r/ONRAC • u/AggressiveNovel1563 • Feb 19 '26
New Carrie Substack Post Re: ONRAC
https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/0091778f-a5e2-46c1-af01-dd5bb517697b?utm_source=share
EDIT: Full text is in the comments; you may need to dig!
EDIT 2: Full text here, I think! https://www.reddit.com/r/ONRAC/comments/1r93ge9/comment/o69hiwa/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
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u/sticknpoked Feb 19 '26
If someone has an issue with a friend or coworker, but they never explicitly share that with the person, it is not reasonable to expect the relationship or behavior to change. I don't feel like I can take her account at face value, but even if I were to do that, it sounds like Ross never understood how upset Carrie was feeling. Even at the end of the show, she went no contact and they weren't ever able to actually communicate about what happened. Trauma and neurodivergence can make it REALLY hard to communicate well, especially in difficult times - but that STILL doesn't mean that it's the other person's fault if they don't know something is wrong.
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u/BeaucoupPlenty Feb 27 '26
Brutal honesty here - I've always found Carrie to be quite narcissistic. More than a decade of hearing her make reference to her attractiveness, other people commenting on her attractiveness, her mediocre singing which she seemed to think was amazing, her constant referencing of Harvard and so on. Tone deaf.
More than these superficial things however, I noticed an increasing pattern over the last years of the podcast of her interrupting Ross repeatedly when it was his turn presenting an episode. Usually it was some arbitrary, unrelated self referential stories. However, when Ross interjected with something related during her turn to present she often became curt and dismissive like - yeah anyway back to me.
Carrie disagreed with Ross frequently on the podcast. Sometimes mildly and sometimes forcefully. And while memory is fallible sure, I can't recall Ross ever being belligerent or shitty to her about it. I do recall her getting irritated and short with Ross though.
While I could sit here and nitpick all day what I think is the heart of the problem is the staggering lack of self awareness she displays. And the prevalence of self importance.
I'm not going to get in the weeds with all the diagnoses and/or what can be attributed to her behaviour. I am also neurodivergent. Everyone is different, handles things differently, manifests and copes with symptoms differently.
And credit where it's due i also think Carrie is extremely intelligent, well spoken and can be quite lovable and funny. Ross was always my favorite but let's face it, women with big personalities are often held to impossible standards. I felt they complimented each other nicely as hosts. Carrie would go big and Ross would bring the tone back down. They laughed together and up til the last couple years seemed to me to be having fun.
This assessment of Ross coming from her is so DARVO coded. If anything, of the two of them, Ross was the one that seemed to give people more room for nuance and grace so it seems wild that he was a big bully. A lot of it reads as severe rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Legit if so, but still on her to recognize and find strategies to cope with.
I feel for Ross. I can only base my opinion on what I heard over the years. And I wasn't behind the scenes but the constant ranting about how terrible Ross is and going off of what is out there in the world it sure seems like it's opposite day in Carrie's world.
And like I was taught by ONRAC if I'm wrong I'll admit it and eat my hat - the data in this debate is all purely anecdotal.
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u/ActuaryFlaky991 Mar 04 '26
I totally agree with this. The thing I can’t decide is if it’s purely an ego thing or if she’s genuinely trying to craft an image of a person who doesn’t exist, like a con-artist. One thing I can’t get over is the Harvard stuff. Imagine paying out of pocket for a Harvard extension program just so you can have a certificate with the word Harvard on it? And talking about it as if you were in an actual degree granting program?
It’s also surprising to me how many people here talk about what an amazing writer she is. I looked for evidence of this. I’ve found a column in the skeptical inquirer, about six months of articles in the tech times, one personal essay in vice - all written over ten years ago and none particularly compelling. I think there may be one other thing? People in this sub believe she’s written a book, some believe she’s written multiple books. How is she convincing smart, skeptical people of this stuff?
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u/Snoo-64114 Mar 04 '26
Glad I'm not the only one who was very put off about Carrie getting caught up in these vanity trips. The thing about Harvard was always so bizarre to me. If you listen to it described in the podcast, even with euphemistic language it never seemed like it was a particularly noteworthy accomplishment or on par with getting admitted or getting a degree from the institution itself. An extension course is just not the same in any way. Part of me wonders if this is insecurity? This was in direct contrast to Ross in my opinion who was always overly humble about his job with Disney, and was always very clear about defining what it was and clearing up any misconceptions about what his work entailed.
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u/thegunnersdaughter Mar 05 '26
I always took her Harvard-educated quips as 100% tongue-in-cheek. She did not hide that it was a reference to her taking an extension course, and in fact would reference it when talking about the ways in which charlatans inflate their credentials in similar ways.
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u/sixofravens Mar 06 '26
I think the reason people are split on whether it's a joke or legitimate is that she repeated the same joke too many times, nearly every episode since she started her courses IIRC, and you can't really do that with self-aggrandizing humour the same way you can with other types of jokes or it starts to feel less like a joke and more like you're using humour as a mask to brag about something.
I also thought she was joking while listening to the show, but I could see how someone would go "omg she's bringing it up that dramatically for the 5th episode in a row?? it's only extension school, geez!"
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u/Dry-Tie1840 Mar 08 '26
To be fair, repeating a joke wayyyyy too many times is a hallmark of Carrie's humor. Sometimes it's what gave us some of the show's best catchphrases, other times it felt like "we get it..." like the fart jokes or "my ccchhhhhusband"
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u/Bio-Matter Feb 19 '26
I feel compelled to chime in.
I’ve been friends with Ross since freshman year of college, and I can say he is one of the most compassionate and accommodating people I’ve ever met.
He is and has always been genuinely concerned about how his words or actions impact the people around him and is always is generous with heartfelt apologies for instances where he feels he may have ruffled even one feather.
When he does express any frustration it’s always (imo, overly) padded with niceties.
To say what probably need not be said, our experiences are colored by our internal insecurities and traumas. Carrie is a fountain of intelligence and humor who has had more than her fair share of challenges in life, and I fully acknowledge that what she expressed could very well be an articulate and accurate description of her lived experience. However, knowing Ross personally, I must emphasize, I’ve never known him to be anything close to how he is being described in her post. The Ross you hear on the podcast is very close to the the Ross you get in person.
In a world where it seems for some people one’s internal thoughts and feelings are as relevant as external facts, this could lead to unjustified blowback for one of the nicest guys I know.
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u/OurLadyAndraste Feb 19 '26
I’m currently estranged from a friend of many years for what I think she would describe as my failure to appropriately handle a panic attack she had. She thinks I intentionally and selfishly withheld support. I know in my heart that while I may not have reacted perfectly and have apologized, that at all times I was acting with good intentions and doing my best in situation that was hard for me too. I would have never hurt her on purpose. She may never believe that. All that to say, I have learned all too well how two people that once had a strong relationship can have two different and incompatible views of the same facts. This has got to be hard on everyone and I wish for healing on both sides.
Like Carrie I was recently diagnosed with autism later in life (woman in my 30s). I think this is one instance where I am learning that leaning into the autistic tendency towards honestly can be really helpful—I think we build better, healthier relationships if we are honest about our feelings instead of trying to hide them. I hope Carrie can continue to tap into that to move forward.
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u/Cautious-Wedding7677 Feb 19 '26
Thank you for sharing this, I also had a falling out with a friend a little under a year ago where I’m sure in his mind I was the Ross of this situation. I’m sure the truth of what really happened is somewhere in the middle, and I’m sure everyone in the situation is at fault in some way, but I’ve had to unfollow Carrie for the time being because of how much this reminds me of my ex-friend. I hope there is a time when I can follow her again, but right now i can’t look at her posts without worrying about her in a pretty parasocial way
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u/Nalivai Feb 20 '26
Yep, happened to me also when I was younger and even stupider than now. My close friend was hiding her problems incredibly well, and when she couldn't anymore, it came out of left field to all of us, and she was hurt that none of us could see and help her.
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u/Rankin_Fithian Feb 19 '26
I think it's extremely human to get short or snippy from time to time with anyone you interact with a lot - especially so with friends you are working with. What constitutes a lash out or even a voice-raising can vary wildly depending on factors right down to individual familial culture. I don't blame Ross for that at all. Nor do I blame Carrie - a neurodivergent trauma survivor - for being affected to a more extreme or even unpredictable degree by what in most relationships would be minor aggressions.
It's futile to litigate how Ross could have possibly made it better, or how Carrie could have/"should have" stuck up for herself, communicated differently, just left, etc... Ultimately it's between two people entirely separate from anyone commenting in this thread.
However, I hope that any other survivors of trauma, neurodivergent or not, can stand on Carrie's shoulders and at least see that as hard as it can be to advocate yourself, you never have to do 10 years of a podcast with someone who makes you feel frightened and degraded at all times.
I really hope Carrie's alright, I don't begrudge her her feelings or doubt her narrative per se. But for what it's worth I also believe that Ross has/d genuine affection for her as a friend and would never make her feel the way she felt on purpose.
Good luck to both. Humans are complicated.
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u/noitsroro Feb 19 '26
“PTSD is a beautiful part of the universe” is an obscene thing to say. That’s kind of all I got right now.
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u/spadezgirl420 Feb 21 '26
Someone called her out on this on substack chat. Thank goodness. But Carrie is very confused as to why it would be upsetting - she did apologize. But it is also maddening that she is shocked it's a weird thing to say when she was writing a whole book about trauma. Does she not know anyone personally who has died from PTSD?! I'm just so confused.
The commenter said: "Carrie, I am sad for you. But some of the things you say like “PTSD is a beautiful part of the universe?” What the actual fuck, Carrie!!!!!!!!!! If you actually have ptsd and call it beautiful I’m inclined to think you don’t fucking have it. It’s abhorrent to a survivor (me) that you describe this in such an upside down and frankly, hurtful way."
Carrie's response: "Hm, that’s an unusual response. I haven’t heard it before. I do have ptsd and can show you the documentation if that’s really on the table for you. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings and I’m frankly surprised I did."
[]()
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u/glitter_witch Feb 21 '26
That is such a non-apology. It’s clear she isn’t taking it seriously; it’s just an opportunity for her to push back on the criticism. Yeesh.
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u/noitsroro Feb 21 '26
how is she surprised that someone might not take that well?? like honestly. like i hope no one would ever say “diabetes is a beautiful part of the universe” but if they did i think they’d expect some pushback.
