discussed the podcast.

But as the story unfolded episode by episode, and they all listened, it became obvious that our stories all shared striking similarities, sometimes even down to the verbiage he used when speaking And it's not just the women, you guys. The men, too. Some reached out to me and others I remembered and contacted them. And this is how we have the remaining episodes of the Dichotomy Diaries. I guess one final looming question, really, is surrounding the entire divorce.

So I actually found out that he filed divorce papers because he posted a status about it on Instagram.

Instagram apparently he didn't know that when you file divorce papers it is your responsibility to then serve said divorce papers so I found out about the divorce papers was gosh I don't even know had to have been sometime in August maybe it was even in September I'm not gonna lie but But whenever I found out about the divorce through the Instagram story, I went and looked because I was in disbelief that, you know,

the person I was married to was so stupid and saw that he had filed them a month earlier. So fast forward, right? He files. I have to answer. OK, we have a case management hearing where I, of course, am representing myself. And because i had no job at this time the judge awards me temporary alimony so he was supposed to start paying the temporary alimony starting on october 1st october 1st came and went and nothing came i got no money november 1st nothing december nothing january nothing.

If he would have paid me the money that the judge ordered him to pay for temporary alimony, it would have afforded me the ability to retain counsel to properly represent myself. So imagine that. Imagine that. Dick not following the law, the orders of a judge, is the reason that I was ill-equipped in the courtroom on my divorce trial day, the trial day that I asked for because I had all of the evidence.

So really, at this point, if we go back to October, October 10th was the day that I launched the Dichotomy Diaries. And I kind of want to explain my initial thought behind starting the podcast. I really went into this thinking that it needed to be educational. I needed to to teach my listeners something that they didn't know. It was like not at all supposed to be an entertaining podcast, but I understand that drama is gold.

Like I get that it's entertaining. Now that I'm out of it, I can see like, holy shit, grab the popcorn. Another episode is out of the the dichotomy diaries, like I get it. But the initial why was really surrounding, highlighting narcissistic abuse. Because prior to me experiencing this, I had no idea. I had no idea about the mask and the mask falling and the gaslighting and, you know, all of those things. They were really like, key words that were on fire on social media.

And I never really looked I was like, okay, whatever, like, this is not what I'm going through, but it was. The current outcome of the podcast is not so much about education. It's about helping others indirectly. There are so many men and women that reach out to me daily to tell me that.

Just multitude of things. There have been men that reach out to me that explain how listening to me describe all of the different ways I tried to get Dick to love me and see me and all of the different ways that I tried to help him in his life have shown them that us women, we actually think and put a lot of effort and thought intentionally into everything that we do.

These men have shared with me that the dichotomy diaries have helped them appreciate their current partner, their girlfriends, their wives more because they kind of have this inside view of the female brain. Which I never ever thought that like even men would be listening.

I thought they'd be like oh okay she's like a man hater like fuck this I'm not gonna listen no like they love it and I appreciate my male listeners so much like so so much and then I have my lovely lady female listeners you guys are incredible and you're so strong and I'm so thankful to you for trusting me as much as you have with all of your stories.

The messages I receive weekly letting me know that the process of listening to me share my story has, I don't know, awoken some strength inside of them to make them want to share. It has made my female listeners realize realize that by talking about your trauma and your experiences, that is the way to the other side, to the healing side, because a lot of them have told me that holding it in just creates and fosters resentment, which never really goes away.

And if we want to escape this victim mentality, we have to talk about it and no longer make ourselves the victim. So thank you to my listeners, male and female, for sharing what you all have gotten out of my storytelling. I went into this wanting to help people and I didn't know exactly how that was going to happen. So thank you all for letting me know how I was able to help you. Like, truthfully, I answer every DM.

I answer every message. I read every comment, for now at least, and it means so much to me from the bottom of my heart. As I've mentioned time and time again, when I first talked about doing this podcast with my family and with my therapist, I was met with a lot of pushback, like, I don't think you should do it, it'll make you kind of fester and you won't be able to move forward, or Or do you really want all of your life just like out there?

And I felt in my soul that if I didn't share this part of my life, that I didn't believe that I was ever going to get over it. I recalled resentment that I held within my first marriage afterwards. And I knew that this was way, way, way bigger of a deal and affected me way deeper. her. So I knew that I needed to go with my gut. And I was right. When all of the episodes started coming out and my family listened, my therapist hasn't listened yet. She's waiting for it all to be done.