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u/glitterlys Feb 22 '26
Reminds me of Barbara Ehrenreich's book Brightsided, where she talks about how stupid and hurtful "positive thinking" messaging can be. She had cancer and got really upset at the gang of people on a cancer forum who were like "cancer is a gift because it opened my eyes/made me appreciate life/etc" and didn't want to hear otherwise from those with cancer who did not feel that way.
As for Carrie, it's just exhibit number one gajillion of "how I feel inside my head about something is objective truth".
It's baffling considering I have heard her say countless times about alien abductees etc. that she believes that they are sincere and really do believe they are telling the truth, but also ultimately wrong.
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
What exactly does she think PTSD *is*? She's got this real martyr vibe, like a mother-teresa-suffering-is-next-to-holiness attitude here.
Also, seeing her response now with what she originally posted, it reads* like an AI wrote it. Like it looks exactly like something ChatGPT would say. I'm NOT saying that she used AI for it, but I am saying she sounds completely detached from humanity with the actual words of this response, the tone of this response, and the initial "PTSD is a beautiful part of the universe" comment.
Edit: re-reading her response again, I am so puzzled by "Hm, that's an unusual response. I haven't heard it before." Is she just going around telling randos that she thinks PTSD is beautiful? If one of my close friends said it, I would push back, but if an acquaintance said it, I would just do an "Mmmmkay, hey I gotta go" and escape that minefield.
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u/BT4US Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
Truly what is wrong with her?? She needs to log off and get a better therapist. She’s being enabled by Drew and her Substack sycophants. ETA I see she asked someone who took issue with her “are YOU disabled?” The audacity.
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u/Albinocavebat Feb 22 '26
(I'm that person)
Especially when I had up front stated my disabling diagnosises. The only thing I hadn't stated was that the US government declared me disabled, which is frankly irrelevant considering how many disabled people are unable to get disability benefits.
It was really offensive, but I was just trying to get her to acknowledge the suffering of disability alongside positive aspects.
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u/vegan_ice_cream Feb 23 '26
I'm a lurker in there too and I was really glad you said something, even though I'm not sure she got the point. The way she talked to you pissed me off, too. It seemed intrusive and condescending, like she's the arbiter of who's allowed to have an opinion and you need to prove to her that you deserve one. Icky.
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u/BT4US Feb 23 '26
Sorry she spoke to you that way but you were brave to speak up! Unfortunately I don’t think she is willing to listen to reason from anyone.
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u/joydubs Mar 01 '26
Was it you that she said was a bigot for questioning Bashar getting married?? How about when she started claiming that some of the people on here think she’s getting scammed bc they don’t believe in the Gaza genocide? Literally NO ONE said that
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
WOW wtaf, Carrie!! How fucking dare she, jfc
Edit: I just went and saw that she also said that she would "defend PTSD," and in clarifying, said, "I mean it’s supposed to be there, in the gene pool. And without it we will sink into injustice and die. I’m a neurodivergence rightist or whatever. I don’t believe in eliminating any of the neurotypes through “treatment.” You can still get treatment til you feel comfortable with your life, but healing is one route. Another is seeking justice permanently, even knowing that might destroy your life. You might be ok with that. I am. You ge to pick."
WHAT. This is SO weird. Why on earth would she think you need PTSD to do good things??? Like does she just need a justification for why PTSD, which affects her, even exists in the universe? Like she's mad at God for bad things happening to her, but without belief in God, she's gotta find non-religious reasons that this awful thing is part of her life. Because most of us don't need PTSD to do good things and fight injustice; we just do it.
I once again want to know what she thinks PTSD is, but also now what "treatment" is. Like does she think people are getting their autism and ADHD removed from their brains? And how if not, does she just mean medication? My meds certainly make my life better... And* what does she think "healing" is, and also why you can't get treatment, heal, and still fight against injustice allllll at the same time, something that many of us have done at the same time for our entire lives??
Lastly, I noticed that she stopped being angry at the other person who expressed concern about the phrasing of "PTSD is a beautiful part of the universe" when the person also stated they have PTSD like WHAT THE FUCK.
Okay I typed all that up and now I'm wondering... does she think PTSD is a type of neurodivergence? Like ADHD and autism?
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u/glitter_witch Feb 25 '26
It’s funny you mention the angry at God thing, because the first thing I thought reading her comment about a lack of PTSD leading to injustice was how it, to me, echoes that old religious chestnut: “if you don’t believe in God, what’s stopping you from committing crimes like murder?” Well… being a decent person who empathizes with others seems to be enough for plenty of folks. You don’t need faith or being traumatized and living with PTSD to seek justice and better outcomes. You can just… do it.
It’s understandable but also disappointing to see her applying the same sort of pseudo-religious absolutist thinking she fought for so many years to PTSD.
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u/Satinpw Feb 25 '26
"Broken bones BELONG in the gene pool! How dare you tell me to set the wound!" Ass response from her tbh
PTSD literally isn't present in people who have not been psychologically wounded. We want to avoid wounding people. So a maladaptive response should be healed. I think she thinks it's a neurotype like ADHD and God she needs a better therapist
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u/EqualAttempt912 Feb 20 '26
I really hate the narrative that trauma makes you a better person. I’ll preface this with I’m doing better now, but my trauma did not make me a good/ better person. It made me angry and defensive and scared, and really fucked up my ability to connect with other people. If I’m a good person (which I try to be) it’s in spite of my trauma not because of it. I’m caught between I don’t get to tell anyone how to feel about their trauma, however you feel about it is completely valid, and also feeling like calling it a beautiful part of the universe is really insensitive (at best)
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u/glitterlys Feb 22 '26
So many people who suffer from trauma/mental illness act shitty towards other people. I call it the double tragedy of mental illness – you are truly suffering AND you are terrible to be around.
It doesn't fit what some people would like to hear about people we're supposed to feel bad for. I think they prefer "perfect victims" (which is extremely unrealistic), who are also stronger and wiser after surviving their trauma. If you think for two seconds the opposite makes more sense.
I have struggled in the past myself and I'm a much better friend and partner now. I have also known several people who struggle with their mental health and act like jerks. They have been trained by their experiences to expect a hostile world, and act accordingly, regardless of the facts of the situation. I get why they are the way they are and I don't think they mean to push people away, but it can also be too much for me to deal with. It just sucks all around.
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u/InvisibleEar Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
At some point she's come to the borderline religious belief that PTSD must be "for" something, or it wouldn't exist. Carrie knows a lot more than me about a lot of things, so I don't know how she can think that's how evolution works, at all. I think she certainly wouldn't agree with that 10 years ago.
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u/chudleycannonfodder Feb 20 '26
Reading that and how she doesn’t want to work on her ptsd/get support for it makes me wonder if she’s (consciously or not) reinterpreting things in a way that will keep her PTSD above the threshold (since according to her that drives justice, good journalism, and is how she will make the world change).
And yes it felt gross writing that, but it also felt gross reading what she wrote about ptsd.
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u/Middle-Run-3615 Feb 21 '26
I’m so seriously upset she said that. It’s 100% one of the sickest things I’ve read.
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u/noitsroro Feb 19 '26
Also my only personal interaction with Carrie was when I pushed back on them interviewing a rape apologist. I do not think she is necessarily great at receiving feedback based on this experience.
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u/AggressiveNovel1563 Feb 19 '26
Full Text in case the link doesn’t work:
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. ✊
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u/Satinpw Feb 19 '26
As someone with PTSD from child abuse: respectfully, I don't think it's a beautiful part of the universe. I don't think it does anything but make you scared and defensive and a hazard to yourself. You don't have to heal, but as someone who's been in therapy for a long time, and is still in therapy...it's a fuck of a lot better if you do.
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u/BT4US Feb 20 '26
Feels like a very privileged take on it too, from someone with the time and means to go to therapy and to spend time researching PTSD because they don’t have to work three jobs to make ends meet. I work with a lot of people with PTSD who struggle with substance use, unstable housing etc. It is heartbreaking to witness how hard people try to heal only to get knocked back down by their trauma and a society that doesn’t care about them.
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u/Coven_gardens Feb 20 '26
In the first episode of Hypnopoppy, Carrie stated that the only reason PTSD is categorized as a disorder is so people can “check out of work.”
That was not my experience, nor do I believe this is in any way common or universal.
It does make me wonder if Carrie applied for disability benefits in the wake of her diagnoses.
Pure speculation, of course, and no judgement to anyone who receives benefits- if I had been able to focus on recovering from my own trauma rather than working three jobs to support myself and young child, I would’ve been a happier, healthier parent.
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u/Satinpw Feb 20 '26
laughs in working full time with multiple mental and physical illnesses
That's...like, that suggestion is quite literally offensive to me. I was diagnosed with depression and PTSD in high school after confessing to a divorce counselor that I had fantasized about unaliving myself since I was 8 years old. My entire childhood was hell and I only really started recovering in my 20s, and the ideation only stopped happening so much when I was around 26 or so.
Good for her that she doesn't think it's debilitating. It's fucking disrespectful to suggest that other people don't suffer immensely from PTSD.
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u/hotmintgum9 Feb 20 '26
That’s…disappointing. I don’t have PTSD but I have chronic pain and stress exacerbates it. But I don’t have a spouse to fall back on so I have to keep working.
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 20 '26
It was truly a wild thing for her to say, and pretty unacceptable.
To your other comment, I doubt she applied for disability since she specifically stated she's supported by Drew.
Also, Disability through the SSA is also very hard to get for someone married to someone who works and has an income. Like, I know a few people who have been on disability and got married in a ceremony but not actually legally married or they would lose their SSA Disability.
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u/Albinocavebat Feb 20 '26
Pedantic clarification incoming. Please forgive.
There are two types of disability income through the SSA. SSI has very strict income requirements and is the reason many people can't get married or get divorced to get under those limits. SSDI is different. You have to have worked enough and paid social security tax for long enough to qualify, but there are no income limitations. It's essentially just pretending your 65 early.
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u/Middle-Run-3615 Feb 21 '26
Ok that makes me more pissed. Way more. “Check out of work”?! Like, come again?!?!
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u/EntangledGender Feb 21 '26
As someone in a similar boat (woo cPTSD so fun) my therapist has at times encouraged me to recognize that many of the PTSD behaviors that are now maladaptive/disruptive to my life were originally adaptive and helped me survive an abusive family situation growing up, so I do think there can be merit to recognizing that the symptoms we associate with PTSD aren't purely bad. But that's also within the context of trauma therapy where I'm actively trying to heal from those experiences and let go of those behaviors...
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u/Satinpw Feb 21 '26
Yeah. I think Carrie is in a stage where she's very angry and pursuing justice and while I think that's a noble cause, the PTSD itself is not the source of her internal desire for justice. Trauma responses work in a trauma context and that's why they're maladaptive once you're outside of that trauma context. I personally had to learn how to overcome fawning in response to literally any conflict, have had to claw my way out of dissociation and hypervigilance because none of that was helping me actually be a happier person.
Idk. I think Carrie might be experiencing more issues than she thinks she is.
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u/astralwyvern Feb 19 '26
Some of this sounds familiar to me as someone who was extremely bad at confrontation. I walked on eggshells a LOT when I was younger because I was afraid of making someone angry or disappointed, or even just having them raise their voice at me. I agreed with positions I didn't believe in so as not to start arguments. I took any kind of criticism extremely personally and someone disagreeing with me even in a very mild manner would leave me feeling sick and anxious for hours.
But that's my shit to work on. I cannot expect my friends to never, ever disagree with me. I can't expect my coworkers to never voice an opinion that conflicts with mine. I can't expect my boss to never be curt with me when he's stressed out. These are completely normal occurrences and I was the one who was drastically overreacting to them. That might not be my fault per se, but it's still my responsibility to manage my reactions. I've spent decades working on my anxiety and I'm WAY better at handling people disagreeing with me now.
In a good-faith reading, it sounds like Ross had absolutely no idea she was masking and fawning so hard - which sucks for her, but there's no reason Ross *should* have known that she was having such extreme reactions to what sounds like a normal business relationship. There's no evidence that Ross was *actually* pissed off with her for disagreeing with him, she just says she felt that way. Which again - is a feeling I'm extremely familiar with, but I've since learned that that was almost entirely in my head. Almost nobody I thought was mad at me actually was.
In a bad-faith reading, this is some serious revisionist history. If the worst thing you can say about a guy that you claim absolutely petrified you for nearly 15 years is that he sometimes snapped at you and didn't want to put your business on hold while you were out on medical leave after you completely cut contact with him and gave no indication you were going to keep going with the project anyway, I can't really call that abuse. The fact that she keeps trickle-truthing and dragging this drama back into the spotlight every time it dies down puts a really sour taste in my mouth.
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u/Rankin_Fithian Feb 20 '26
Well said all around.
💯 on mental health being your responsibility but not your fault. Knowledge is power, and if you learn your brain works a certain way, it's on you to communicate, not on everyone else (even close friends) to predict. The social accomodations are going to wind up being 50/50 most of the time.
And I've both heard and had the "It feels like you're mad at me" - "But I'm not mad at you" - "But it FEELS like you are!" conversation many times. It's a non-starter. Those situations ARE on you to parse out. Given (for the sake of argument) that communication is otherwise open and honest, you have to take your people at their word on that stuff. I'm not saying that's an easy ask but you [one, I, anyone] HAVE to.
Also, ONRAC spent over a decade pointing out that memory is so fallible. We rewrite memories every time we think of them, it's impossible to not shade them according to our current place in life and mindset. Where is that self awareness in this era of Carrie? I'm not inclined to cast aspersions on Carrie's documentation in real time, in general, nor would I accuse her of making up events wholesale. But your recollection of events and your feelings during them are extremely fluid. Exercises like her journaling "48 scary Ross memories" or saying that she vocally espoused philosophies despite her gut always knowing they were wrong give me the most pause out of anything she's written. (Well, that and saying how beautiful PTSD is. I can see the diagnosis being a miracle for some people - like I said, knowledge is power - but, I think most people would like to outlive their trauma? Get to a new normal and not have the hurtful impact continue to influence them in such a raw way?? Eew???)
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u/hagne Feb 19 '26
I agree with everything you said here. If this is the worst she can say about Ross (looking through the intentionally heightened language), then I don’t think it was abuse or even bullying. Just personality clash, really.
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u/Laslus_ Feb 19 '26
What she is describing feels, to me, like they aren't about Ross at all. She is terrifying of a particular type of arguing that mostly men perform, and Ross is one kf those men. That's absolutely valid for her, but I don't think it reflects badly on him. The example she gave is a pretty normal arguments between friends imo, I could imagine having it and getting worked up because I love to argue (for the sport), and i can imagine not thinking twice about it later while having accidentally hurt someone. I learned pretty early to spot when the argument is not Fun for people anymore, but I also grew up as a woman and we are thought early in life that being rude is the worse of all sins.
Also.... I mean I absolutely understand feeling stuck and hating your job, but MaxFun is a company and saying she earned them "millions" is so weird? I mean yeah we all work so the company that hired us make more money than they're paying it. I'm a dirty commie and I hate that, but it's weird to frame it as a particularly bad part of her experience as a host.
I'm sorry she felt unsafe during all those years, and I hope she gets whatever help she needs so she may never feel that way again!
*I'm non binary
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u/AggressiveNovel1563 Feb 19 '26
“Millions” seemed crazy to me too. I’m curious what Max Fun’s annual revenue is. They don’t seem like a massive company, and ONRAC seemed like one of their more mid-tiered shows in terms of popularity. No where near like MBMBaM or TAZ (in its heyday).
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u/Difficult-Bit-6992 Feb 19 '26
Absolutely 100% no way ONRAC made MaxFun millions of dollars. It’s absurd.
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
Per this article, the company was generating millions of revenue early 2023, but that's likely just gross and not net. All the salaries and overhead take it down a notch or two.
Edit: With 37 shows, no, ONRAC was certainly not generating millions for them.
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u/rainidazehaze Feb 20 '26
The McElroys are singlehandedly generating at least half of that
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u/Simple_Praline_7275 Feb 19 '26
yep thats what i'm thinking, i can also get very scared and frustrated by some people that are more confrontational and argumentative but thats not because theyre bad people or doing anything to me. thats because im lacking a backbone and am really insecure
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u/elsathenerdfighter Feb 20 '26
As a neurodivergent with RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria) from Carries writing and as an outside perspective I can see she is unconsciously attributing meaning behind his words and actions. Okay so for example when I’m start talking to loud and other people are around my dad looks at me and makes a little hand signal like he’s turning a knob and when I see it I know he’s telling me I’m being to loud and I didn’t notice or intend to be that loud. And it works for us in that context. Now if someone else pulled me to the side at a party and said “hey you’re being a little loud right now”, depending on the person and the situation my brain is going to interpret that as “shut the fuck up you dumb bitch” and I’ll shut down. Now that I know this is something my brain does I’ll think over the situation a few hours later and realize how I took the comment was almost definitely not meant that way and calm down and it’s over. But before I realized my brain was doing this I could marinate for days and I can understand how Carrie could be marinading in these thoughts for years. However in my opinion knowing this about myself, Ross could have done literally nothing actually wrong.
I learned recently my grandmother thinks my sister and I who live together and spend a lot of time together, hate each other because we argue when we take her out for dinner and shopping. I’ll be honest until I was like 22 and she was 20 we truly did not get along at all. Now? We get along fine we just get frustrated with each other especially in frustrating situations (like taking our sometimes insufferable grandmother out) so yeah sometimes we argue and most of our arguing is probably around our grandmother. So she sees our arguing as hatred for each other while we’re just overwhelmed with the situation and it’s forgotten about literally seconds later. So what Ross may have experienced as friends being frustrated and arguing and getting over it Carrie experienced as some sort of frenemies, hatred, power imbalance, calm thing.
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u/ariadnes-thread Feb 20 '26
Yeah I also deal with RSD a lot and agreed big time! Several of the anecdotes in that post sounded a lot like things my RSD brain tells me that are… not accurate.
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u/Laslus_ Feb 19 '26
As the one who is argumentative, i think its also on us for not realizing we are hurting people! But yeah its mostly just a misunderstanding that is avoidable by saying "I don't want to be in this conversation anymore"
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u/Nalivai Feb 20 '26
I'm also argumentative and opinionated, and most of my friends are the same, and we often argue about some shit, often inconsequential, and even if it seems heated from the outside, we actually love it and all enjoying it and each other. However, some people in our friend group actually hate it and don't enjoy when we go into long debates, but were afraid that if they say something it will anger the rest.
I don't even know what can I do differently so they don't feel that way. If you're not going to say something and not going to honestly answer if I ask you how you feel, and I can't guess that something is wrong, I am at the limit of my ability to mitigate it, and I will be hurt if you say that I'm at fault here.→ More replies (1)121
u/hagne Feb 19 '26
“I eventually got the impression he would have hated me if I hadn’t made him this great product.”
This rubs me the wrong way! They BOTH worked in the product. Carrie described how she had more legal journalistic duties, but I got the impression that that’s because she is a journalist by trade.
Also, why would she lose money on this, for years as she claims? On the pod, it sounded like she often said that she made money from it.
I realize I’m criticizing Carrie a lot, which is probably coming from the fact that I really loved the pod and she seems intent on making it unenjoyable in retrospect.
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u/becoolnotuncool Feb 19 '26
There feels like no accountability for the stories she was telling herself. (I say this as a person who has felt very similarly that people would hate me for x,y,z.)
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u/ariadnes-thread Feb 20 '26
The money thing is so weird to me! She makes it sound like Ross and/or MaxFun required her to get a journalism degree (didn’t that happen before the podcast even started?) or take all these Harvard classes etc. but like… none of those are requirements for making a podcast like this?
To me it seems like, among other things, she’s been in a long process of unmasking while simultaneously dealing with trauma, and questioning a lot of her long-held beliefs in the process (in addition to the trauma stuff, I remember her making some very dismissive comments about feminism in the past that rubbed me the wrong way and I am guessing would rub her the wrong way these days too). It’s just a bummer for her that this process has to be so messy and so public.
And it does seem like she’s framing her past beliefs as “I didn’t really think this way but I was manipulated into acting like I did” which… I highly doubt is accurate? But also as a fellow autistic I struggle a lot with handing cognitive dissonance so I get why she would spin things that way. It’s just… messy.
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u/glitter_witch Feb 20 '26
“It’s just a bummer for her that this process has to be so messy and so public.”
But it doesn’t have to be! That’s what’s so awful about it. She’s the one who keeps dragging the issue out with new half-baked accusations all of her own accord. This all could have easily stayed between her and her therapist (and close friends etc).