But when my family listened, they understood what I needed. I needed to talk about it. And I needed to try and help people through my experiences. I had somebody ask me the other day, I think it was on a TikTok, why I was so vulnerable to a vulture like him. And that has, I've been diving deep into that question as well. I think that it was because I was desperate to be in love. I think in one of the episodes when my friends and family described Amanda to the listeners.

I think somebody said, Amanda loves love. And that's really true. I do. I am a hopeless romantic. I like to say hopeful romantic because I try to be more optimistic. But I have always been searching for that fairy tale, that happily ever after that we learn about as young girls. I also felt compelled by this stupid notion that I had a biological clock that was ticking. I had never ever thought about a biological clock before I was 30.

But then I found myself 30, 31, 32, and now 33, and I feel like Like we're constantly pushed to think about that, to think about our age and whether or not we have the ability to still have children, procreate and our worthiness based off of our age. The other part of it is that I recognize that at that point, I was vulnerable to him because I felt like I needed someone else to feel whole.

And I think that that comes from many different areas, but definitely from the idea of, you know, living out your fairy tale, finding your prince charming, all of those kind of of things is like, what good is a princess without her prince, right? That, while childish, was something that I always kind of just like kept in my heart. I also recognize that I have some very, very deep rooted abandonment issues.

You know, I think that a lot of them stem from my I know, I shouldn't say I think, I know that coming from a family of divorce and not a pleasant one really did a number on me with the abandonment thing. It has always been this subconscious endeavor for me to find someone and make myself irreplaceable to them. And in doing so, I single-handedly devalued who I was. My worth in my mind was equated to what I could do or what I could give to my partner.

Or actually, sometimes even worse, my worth was equated to how my partner viewed me. And that's, you never, you never want to get there, you guys. You have to know who you are and love who you are and know your value. Another important realization for me was the importance of mental health over material things or money. If you view mental health as a bank, let's just say a piggy bank, you should probably leave while you still have some semblance of positivity in that piggy bank.

Because once your piggy bank is empty and you're left with depression and despair, everything else in your life feels insurmountable. I look back and I think about it like this. There was many times, so many times, where I should have left. And I remember thinking in those moments, I don't have any money. All of my 401ks are gone. My bank accounts are empty. And I was like, well, if I leave, I don't have money. I won't have him. What do I have? of?

Well, at that point, I probably would have still had all of my furniture. But I stayed. And what did I do? I had an estate sale and I sold all of my personal belongings to try and maintain and keep this relationship, right? And so then it came to another point. I should leave. But I'm like, I don't have any furniture. We haven't paid rent. I'm going to lose the place I live. I don't have any money. And if I leave, I don't have him. But you know what I did have at that point?

I still had some positivity left in my soul. I still had a job, but I couldn't really see that because all I was focused on was material things, tangible things, and him. him. So when it comes down to it, I emptied out my mental health piggy bank as well as my real piggy bank. I single-handedly gave away everything that I have ever made in order to fight for my my marriage, which some will still see, even as stupid as it was, will still see as noble and.

Trustworthy, loyal, all very good attributes of a wife and a partner. But it was all at my own expense, and there was nothing reciprocal about it whatsoever. Another profound realization, visualization and I think one of the main reasons why I have been so vulnerable to him. It's kind of, it's embarrassing to admit, but I think that we all go through this in some way, is self-gaslighting.

And I know that I've talked about it before, but when you are in toxic situations, you tend to diminish the effect that they have on you. And what I mean by that is I really, most of the time I was actively in this relationship with Dick, I was like questioning my own reality. I was asking myself like daily, is this really as bad as I think it is? Or when people say marriage is hard, is everyone going through this?

Maybe not exactly the same. Maybe, you know, their spouse isn't, you know, escorting with men, but that's my cross to bear. Maybe, you know, they're dealing with something else that's equally as bad, if not worse. That is really what I thought. And I still, to this day, like, anytime when I release a podcast episode on Tuesday, I have a whole week until I have to do another one, right?

Throughout the week, once, if not twice, maybe three times, I ask myself if what I went through was really even that bad. Comparing it to things that I see on TV or Risa Tisa on TikTok, you know? And it's just like a constant daily struggle because part of my brain, and I think that this is the part that was super active when I was in the relationship wants to just sweep it all under the rug and continue on with my life.

But if this whole process has taught me anything, it's that sweeping things under the rug is not the answer. It's not the answer for, you know, our parents to do so that later on when, you know, we lift up the rug, we have to do all of that unpacking. That's the generational trauma that we have to work through.

I know that my quest to share the truth and to help others share their truth and to help others recognize these behaviors within their own relationships is what I'm meant to be doing right now in this moment. So whenever I'm met with this whole self-gaslighting notion, which appears way too frequently, I just have to remind myself that my baseline for what a normal relationship is, is just dead, flat out fucking wrong.

So that's, those are kind of like the things that I've realized that made me vulnerable to him. And, you know, one of the greatest realizations in all of this is that my real gift is helping others, others that actually warrant my help, not people like Dick. And while remaining in it quote-unquote compared to getting out of it sweeping it under the rug I it's been a struggle but I will say that I'm not afraid for the first time in my whole entire life of what anyone else thinks of me.

I've had people say, well, what if like a man hears the podcast and doesn't like that your whole life is public and all of your choices, you know, bad choices are out there, you know, like, is that something someone would want to like have their mother listen to about the person that they're interested in? And I thought on it for a little while and I'm like, then that's not my my person, like at all. I know to my core that I am a transparent, cutthroat person. I have excellent communication.

And if you want to know who I am, I'm going to share it all with you, the good, the bad, the ugly, the embarrassing. But for the longest time in these past few years, I feel like I was only putting on like the highlight reel. And now I know and I feel that I am back to who Amanda truly is. So if any of you guys listening, you're like, oh, well, I thought she was cute. And wow, that's a catch. But not anymore since she talked about doing Molly. Sorry, like, move on. I really don't care.

There's like 8 billion people in the world. and you're just not my person. Piggybacking off of that, actually, is an unintentional byproduct of this podcast, and it's a good one. You guys, the podcast acts like a built-in fuckboy filter. Hear me out. As I've been more and more public and had more consistency with posting on social media, there has been an influx of people viewing my pages. And the podcast literally has scared so many fuckboys away.

They are not sliding into the DMs trying to pull a fast one on me because they're afraid. They're afraid of me. They're afraid of ending up on a podcast because, And I fucking love that. If that works, which it obviously has been, all of you guys should start a podcast. Think about that. If all men knew that if they were to fuck with us so much that their actions would be aired publicly, less of them would try to fuck with us.

And same goes for women with men who are you know materialistic and gold diggers like the whole point is you guys you don't have to have a podcast you just need to stand up for yourself and speak your truth always nobody cares about the highlight reel they care about who you are what you will will put up with and what you will not put up with.

And I guarantee you at the end of the day, the person who is going to be your person is going to love you for your ruthlessness, your cutthroat, sassy, Sicilian, Polish, just bitch approach to dealing with the fuck shit. it. I'm telling you. Adversely, the podcast has also acted as a way for me to identify people who are good-hearted human beings. If you are sliding in the DMs like Italian Batman did.

And you are speaking truthfully to me, not hitting on me, complimenting me on my ability to speak and right and all of these things, I immediately feel like, oh, he's not afraid of me. So he must be a good person. While I know that that is not always the case, it actually acts as a good filter. So that's just kind of what I'm getting at.

The podcast has actually introduced me to some amazing new friends, both in the podcasting realm, content creators and hosts of other true Through Crime and Lifestyle podcasts. A few notable mentions, Ex-Wives Undercover. Amazing, you guys. Like their podcast is so fantastic. And I am so thankful to them for mentoring me, I guess we could say, through some difficult parts of my podcasting journey. So if you haven't gone to listen to them, definitely go and do that.

As well as Secrets of a Sugar Daddy. Like Like they've had a podcast very widely known and they invited me on and my episode was the top most downloaded episode that they've had, which is so amazing. Like just learning from these people who have been doing it for a long time and their willingness to share has been great. Made some amazing new friends as well as listeners who reach out to me and talk to me on a regular basis. sis.

So thank you, you guys, again, for just always sliding in the DMs and letting me know how you feel. It really highlights my day. The podcast has taught me so much about my creative abilities. All of my social media is all me. I have created and crafted every single single piece of it. And part of that was really scary for me because I wanted to make sure that I did it right. But I also did not have the money to pay somebody to do it right.

And so I took a leap. I didn't end up in this like analysis paralysis of what should I do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then not doing it and, you know, making that go on forever.