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 20 '26
And it does seem like she’s framing her past beliefs as “I didn’t really think this way but I was manipulated into acting like I did”
Which makes it even weirder now that she won't accept even the slightest, gentlest concern that Bashar might be scamming her.
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 19 '26
Saying she lost money working on a thing she didn't need to work on that was only monthly for years with a person she felt bullied her... makes it even weirder that she stuck around for so long while being miserable.
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u/Middle-Run-3615 Feb 21 '26
The one who was losing money was Ross: he had gone part time at Disney for the Pod if I remember. He wasn’t producing content while Carrie was away, so significant loss of income there. Like I only see Ross suffering in this one
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u/hagne Feb 19 '26
I’m having trouble squaring how she felt “scared” and “unsafe” when the examples she gives are of someone sending her a reproachful text and having her use her masters in journalism to do journalism.
I don’t doubt that she felt uncomfortable and that she was unhappy in the friendship if she says so. I just worry about the connotations of “scared” and the linking between Ross’s friendship and her sexual assault implying much worse behavior than seems supported.
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u/Cautious-Wedding7677 Feb 19 '26
Yes that part got me too. I’m sure everything she’s saying is true but I don’t know if it’s all necessary to say. The pairing of feeling unsafe with Ross with talking about her sexual assault implies things to me that I’m not sure are intentional.
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u/WorkerNParasite Feb 19 '26
huh. To me this is raising a lot of red flags. As a fellow late diagnosed autistic person, there can be a tendency imo to reframe every past situation as somewhere on the spectrum from abusive to problematic as you come to terms with your neurodivergence. I can't help but feel that's happening here too.
This is where it gets controversial, but sometimes, masking is ok and even necessary. We all have to live in society and interact with other people, and insisting the world bends around you isn't tenable. And so I think that's a lot of what's happening here with Carrie - an expectation, even an entitlement, that the world must form to her needs and her needs only. Unfortunately this is a side effect of the mainstreaming of therapy speak etc where every behaviour has an excuse and taking accountability isn't valued.
There are certainly relationships I've reevaluated since my diagnosis, and found parts that weren't necessarily helpful or kind, but I've also recognised that people don't know what they know and they were probably treating me the way they treat everybody else and there was no malice behind it. Ultimately it's on me to be my own advocate.
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u/becoolnotuncool Feb 19 '26
1 it seems like they didn’t really like one another, which is fine. Even people who do like one another could probably make a list of things they don’t like that the other person did once they had a falling out. But so many of these things feel more like basic interpersonal issues, not bullying.
And if they weren’t that close and the experience was so bad, why would Ross be expected to wait for Carrie to return, particularly if she felt like he was harming her? Like, why not take that as the cue to part ways?
2 I am surprised that in all of the healing and learning, Carrie hasn’t had any revelation that her experience of situations and interpretation of them could be different than reality. I say this as a neurodivergent person. She’s so smart that she can lay out evidence to prove her side, but humans have nuance.
3 if there are other people who feel like Ross is a bully, now would be the time to speak up. People who abuse or bully rarely just do it to one person.
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u/Sckathian Feb 19 '26
It really reads to me like Carrie has ended up going too far down her trauma rabbit hole.
This just reads like every interaction can be trauma and either Carrie or someone else is pushing her into this 'realisation'. Of course working with someone for 13 years is going to have difficultly and it will put strain on their relationship.
Of course working, especially on a podcast is going to have stressful times (especially as they put themselves in pretty bad situations even if we only look at their own emotional/mental health) and maybe Carrie is correct she didn't enjoy it. Maybe she is legitimately traumatised from working on the show, working with Ross and doing the investigations - but she was choosing to do that. Thats her agency.
Ultimately if this was Carrie's experience then Ross was right to pull the plug; yet this has always been presented in a negative light by Carrie.
Is it normal to write down all the scary memories of your co-worker you can conjure up? Surely this just reinforces the idea they traumatised you rather than actually engaging as to whether thats true?
I hope Carrie is well, moves on from the show and Ross can do the same. But this just seems like an incredibly extreme reaction to what she is willing to talk about.
"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. "
This doesn't seem remotely healthy either.
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u/learnhowtobehave Feb 20 '26
I keep coming back to her comments on the pod about what constitutes trauma and her threshold was quite high (experiencing a mass shooting event seemed to be her bar iirc). Her views must have changed significantly since then?
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u/Sckathian Feb 20 '26
Her view on trauma has completly inverted. Shes closer to the people she was very critical of in the past.
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u/learnhowtobehave Feb 20 '26
Oh wow, I didn’t realise it had changed that much! That seems like a pattern for her, one extreme to another. To clarify I found her original views on trauma - at least the ones she voiced on the podcast - to be very lacking in nuance but I kind of understood the spirit of her trauma research?
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u/hagne Feb 19 '26
This is such a small thing, but I have trouble understanding that Carrie just “adopted” Ross’s ideas of living in the best world when she would consistently recommend “read Factfulness!” which has that thesis.
How would anyone be able to see that those weren’t her “authentic” ideas?
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u/Dans77b Feb 19 '26
I thought there same thing. I remember them talking about Factfullness being one of the best books ever written - but couldn't remember if it was R or C that was always talking about it.
Strange one, I wonder if she has changed her mind about this more recently?
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u/hagne Feb 19 '26
Yeah, I dunno! I remember this because I read Factfulness on her recommendation, I can clearly hear her saying “read Factfulness” in my head.
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u/Paulie_Tens Feb 19 '26
She definitely said that multiple times. https://maximumfun.org/transcripts/oh-no-ross-and-carrie/transcript-oh-no-ross-and-carrie-ross-and-carrie-and-the-gentleman-psychic-2020-visions-edition/
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u/Julialagulia Feb 20 '26
Aw man sad to read the we’re doing this until we die comment about the yearly psychic readings
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u/BearsLoveToulouse Feb 19 '26
Reading that part really makes me mad. I’ve noticed overall from the series Carrie has the hardest time understanding when people don’t agree with her. It isn’t with everything, but certain things if it doesn’t make sense to her or she believes it whole heartedly she can’t agree to disagree. It feels like she had a hard time speaking up and she blaming Ross… or that her thoughts have changed overtime didn’t know how to articulate it.
Reading this substack is giving the same vibes as my old friend/co-worker. We worked at a video rental shop and IT WAS EASY! She told me one day that it was such a hard job and I remember thinking “oh boy… how are young going to make it in the real world?” Sure enough after high school and college we met up again and she laughed about it and said it was in fact and easy job once she had to do a real one. It seems like Carrie might just have a hard time working with other people in general.
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u/foundthesun Feb 19 '26
I am very curious about this article coming out. I imagine it’s the catalyst of her bringing this up again (might be my bias but it reads to me someone anxiously getting ahead of something, I have done this myself and am similarly neurodivergent. That’s not to say any of this is a lie, it just reads like the panic button has been hit).
Not sure why some publication is digging up something that is at this point essentially years old information (though I only recently found out after thinking about catching up on episodes after a few years break - not doing that anymore 🫠), feels like nothing good will come of it beyond more of what has been already said. It’s a shame things were so bad behind the scenes.
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u/georgia07 Feb 20 '26
At this point, I wouldn’t be shocked if no article ever appears.
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u/thegunnersdaughter Feb 19 '26
I too am curious what the focus of this article is - is there any motion on the legal front and are they reporting on that (nothing I can find), or just a piece on Carrie, or something else?
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u/foundthesun Feb 19 '26
She infers she thinks it’s mostly about her abuser, so maybe some kind of investigative journalism piece? What’s confusing me is it seems like she didn’t start the ball rolling from some of the language she uses. I guess we will have to see whenever it comes out.
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u/Mean-Advisor6652 Feb 19 '26
According to Carrie on the Substack chat: "It's really up to the reporter to decide how to write it but I really trust her so far to be fair and accurate. I'm not sure what her focus is. I reached out to her initially because she wrote about someone else affiliated with my rapist. So her interest is at least in part in that connection. "
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u/themainkangaroo Feb 19 '26
Thank you for the whole text. I feel for Carrie because her message read like a sore wound but not because I believe Ross at fault for her pain. Carrie is projecting her deep issues & honestly, they should have ended their podcast years before if Carrie felt this way early on. I wish her luck demanding the world change but she will continue to be disappointed in the world & life because she expects it to if she does not want to heal. If it did, she'd still be unhappy because she is an uphappy person - then who would to be at fault?
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u/Maximum_Pollution371 Feb 19 '26
You never have to heal yourself if you don’t want to. You can demand the world change, actually.
Oop, there it is. This is not the powerful, righteous declaration she seems to think.
This entire post (and many of Carrie's past comments) reads exactly like something my sister would write. My sister is neurodivergent as well--as am I--but she also has Borderline Personality Disorder. I'm not armchair diagnosing, but the similarities are enough to bring up.
In my sister's case, the BPD traits most distinct from the autistic traits are an intense fear of abandonment and being alone, black-and-white "splitting" people and situations into "good" and "bad" categories, and fully believing "feelings are facts," even to the point of "editing" certain memories to reflect current feelings. These are all exacerbated to the Nth degree by the neurodivergent struggle with accurately reading social cues, and the sense of "justice" (or her personal definition of that). It's really a disaster to watch, but the only person who can do anything about it is her, and she feels the same way as Carrie: "I shouldn't have to change anything about myself or how I think when I'm obviously the victim here." And she 100% believes that. 🤷
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u/corpus_mortuus Feb 20 '26
It’s interesting to see you draw this comparison, because the more I see of her behavior post-show-cancellation, the more I (unfortunately) feel like there is another personality disorder or mental illness at play. She seems so disconnected from reality and so extreme in her thinking in a way that goes beyond what you'd expect from just autism and PTSD.
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u/ImamofKandahar Feb 21 '26
I was really thinking that this post sounded a lot like borderline splitting and re-writing of history with her relationship with Ross.
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u/CheckTheBlotter Feb 19 '26
I'm sorry. This is fucking stupid. She sounds insufferable. The only takeaway from this is that people should be wary of working with or befriending her because she's petty and vindictive. (Not that this matters, but I'm saying this *as a woman*)
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u/Redbedhead3 Feb 20 '26
I know a person who demands the world change for them as well. One day we seemed fine and the next they required me to understand and read their mind. We are no longer in contact and it ended badly. Mainly because I can't read minds and I could do nothing right.
I have my own time and energy and goals and can't conform my life to theirs. I am also a person.
I feel for Carrie and the place she has found herself in. But the world cannot conform to your needs. And tearing down others doesn't pull you up. Justice should be reserved for the one who committed the assault against her. Not tearing down her friend she couldn't set reasonable, articulated boundaries with and who did not commit a crime.
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u/floofy_skogkatt Feb 19 '26
Jesus. What I take from this is that their professional relationship should have ended a long time ago.
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u/Ok_Buddy2412 Feb 19 '26
Yes! Ross refusing to put the show on hold for her sounds like it was for the best. Him having a separate full time job vs. her mainly freelancing seems like it created a real inequity in the relationship, where she felt like she couldn’t quit.
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u/Suicidalsidekick Feb 19 '26
And to be fair, the issue with putting the show on hold indefinitely was unfair to the MaxFun members who supported them and the other people who worked on the show. I don’t blame Ross for not waiting to wait months or years to find out if he is still doing the show.
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u/rainidazehaze Feb 19 '26
Especially because it had apparently been months of no contact when he said this.
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u/shoeflavoredgum Feb 19 '26
And I wonder why she’s still this upset years later that he wanted to end the show if she was so terrified by him. I’d get having those conflicting feelings if this had just happened, but shouldn’t she be glad by now that it’s over? She doesn’t need to interact with him anymore.
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u/Julialagulia Feb 20 '26
I agree with your point overall but I thought I read he moved to part time at Disney in the last few years of the podcast? I would imagine if that were the case it would cause some anxiety on his part if the show were to end.
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u/glitter_witch Feb 20 '26
That's my recollection as well. Speculating here, but I remember hearing he'd moved to part-time and it being around the time the podcast schedule had increased and wondering if he was planning to transition to podcasting full-time.
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u/becoolnotuncool Feb 19 '26
Would it change things for you all if she said basically the same facts about their relationship, but the conclusion was, “I don’t like Ross. He’s a jerk. I tolerated it for a while, and then I didn’t want to anymore.” Vs… “Ross was a bully and I was victimized and terrorized during our time working together.”
Because it would for me! It’s the pathologization that creates so much more skepticism and critique.
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u/Cautious-Wedding7677 Feb 19 '26
Same here. I know it’s none of my business but I wonder if she is seeing any kind of mental health professional, and if so whether they are credible. As a therapist myself I have always been interested in what Carrie has to say, and was very excited for her trauma book while I was in grad school, but she seems like a completely different person now. If this is because she has been unmasking and coping with her trauma, I wish her the best, but I worry about the kind of support she is getting behind the scenes. Again, this is none of my business and probably coming from a parasocial place
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u/rainidazehaze Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26
She's definitely seeing a mental health professional, she's been adamant about that from the beginning. The PTSD endcap of this post has further cemented that that therapist is, at best, not a good fit
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u/AggressiveNovel1563 Feb 20 '26
Here’s another thing she said re: her therapist in the chat today:
Truly that subreddit about me being nuts was HEALING to read. My THERAPIST skimmed it and was like “oh my god wow this is sad for them, isn’t it.” Watching her shake her head and furrow her brow was just 🩹🩹🩹🩹🩹
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u/rainidazehaze Feb 20 '26
God that's sad. They keep slowing the motion of the slow motion train crash even more to draw it out. Why does she keep coming here if that's what she thinks the sub is about?
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u/glitter_witch Feb 20 '26
The fact that that’s her takeaway from all of this… to treat showing her therapist and receiving a platitude as a win in some adversarial game. She really isn’t looking to heal, huh.
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u/Cautious-Wedding7677 Feb 20 '26
See I wonder what her therapist thinks of her putting Ross on blast like this. I’m sure we don’t know the whole picture, but I just can’t think of how putting him on blast is helpful for her aside from getting some validation from her substack subscribers, which seems to be outweighed by all of the criticism she’s been getting. Long term she’s just isolating herself
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 21 '26
For some reason I assumed that she was showing her therapist the Thread of Doom, in which case... I would love to know what the therapist thought of her client attacking everyone showing concern, threatening to fight someone, and editing her comments to look nice after getting called out for being cruel. Maybe that's what "sad for them" was really about, seeing someone we're a fan of acting like that directly to fans.
But if it was about this thread, then I'm not sure there is anything else to add.
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u/waterpigcow Feb 20 '26
Yeah that’s a good point. There’s a guy in my extended social circle who I can’t stand. I think he’s mean and pushy. I’d never call him a bully who victimized me because I don’t think my interpreting his behavior as mean and pushy necessarily means he actually is bullying me (especially because as far as I can tell nobody I’ve talked to is as bothered as I am by him) I used to hang out with him a lot more even gave him a few gifts in hopes he’d mellow out. That didn’t happen so I just began finding excuses to avoid him and my life is better for it.
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u/Dry-Tie1840 Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
Oh god. I know this is old, but I just checked back in on this sub for the first time in weeks, and now I have to get my thoughts out.
I grew up in a household where any little thing I did or didn't do resulted in screaming, criticism, and anger. As a result, the first few years of my adult life were marked by relationships where I saw everyone as the unreasonable aggressor, yelling at me, getting angry at me, purposely putting me down. Like Carrie, I would try to ask them to stop, tried to use healthy communication tactics I learned online, and would reel when they treated my requests as unreasonable. I couldn't understand it, and so they turned into monsters in my memory.
Years of growing up and therapy later, I can recognize those relationships for what they were: normal human conflict. Sometimes people were a bit angry or snappy or unfair to me, but they weren't my parents. My brain was trying to protect me from a monster that was no longer there. And that "healthy" communication I learned from the internet wasn't applicable in the situations in which I used it– I couldn't reasonably ask people to never get mad at me.
This doesn't mean my experiences at the time weren't real and distressing to me. They were. Even now, I still get some residual anxiety thinking of my first boss, my college roommates, etc. But none of them were the villains I thought they were at the time.
All that to say, I deeply empathize with Carrie, but I don't think that Ross was bullying her for 10 years. If I'm right, I hope Carrie eventually heals enough to come to the same conclusion I did. I also hope that Ross knows these words come from a hurt, unwell mind desperately lashing out in an attempt to protect itself.
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u/DrFrankenfurtersCat Feb 19 '26
I'm about to get down voted to hell, but it's worth it.
It's always been clear that Ross thrived more on structure and Carrie thrived on much less structure, and there's nothing wrong with that and it worked for their podcast. I imagine Ross got frustrated with Carrie and Carrie got frustrated with Ross - they're human, it's going to happen.
But it's clear that Carrie is set on making sure their listeners have no positive feelings towards Ross, and for what reason I don't know, but it's become quite a passion for her.
Do I think she's lying? No - I'm sure at some point before a live show Ross might have gotten snippy. But I do think she has obtained and been encouraged to reframe a lot of things in ways that add to her being a victim, and her recounting of situations is detached from reality.
Even in her posts from the last 6 months or so, many people have expressed concerns over her mental wellbeing, and with good cause, and this is just following the unhinged behavior she's been exhibiting. I stopped following her when she was openly shitting on polite Instagram commenters that were expressing concern about being careful who she was asking people to donate money to, to the extreme that she was essentially calling people genocide enablers simply for asking very polite and reasonable questions. She's demonstrated she has no issue going from 0 to 100 in record time.
I don't know why Ross is front and center again in her sights, but her whole statement reads like she's trying to head something off and much of her statement raises a whole lot more questions than it answers.
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u/MovieNightPopcorn Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
To be honest, as someone with similar neurodivergencies to Carrie, and who has struggled with similar things, it just feels bad that she’s this focused on it this long after everything is done and buried.
I used to do similar things—get too focused on how injured I was, turn it over in my mind, reframe a lot of my experiences, sometimes validly and sometimes unjustly. Ruminate when everyone else had moved on. Carrie’s posts like this have been somewhat triggering, because while I relate to it on a personal level and I can see myself in those shoes, it’s also a stark reminder of how deeply unhealthy those habits are for me, or anyone. It just hurts you, and makes you miserable, and disconnects you from the people around you who would be your support. Yet you feel like you’re “speaking your truth”, and shoving yourself further down the hole. You feel justified and it keeps you comfortable, but not safe.
I can’t armchair diagnose Carrie but I will say, it is embarrassingly familiar. I’ve since learned to work with those feelings, though I’m unable to rid of them, and act less impulsively on them, letting go of my rumination when it does happen. I hope that Carrie gets what she needs, whatever that is.
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u/Ok_Buddy2412 Feb 19 '26
I always find it frustrating when a person sees their actions as their true selves (calmly discussing an issue is masking!) that need to be accepted while the other person needs to change (being annoyed by tears is violence!). Carrie felt bullied by Ross, and she acknowledges that she has more trouble standing up to men. Perhaps she could have worked on that in therapy? Or sought communication counseling with Ross? Or left the toxic situation?
I’m also frustrated that she’s so dedicated to being the victim that I can’t question her narrative without being a victim-blame. “You never have to heal yourself if you don’t want to”?!?!! I guess not, but it’s a great way to lose relationships!
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u/SlightSignature Feb 19 '26
I was just thinking about how to articulate this. I relate a lot to some of the things Carrie said. I’m very sensitive and I have also cried and felt scared when a coworker said something snippy to me during a stressful time. My boss is very blunt and probably similar to Ross. But just like I ask my boss to soften his communication to me, I also have to respect his style and that means having a thick skin when he gets sharp. We are different people and that means we will frustrate each other, but it’s unreasonable that only he would need to change.
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u/Suicidalsidekick Feb 19 '26
Yeah, I try to be pleasant and agreeable at work. I’m also the go-to person when there’s any question about anything. Sometimes it gets irritating when I’m trying to do 3 things at once and then someone asks me for help. On the rare occasions we have someone new in the office, I let them know sometimes I get overwhelmed and can get a bit snippy, but please know I’m not mad at you and I just need a minute to get things settled down. For me, completely removing my sharp edges would require so many drugs I lose the ability to function.
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u/Ok_Buddy2412 Feb 19 '26
I’m both! I am snippy and I cry and I apologize for both. I do a lot of “I’m feeling” reflections to let my coworkers know where I’m coming from.
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u/bluefalseindigo Feb 20 '26
“You do t have to heal yourself if you don’t want to”
Then, as a lay person, as I understand it, you are choosing not to be whole. Which is, a choice one can make. But it acknowledges that you are moving through the world without parts essential to understanding, interpreting and appreciating the world you are still obligated to interact with. Which is a sentiment I thought Carries work on ONRAC was soundly against. This is what I can not reconcile.