I just dove right in. and I did that during a time where I really needed something to focus on and also was really, really in this moment of hurt and feels and everything that comes out on my social media in the form of content creation, marketing art, all of those different things, that's all me and there's truly never a time where I... Ask anybody's opinion on it. I really just put it out there and go with what I feel.

And in turn, this has taught me that like the Amanda that used to say, oh, I'm not creative. I'm more of a process person or whatever. That's bullshit. I'm super creative. Have you guys seen my Instagram? I am so proud of that. I've had people reach out to me weekly asking me who does my social media marketing. And I don't think that there's any better compliment, truthfully. The podcast has really taught me a lot about time management or my lack thereof before.

I know initially I had promised episodes every Tuesday. day. But when I was navigating the divorce and my new job and creating the podcast, learning how to podcast. Socializing, and just like activities of daily life, you guys, I was struggling and I felt like I needed to over promise, but I would continuously under deliver. So I'm so happy for all of you sticking with me because now I see that I am being consistent and I have way better time management skills. So thank you.

That being said, my sleep schedule still blows. I don't know what happened to my circadian rhythm, but I become creative and the most awake that I am during 24 hours starting at like 11 30 p.m. And I like can go until like four well when you start work at 8 a.m.

That kind of sucks but I can't get out of it I've tried and I'm like you know what I'm just gonna make the best of it now so if you guys are ever up at I don't know 2 30 in the morning bet that I am awake and I will probably answer your messages so to bring it back to the story story you all should now know how my divorce trial panned out and if you haven't and you're on this episode you need to rewind and you need to go back and I think it's

like two or three episodes before this one and listen to that really you should be listening from episode one. And then this will be your last episode in the Amanda part of the saga. But that brings us to the next part, which is really what you guys are very excited for, the interviews. So I have nine or 10, still confirming the 10th, nine or 10 different individuals that you guys will meet over the course of the next, I don't know how many episodes. Episodes and we are going to start with Kyle.

You guys remember Kyle, right? He did that whole bonus episode on Fyndom and gay Twitter and all of that. A lot of you guys had requested, you guys were so anxious for me to put his full episode out. And the reason that he is coming coming first is because Kyle is one of the people that I reached out to first, that I had an ongoing conversation with about everything that was going on. So episode 21 will be Kyle. Episode 22 will be Kyle.

Following Kyle will be ex-wife, then ex-girlfriend who sent Dick to jail. Resulting in the felony. Then we have an ex-girlfriend from out of state. We have an ex-girlfriend who moved to Vegas for him.

We have an ex-fiancé, another ex-girlfriend who's tentative, another ex-girlfriend one who turned down a proposal three weeks before dick met me and we have one of the girls that got away you guys remember the florida girl don't you, And finally, we have an ex-client slash friend who will be sharing his experience and kind of backstory on how he met Dick and what that relationship looked like. So are you guys ready for the interviews? I know I am. Music.

I'd like to start out by saying thank you. Thank you to each and every one of you who have listened to my story. For allowing me into your lives weekly. Whether it's on your commute home, while you clean, while you're getting your lashes done, or doing others' lashes. ashes. Your support, whether you have reached out or simply just listened week after week, is the reason that I can sit here today and talk to you from a healed, clear-headed position.

So thank you, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. Next week, you will hear once again from And when I tell you that your jaw is going to drop straight up onto the floor, I fucking mean it, you guys. I'd like to give you as the listener the opportunity to interact with all of our upcoming guests. So I invite you to submit a question for Kyle via Instagram. You will see a post where you are able to submit questions on. So keep an eye out for that.

Before I go, I want to leave you with something. At the end of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy proclaims, if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Similarly, Glinda, the good witch, tells Dorothy one of the most profound statements, one I actually painted into my undergrad cap for graduation. She says, you've had the power all along, my dear. Just like Dorothy, I have experienced a shift in my perspective.

I no longer seek fulfillment externally. I choose to look inward and find it in myself. Glinda's statement also mirrors changes I have made. I choose to awaken my inner strength and resilience. Both extremely idolized figures give us a very clear roadmap to follow whenever we need a reminder that there's no place like home, especially when you build home within yourself. Let this be a reminder of the importance of self-discovery, empowerment, and the power in reclaiming your autonomy.

My name is Amanda Arnier, and this is the Dichotomy Diaries. See you next week. Music.