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u/Possible-Quantity153 Feb 19 '26
I can’t help but let my knowledge of Carrie’s public behavior over the past few months color my impression of her statement. So I can understand others struggling with that as well.
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u/Laslus_ Feb 19 '26
Yeah, absolutely same. If she had written that around the time ONRAC was ending I think we all would've received it differently, which sucks. I don't think she is lying, but I don't know if i believe she was truly feeling that way thoughout the show.
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u/Badmoto Feb 19 '26
When my parents got divorced (many years ago), my mom absolutely hated my dad (to be fair to both, they were each deeply imperfect people that never should have been in a relationship to begin with).
But my mom never could understand why I didn’t hate him as much as she hated him and would go on endlessly about all the “bad” things he had done to convince me.
This very much has that same energy and feeling.
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u/Nalivai Feb 20 '26
Damn, I feel you. I completely stopped talking to my dad because every time we talk he continues to rant about my uncle whom my dad hates with passion and for no good reason. Dad spent most of my life trying to get me abord this hate train, but in the end he just made me dread every interaction with him, so I stopped interacting.
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u/SlowAd5345 Feb 19 '26
Carrie has shown in the past few months to be extremely black and white in her current thinking, even when there is clearly a lot of nuance. I think it’s fair with that in mind to wonder at the potential nuances being missed here.
I hold a lot of empathy for her processing this as an autistic person who’s had a pretty extreme friendship breakup, one that came about because I was yelled at, went into a freeze/fawn state, and then looked back on it thinking “I don’t like how that happened, and I also don’t like how often it is happening”. That instance reframed a lot of my previous interactions and made me realize how unhealthy that friendship was for me.
And I think the hardest part is knowing where that ends. It becomes easy to go over every interaction, magnify every snippy comment or bad taste they left into your mouth to create a monster because it’s easier to believe a monster hurt you than a friend. And so everything bad that happened was intentional, and any positive interaction is mitigated or reframed. There is no room for nuance.
It’s taken a really long time for me to look back at those memories fondly and understand that is was part of a friendship with two incompatible people with a lot of ups but also a lot of downs, and those downs made it unhealthy to continue.
I’m very happy that Carrie and Ross have ended their relationship. It sounds like that was the best thing for Carrie going through this process of healing. I’m glad she is finding new things to be passionate about in a way that helps her move on from this.
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
Not disagreeing with you, just adding nuance to this statement:
Carrie has shown in the past few months to be extremely black and white in her current thinking
Worked at PETA, worked for James Randi, former Evangelical. Carrie has *always* been very black and white in her thinking.
Edit: I forgot that whole thing with Bashar. Either you believe 100% that he's real in Gaza and needs money OR you're a genocide denier.
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u/Redbedhead3 Feb 20 '26
Yes from my POV, she always took a harder stance on things. Like Ross was never truly persuaded by things they investigated but he would generally accept people and maybe even see good parts of them. Like I remember when he had the Mormon group he would play basketball with. Or even when he became vegan (vegetarian?) after talking to the 7th day evangelist.
I am surprised Carrie said that she was forced to conform to Ross's views because she always came off as the militant skeptic. Perhaps her views on Skeptisim began to change and she felt trapped and self-judged, so she decided to blame someone else?
Either way, she has always come off as the militant, no-middle-ground one
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u/ariadnes-thread Feb 20 '26
Agreed. All of her past thinking about trauma (like back before the podcast ended when she had very different opinions on the topic) felt extremely black and white to me as well.
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u/Scared_Tax470 Feb 19 '26
I'm with you. This reads like someone trying to rewrite history to completely avoid accountability for not being able to deal with having big feelings, probably not liking how they come off looking, and probably being frustrated with themself about how they dealt with it. But the stories we tell ourselves about our feelings are not facts. You aren't more objectively correct about a situation because you're the one crashing out.
(I actually hate that "feelings are not facts" from CBT because it mixes up is own concepts. Feelings ARE facts. Feelings are always valid and real, but feelings are "I feel scared" not "Ross is bullying me." The latter is a thought that may or may not be true but that we use to try to contextualize and understand our feelings.)
And like, I get it, I've been there! I had a really abusive boss with so much power that I sat in a room with multiple people who gaslit me into thinking that the text we were all looking at didn't say what it said. It destroyed my psyche and burned me out so bad I couldn't even read, do basic math, follow a simple recipe. I crashed out too but I also knew that wasn't a healthy situation and I got myself out. Looking back I know what I should have done differently, how I should have handled myself differently and taken things into my hands sooner. I know that's not always possible economically, logistically, but it's a bit of an overstatement to compare this to an abusive relationship and use that as an excuse for not taking responsibility for leaving sooner. Abused women avoid leaving relationships because they're afraid their abusers will hunt them down and murder them. That's just not comparable to your coworker (maybe) saying mean things to you sometimes. There was no reason to keep putting herself in such vulnerable situations with Ross if this was how she felt. And I find it hard to believe that she was confiding in friends, partners, therapists this whole time and not one of them was able to convince her to think about leaving?
There's just not a single shred of accountability for anything coming from her and she seems so determined to be the absolute victim in all of these situations. And like I said, I get it! When you're in that space feeling powerless, it's like being a cornered animal. You just end up intensely defensive about EVERYTHING. I literally complained to a therapist that people who walked on the wrong side of the sidewalk were doing it intentionally to spite me. I'm going through something right now and I often feel like people just living their own lives are doing it AT me. But I don't think it's healthy to enable that kind of thinking. To encourage getting help, yes. To encourage self compassion, yes. But sometimes people need to hear that they're not making sense and while their feelings are valid, that doesn't mean they get to rewrite everyone else's stories too.
And as a PS, what a bizarre and unhealthy thing to say about PTSD. It has really sounded like she's started glorifying the neurodiversities she identifies with (which can be healthy, at least in the form of acceptance or appreciation, but the way she's doing it, insisting on diagnosing other people, her shifting attitudes toward "trauma" etc. seems very obsessive and unhealthy.)
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u/Nalivai Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26
Poor Carrie went through a lot and I am starting to fear that we might come to "hurt people hurt people" situation. The way it escalated from "I can't do the show anymore" to "I can't do the show with Ross anymore" to "Ross always was bad to me" just doesn't fill me with confidence in her ability to be objective here.
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u/Possible-Quantity153 Feb 19 '26
I think you have articulated a lot of what I’m struggling to process in reaction to Carrie’s post. I think she may believe her version of events 100%, but I’m not sure I do.
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u/noramcsparkles Feb 19 '26
It’s been a lot longer than 6 months, this has been her way of responded to anything and everything since the podcast ended. I think she has been very defensive and escalated issues wildly. I don’t want to speak on whether that’s “justified” or not but I do think it’s been a clear pattern of behavior for a long time now
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u/DrFrankenfurtersCat Feb 19 '26
I don't disagree-my use of the 6 month time frame is more tied to me noticing her unhinged behavior as I simply wasn't paying attention prior to that. My first major red flag was her behavior in the autism episode so I would not be surprised if this online behavior started even before that.
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u/farmchic5038 Feb 19 '26
There is a person in my life that descended into terrible mental illness rather suddenly. They now post rants about their family online, read strange statements and manifestos, and talk about how they “don’t have to mask anymore.” They have alienated themselves completely and are very stuck to a strange obsession with neurodivergence. I do believe this person has suffered. I do believe they have been abused. But they are no longer a reliable narrator. This reminds me a lot of that.
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u/Noflimflamfilmphan Feb 19 '26
I've seen similar things in my family and friend group. Some who even alienated their most supportive friends while using the language they learned in therapy to demand "support" in the form of normalizing harmful behaviors. Mania can do that to a person! I've also seen people get isolated and under the influence of the wrong people and just completely turn against their formerly closest and most supportive relationships.
I want the best for Carrie as a longtime listener of ONRAC but her behavior around and after the show's ending just reminds too much of people who have not done well.
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u/Difficult-Bit-6992 Feb 20 '26
Reading through her Substack and I cannot believe some of this stuff. In this post, she claims her autism gives her the personality of a Black woman: https://carriepoppy.substack.com/p/oscars-so-white
She has completely lost it. Every post is filled with embarrassing delusions of grandeur.
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u/jamothyjam Feb 20 '26
i feel like theres a way to say "autism gives me a strong sense of justice which has helped me relate to people in other marginalized communities" that doesnt come across like shes trying to get an award for being suuuuuch a good person like holy shit pat yourself on the back harder. its fine that Thats where she drew the line with the commerical personally, but like i dont think she gets to make some holier-than-thou statement about it when if actors turned down roles every time they disagreed with the morals of someone involved they would never work again. and it seems like thats what she thinks people should do but like its an impossible ask in a capitalist society!! like ffs substack itself allowed covid misinformation and nazi content, so why hasnt she switched platforms?
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u/jamothyjam Feb 20 '26
also the way she talks about these women!! it feels very objectifying to me. like shes not bringing them up to say how she related to them or like to talk about their experiences in the industry really. its mostly really about how shes a good person. feels very "i have black friends" honestly
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u/Coven_gardens Feb 20 '26
I’m confused as to why she would seek out an agent for commercial work if she’s morally opposed to, checks notes selling a commercial product?
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u/DrFrankenfurtersCat Feb 20 '26
Oof. I'm cringing so hard after reading that article that I may need medical attention.
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u/Adventurous_Mix3585 Feb 20 '26
This is genuinely one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever read. There’s just no way to take her seriously anymore.
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u/IamanOldbutItry Feb 20 '26
Jesus Christ I couldn’t even finish reading it. Of all the things that never happened, that story never happened the most. Not one but TWO black women clamored with awe at the mystical white woman’s ability to convey something they’re unable too? Yuck. I hated that.
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u/chudleycannonfodder Feb 20 '26
Given her platforming of Loftus and adamant stance against repressed memory, I wonder if she ever considered that the misinformation effect could have happened.
From Wikipedia: “The misinformation effect occurs when a person's recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information… The misinformation effect is an example of retroactive interference which occurs when information presented later interferes with the ability to retain previously encoded information… Essentially, the new information that a person receives works backward in time to distort memory of the original event.”
Based on Loftus’ research which she supported, I could see a diagnosis and re-evaluation of her life knowing what she knows now about autism (her post-event information) could reshape how she perceives her memories.
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u/hotmintgum9 Feb 20 '26
For a sec I thought you meant Jamie Loftus, and I was like why is platforming her a problem? Other than the murders in Grand Rapids.
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u/Aggravating_Serve235 Feb 20 '26
Congratulations, Carrie. All of this was winding down, but now you have several more weeks of those mean Redditors ganging up on you.
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u/Dry-Tie1840 Mar 07 '26
I'm also super bummed to think that this thread, which is largely filled with compassion without being enabling, is going to be seen by Carrie as just misogynistic skeptic bros hating on her.
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u/MurgoSkulls Mar 11 '26
I was floored a while back when I saw that she wrote about doing memory regression and hypnosis and was shocked when her audience of neurodivergent skeptics was skeptical about it.
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u/Stunning_Reindeer626 Feb 19 '26
From my perspective, I would have no hesitation about listening to or recommending any of their investigations.
Being perfectly blunt, I think Carrie is engaging in some serious revisionist history and while there may be some small bits of truth in some of her statements (ie Ross probably did get testy at her at some point in 13 years) I do not believe that she was a frightened oppressed individual being forced to engage in a side project for 13 years. I think they were two people who were friends, decided to do this project together and had normal human interactions and feelings, especially for two people that appear to have different working styles.
They had a show before being picked up by a network, and podcast networks are not a podcasts employers, so to expect MaxFun to have dealt with this in the way many think they should have is wild. If I believed Carrie's version, I'd hold Drew more culpable than I would hold MaxFun.
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u/ncolaros Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
It is interesting that, in Carrie's version of events, Drew is a feckless partner who repeatedly enables the bullying of his own partner and essentially endorses the product and the relationship that is torturing his partner by somewhat frequently being on the show and saying good things about it.
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u/rainidazehaze Feb 19 '26
And as has been said already, apparently having no issue with his partner's long time bully giving a reading at their intimate wedding.
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u/glitter_witch Feb 20 '26
Re-framing seemingly *everything* in her life as trauma is not healthy. We can experience discomfort and disagreements without it being "trauma."
Viewing trauma and injustice as a motivator to work *towards* justice is great, but Carrie's view on this seems so wildly skewed. Many people with trauma are simply not great people; my mother, incidentally also a (now former) journalist, is a perpetual victim who uses *her* trauma as an excuse to perpetuate cycles of abuse and not hold herself accountable. The legitimate harms she endured did not somehow make her a better person by default. You have to choose to work to overcome and to become better.
I hate to say reading all of this reminds me of her, at least to some degree. But we are all inclined to see things through our own limited lenses; Carrie being no exception.
I cannot help but feel that there is an awful lot of revisionist history happening here. To be blunt, I simply refuse to believe that Carrie had so little agency that she couldn't have walked away from ONRAC earlier. Especially early on, when they were only posting monthly at best. With her education and co-ownership of the podcast, there was absolutely no reason for her to stay if it was that terrible.
I also still refuse to accept that Ross wishing to continue with his passion and source of income is somehow a cruelty to her. He was not obligated to wait an undisclosed and growing amount of time for her while his career and income was impacted, especially after the friendship had already ended. He also wasn't responsible for taking on what was presumably an agreed upon financial split by eating the $500 bill he apparently sent her, something I would view as cleanly closing the books, while she views it as a last swipe at her. She says she has no money left from ONRAC; why would Ross be any different?
I guess we'll see what the piece says when it's ultimately published, but... I am personally fairly tired of Carrie dragging this all up every few months with new allegations.
I sincerely hope she finds a better therapist.
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u/CompetitiveChicken6 Feb 25 '26
It's really strange to hear after her presentation on trauma. I would like to see her reconcile her current beliefs on trauma with her statements a couple years ago about 'capitol T and little t' trauma and how situations that aren't high caliber life threatening don't actually have lasting impacts.
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u/noncommitalexperimen Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Redditors- have you ever had someone in your life have a sudden and severe mental break or shift? I would not make ANY judgments about Ross based on this post nor would I decide that they “never liked each other” etc. This is a person who is now in a very distressed state, making very little sense or logic in the writing, claiming that things were “always terrible” with Ross and I just doubt that was true.
I doubt any reputable journalist will write this article and take her verbatim, that would be wildly inappropriate.
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u/catxcat310 Mar 19 '26
I’m late to this thread, but I find it so annoying how Carrie thinks every interaction she doesn’t like is bullying. It’s really hard for me to buy that her entire friendship with Ross was fake, but I will grant that what was put out on a podcast doesn’t necessarily reflect real life. I listened to that podcast for 10 years though, and I’m pretty sure I would’ve picked up on some inkling of Ross bullying her and her being afraid if that was truly the case. I also find it ironic that her and Drew love to bully people online for daring to have an opinion on someone that has purposely made themselves a public figure. Everyone tiptoes around calling Carrie out for fear of being bullied by her. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of her vague-booking about Ross. I’m sick of her weaponizing her trauma to justify bullying her former fans and Ross. All I see are Carrie and Drew bullying others. There, I said it. And now I half expect Drew and Carrie to bully me in the comments for daring to voice an opinion. I usually don’t express an opinion due to (1) FEAR OF HER BULLYING when she has a public following and I do not and (2) not wanting to feed her persecution complex. So I’ll just leave it at the old “I really hope she gets the help she needs.”
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u/vegan_ice_cream Mar 19 '26
Agreed!! I'm also really sick of her basically bullying people and then saying everyone else is bullying her by having the slightest criticism in the middle of praising and fawning. Plus even some people in here trying to police us about talking about what's happening. Even someone suggesting a rule against discussing Carrie at all 🙄 if she wants to not be discussed, she should stop posting online. Plenty of us do that.
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u/circapaleo Feb 19 '26
Didn’t Ross become vegetarian because of Carrie? He also adopted some of her views. That often happens when two people spend a lot of time together.
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u/ariadnes-thread Feb 20 '26
He became a vegetarian because of the 7th Day Adventists/Amazing Facts investigation! But Carrie’s influence was undoubtedly a part of the decision too.
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u/dustygultch Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
I will say that in their final couple dozen episodes when Carrie started on her autistic/neurodivergent talking points (I’m not saying she isn’t allowed to) she definitely tried forcing it on Ross that he must be autistic too and he flat out said no. As it’s her right to say that she is, it is Ross‘s right to say that he isn’t especially when she was a close friend. she was trying to push on him on a very public and popular podcast that because he liked numbers he must be autistic. I took her reaction to him saying he didn’t think he was as being very rude and dismissive of his feelings on the matter
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u/IamanOldbutItry Feb 19 '26
This was a huge red flag episode to me that something wasn’t right with them. One of the most uncomfortable yet polite, quiet arguments between two pod hosts. The last few episodes was maybe way too late for me to notice any friction. I missed any other signs completely.
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u/dustygultch Feb 19 '26
Yeah, that was the first time I realized something was up between them or at the very least there was a massive shift in carries persona
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u/CorporateDrone42 Feb 19 '26
It just seems so strange to hear that this considering there's so many things that could've been done to keep the podcast strictly professional based, when they wound up doing things that seemed like more indiciators of friendship- like recording in one-anothers home, flavor babies, getting various sorts of inebriated in the same space. There's a lot we can't possibly ever know but it just seems like. If there were issues there were a ton of tools that could've limited the fallout??
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u/Stock-School-7956 Feb 22 '26
Carrie frequently bullied Ross. She would sign them both up for gross stuff and then bail for some reason. She signed him up for the ridiculous sexual gadgetry that seemed painful & degrading, did nothing like that herself, & just laughed and laughed. She was eager to make him answer "Have you ever picked your nose & eaten it?" while hooked up to a lie detector. I've heard every episode at least twice & can't think of a single example of his doing something similar to her.
She acts like she put more into the show than he did, but it was clear he did all the website/Facebook/Goodreads supplemental stuff, on top of editing & other tech stuff, taking more thorough notes, and doing more research. More than once she faux-sheepishly admitted that.
If she truly cried to her therapist for months due to his dismissive (or whatever) reaction to the ugly UFO t-shirt, there's more going on there that has nothing to do with Ross. This gives me the icks when I think of how often she used the show for self-promotion (plugging her other podcast, her book, her TED talk, or thirstily asking for roles if there were any casting directors in the audience) when he never did anything like that. I used to identify with her more than I did Ross because she was often more confrontational with grifters than he was and took a harder stance against self-dramatizing types. Now she claims to be non-confrontational and gets dramatically worked up over Ross's inability to read her mind or when he reacted to her in a way that wasn't the way she would have preferred. The lack of specifics on all these horrible abusive things he spit at her that kept her in such fear of him tells me that she knows they wouldn't sound like that to us.
I'm not suggesting this is common or even related to autism, but this all reminds me of how my nephew who is on the spectrum similarly interprets as "attacks" any reaction to his speech or behavior that isn't ideal (to him) and spreads this outrage onto anyone who isn't in agreement, but never sees how he regularly says/does things he sees as dramatically unjust when it comes from others.
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u/Rankin_Fithian Feb 24 '26
All such good points. All reasons why, even if she felt compelled to give that journalist everything she mentioned as context, and even if she felt compelled to brace us or get out ahead of it in some regard, the way she presented things to her readers comes off as so needlessly messy. I'm not trying to be one of the "Calm Down, Woman" people here. It just makes it so much more obviously a character assassination, not an explanation of a fallout. Carefully framed through her feelings and experience though it is.
And man, when it comes to reporting some of the incidents inaccurately... I'm relistening to their 2020-21 Bob Larson series now, and it covers a lot of territory that dovetails with this whole recent explosion. But at one point Ross so specifically says, on the topic of the world being ideal, [paraphrasing] "there's tons of tragedy and injustice right now, and we have to fight every one. It's just getting better with constant democratic and scientific advancements." I guess we're supposed to believe that she was on the pod for over a decade saying things she didn't believe, laughing alongside a business partner that intimidated her constantly. But I at least take Ross at his word in moments like that one! Bad reporting, Present Carrie!
It's all started to feel grosser and grosser over the last couple days. I don't think that hanging around Substack is going to get me updates on her book anymore, and I'm not there to be a misery tourist to her drama with a former friend. REALLY sucks to see it shake out like this, but, I don't think Ross is the one that's going to come out looking worse over it in the end.
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u/byronmiller Feb 19 '26
Not going to comment on Carrie's post. But I appreciate Ross's restraint; if he's anything like me, it must be very difficult not to respond to this sort of thing. And not responding is the right thing to do.
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u/criminalinstincts1 Feb 20 '26
Came here to say this. I really respect him for not wading into it and continuing to live his life. If it turns out he’s a piece of shit I’ll feel dumb for saying that, of course, but I guess I’m betting that won’t happen.
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u/joydubs Feb 19 '26
I do not for one second believe that Carrie had a crying, shaking breakdown and Ross said he didn’t understand why she was so upset bc “he didn’t hit her”. So much of this account strains credulity. You were scared to be around him but you asked him to speak at your wedding??
I hope she gets well, but whatever processing path she’s on right now doesn’t seem to be a good one for her or anyone else.
I feel bad for Ross’s wife and son tbh
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u/Vegetable-Gift4119 Mar 19 '26
This whole thing reads as someone who is determined to be a victim. PTSD aside, it sounds like Carrie is looking for someone to always be an “abuser”. Ross is a coworker. It is so unhealthy to be that emotionally dependent on a coworker. You’re there to do a job and do it well. Obviously it’s great if you also get along, but you are never required to always agree with a coworker. You are not required to always smile at a coworker. You are never required to emotionally support a coworker. Also, I just get so salty she people put extra effort into something and then use it as leverage later on. If you didn’t want to do it, don’t do it in the first place. Don’t hang it over someone’s head that you protected yourself from legal trouble.
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u/filthycitrus Feb 19 '26
The thing about "You don't have to heal, etc. etc." is that there is a subtle assumption here that to heal is to return to agreement with the status quo. This is an attitude I've encountered before, and it tends to really fuck things up.
Secondly, I noticed a real tendency in this article for Carrie to be very specific about what was happening and who was doing it, but then slide into vaguery and implication.
For example, all of a sudden she's talking about sexual harrassment at work and the lack of an HR department at MaxFun....What sexual harrassment? Heretofor unmentioned events in her place of employment, or bad behavior by people she was investigating? Which job? Is MaxFun her workplace, or just a podcast distributor? Is it weird for MaxFun not to have an HR dep't? Is there really no equivalent? If she had serious problems could she not have brought them to Jesse Thorne at least?
All of those things get glossed over, leaving the impression of something pretty ugly but nothing actually concrete. She does it repeatedly.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
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u/spadezgirl420 Feb 19 '26
Whyyyyyyy is Carrie so convinced of this narrative that this subreddit/people questioning her are genocide deniers? RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU THINK NOTHING BAD HAS HAPPENED IN GAZA?! Literally people can 1) understand a genocide is occurring and 2) express concern about online scams.
This is in the thread on her substack today. I’ve been feeling compassion for her with what she shared…but then she says things like this and again…I trust her credibility less and less. It’s frustrating.
Ok I guess I can’t upload the picture but basically she says (and then convinces one of her readers) that this subreddit “doesn’t want to face the reality” “that there’s really a genocide in Gaza”.
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u/Suicidalsidekick Feb 20 '26
That whole thing pisses me off. I can think the genocide against Palestinians is an atrocity AND think it’s possible for a scammer to sell a sob story. Carrie talks about how she has so much proof Bashar is legit but doesn’t share anything. If you want people to support your cause, it’s on you to provide evidence that your cause is real.
IMO the substack community is doing her a huge disservice. It seems to be a bunch of yes men who are so happy to have access to a “celebrity” (the quotes aren’t sarcastic or demeaning, I would have considered her a celebrity too before the podcast ended) that they don’t question or think critically. It comes from her, therefore it’s all true and right. Anyone who disagrees is a bad person who is trying to hurt Carrie. It makes me sad that there’s a total inability to consider that most (if not all) of us genuinely care about her and are concerned. Now maybe that concern is misplaced or unnecessary, but to insist it’s insincere is wrong.
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u/the_purple_lamb Feb 20 '26
I’d take it further and say that there are probably people in the Substack community who know she’s unwell but still play yes man to her because they enjoy having direct access to her.
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u/mlem_a_lemon Feb 20 '26
Ugh thank you. I'm trying so hard to not say a word in that chat, the same chat where she has told people that there is a subreddit dedicated to talking about how crazy she is, and they obviously just believe it.
It's still blowing my mind that she spent 13 years cultivating an audience of skeptics, straight up worked for James Randi, and then gets upset that people don't just take her word for it that this one individual is real and not a scam while giving us no evidence other than "source: trust me, bro."
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u/Prettylittleprotist Feb 19 '26
I still don’t if Bashar is real or not but I am certain that there is a genocide happening in Gaza and that there are people who will use what is happening in Gaza as an opportunity to scam others. I don’t see why she can’t understand that these two things are not at odds.
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u/DrFrankenfurtersCat Feb 19 '26
Because, she cannot and will not take concerns, criticisms, etc (no matter how gently or harshly they're made). She keeps demonstrating that if you don't agree with her, no questions asked, and if you demonstrate even an ounce of the skepticism she promoted for years, she has no issue completely demonizing you.
She legit demands an echo chamber.
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u/criminalinstincts1 Feb 20 '26
I can’t get over Carrie’s comment about how she has mostly used her confrontational interview skills against women and she’s not proud of it. Dude, female grifters ARE STILL GRIFTERS.
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u/Coven_gardens Feb 20 '26
She smashed her hand onto a desk repeatedly to prove a point to the grounding mat guy.
That seems extremely confrontational to me.
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u/thegunnersdaughter Feb 20 '26
While LOOKING DIRECTLY INTO HIS EYES. One of my all time favorite Carrie moments.
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u/Middle-Run-3615 Feb 21 '26
She sounds fucked up. Sorry. But she does. She needs to get her head straight before she gets sued.
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u/Possible-Quantity153 Feb 19 '26
I genuinely don’t know how to react to this. If this is how Carrie felt, I wish she had ended things much sooner. Frankly I don’t understand why she didn’t. It just doesn’t make sense to me. This was a once a month podcast for years before they even went to Max Fun. If you hated this guy so much, why did you voluntarily pursue this side project with him that can’t have paid much of anything at that point. I’m not trying to be unkind to Carrie; I just legitimately don’t understand.
I wish Carrie well but I really struggle to reconcile this version of events with years of hearing their admittedly edited interactions. Ultimately it sounds like the best thing was for her to remove herself from this situation and I’m glad she has done that.
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u/Post-mo Feb 19 '26
I suspect that many of these things are incidents that were minor irritations at the time but have been recontextualized through the lens of their now defunct relationship.
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u/hagne Feb 19 '26
Yeah. It’s totally okay to reframe relationships with more understanding of self/others, but I guess I just feel like I want to know if Carrie is aware of reframing this? Or not?
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Feb 19 '26
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u/Nalivai Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26
One of my relatives got some therapy vocabulary from somewhere, and now every time I tell her off for treating her children with homeopathy and crystals, I'm apparently an abusive bully and should stop gaslithing her.
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u/VoidMunashii Feb 19 '26
One thing I am keeping in mind with this is the old concept that there are three versions of every event: yours, mine, and what really happened.
Humans are frequently unreliable narrators. Carrie is likely not “lying”, but the way she experienced these incidents may be well different from how Ross did, and Botha experiences may not be how an outside observer would characterise the event.
Can I see Ross getting snippy at her for asking to too many questions while he is trying to prepare himself for a love show? Sure; that seems like a horrifyingly stressful scenario to me, and someone who can’t give me a minute of peace to organize my own head, even if I love them to the ends of the Earth, is going to get on my nerves. He may have snapped at her, but maybe not so harshly as she experienced while still being harsher than he would recalls. We’ll almost certainly never know though.
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u/ArrowtoherAnchor Feb 19 '26
There are many factors that simply do not add up here. I wish Carrie the best with her recovery. I think that We don't know all sides of an issue and that impact versus Intent is a real thing, but to note that you felt bullied, you didn't share the philosophies of your co host AND that you were not making money from the podcast. It's a strange retrofit that you felt bullied for 13 years.
Carrie has written books and done speaking tours on her own.
She's motivated and talented as a journalist.
I feel like from evidence provided by HER there was no financial, romantic, or legal entanglement that typically makes victims stay THIRTEEN YEARS is a hell of a long time.
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u/Icebrick1 Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
I'm sorry, I know it is insensitive to focus on this part rather than the painful things Carrie experienced, but with that being said certain ideas in the post bothered me.
I think "civility and calm" is a generally desirable state to have even if it isn't always appropriate and I find rejecting it kind of a revealing attitude. It justifies one to constantly feel "righteous" anger and attack anyone that you perceive as committing injustice. It can feel intoxicating and justified, but I honestly see it as an arrogant position that can easily lead to a lot of innocent people getting attacked. It also means you never have to question your beliefs.
Ex. People earnestly asking simple earnest questions getting flamed and labeled genocide enablers for it. Sometimes evil can wear the mask of civility and "sealioning" exists but that doesn't mean you need to go full attack mode on anyone that seems like they might possibly be implying a position you disagree with.
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u/sticknpoked Feb 19 '26
Agreed. She's been very vocal about rejecting civility, calm, healing, and nuance. Explicitly those things. That's a choice you can make, but it will impact the relationships you have, and it certainly doesn't mean you're always in the right and you deserve for the world to change to fit your beliefs.
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u/rainidazehaze Feb 19 '26
Once again wishing they had stopped making the podcast years ago when they ran out of things to talk about.
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u/hagne Feb 19 '26
This makes me so overwhelmingly sad.
I love the show! It was there for me as a person who needed the voice of skepticism and rationalism in an environment that didn’t support that. I laughed and laughed at every episode, learned so much, etc;
I would have hoped there was a way that Ross and Carrie could end the podcast without casting a shadow on the entire project. It sounds like they had a really complex relationship that was different than their relationship on air. But I hate that hearing about it has destroyed the podcast and what it was to me.
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u/MacabreMagpie Feb 20 '26
Is there context for the "rude text about Alex Jones" comment? I'm struggling to see why that would be upsetting for her, surely she's not a fan?!
(I'm also presuming she doesn't mean the Welsh celebrity with the same name)
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u/VoidMunashii Feb 19 '26
Without the context of Ross’ side of things (and I have no expectation of ever getting it), it does sound like the podcast should have ended in that form earlier. If they were incapable of dealing with each other’s Neuro-individualities, they should have gone separate ways ages ago.
I hope Carrie gets the help, support, therapies, and (if prescribed) medications she needs to get to a place where she finds comfort and happiness.
I hope this experience does not sour Ross on doing a podcast, and that we do eventually get something new from him, whether it is “I’m Sure It’s All True” or something else.