Grab your daddy tissues, girls — Chapter Two starts in a basket of dirty laundry.

Last week ended with one word on the morning of my 18th birthday: pregnant. This week you get the whole story — five positive tests and a due date instead of a keg party, the get-out-of-jail-free card his sister put on the table, and the reason I couldn't take it: a psychic with a glass eye, a miracle baby, and my mother's voice from a random Tuesday in our kitchen.

Then I climb into a laundry basket in a cold Northeast Philly cellar, too scared to speak — and my mom turns around and says the two words I never got to say. What happens after that is nine months of everything falling apart in slow motion: a father who went silent, a boy who wasn't who I thought he was, one accidental phone call that told me everything, and a "perfect" family whose foundation I never checked before I moved my whole life onto it.

And it ends in the one place nobody — NOBODY — knows a guy for. Chapter Three drops next Monday.

In this episode: • Five positive tests, one due date, zero keg parties — happy 18th birthday to me • The get-out-of-jail-free card — and the kitchen memory that wouldn't let me use it • Mr. D, the psychic with the glass eye, and the two baby girls he called before I existed • The laundry basket — "Are you mad at me?" and the answer that decided everything • Nine months of silence: the first time I was ever a disappointment • The butt-dial that told me the truth — "there are things she doesn't need to know" • Nine months pregnant, stone sober, chasing a car down the highway (yes, there was a cop) • "She already made one mistake — why is she gonna make two?" My mother's finest sentence • Daddy Tissues University: CURB APPEAL — why you never buy the house on the shutters alone • You're Not Crazy: the victim game, and why the truth-teller always ends up apologizing

Every name in this story is changed. Every single one. The people don't matter — the pattern matters.

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Music: "Do It Anyway" by Scarlett Solo (licensed)

Daddy Tissues is a personal storytelling podcast for entertainment, reflection, and connection — not legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice. Take care of yourself. Names and identifying details may be changed or omitted to protect privacy.

PREVIOUS EPISODES (for reference / episode links)

1. I'm F*cking Doing This
2. The Roots
3. The Boiling Frog
4. Let's Get High
5. OPI Don't Lie
6. White Trash
7. Chapter 1: Who is Vicky?
8. Chapter 2 ← this one

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5. [ ] Explicit = ON
6. [ ] Scheduled: Mon Jul 20, 4:00 AM
7. [ ] 🚨 Lawyer read done (or ⚠ beats softened) — your rule for the Neighbor's chapters
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EPISODE 8 — CAPTIVATE UPLOAD KIT

Copy-paste each field below into the Captivate episode form.

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Chapter 2: Are You Mad at Me?

(Gina — you never picked, so this is the default. Alternates: "Chapter 2: The Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card" or "Chapter 2: The Laundry Basket." If you change it, change it in the Title field only — nothing below depends on it.)

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Episode 8 (Season 1)

Show Notes (paste into the description box)

Grab your daddy tissues, girls — Chapter Two starts in a basket of dirty laundry.

Last week ended with one word on the morning of my 18th birthday: pregnant. This week you get the whole story — five positive tests and a due date instead of a keg party, the get-out-of-jail-free card his sister put on the table, and the reason I couldn't take it: a psychic with a glass eye, a miracle baby, and my mother's voice from a random Tuesday in our kitchen.

Then I climb into a laundry basket in a cold Northeast Philly cellar, too scared to speak — and my mom turns around and says the two words I never got to say. What happens after that is nine months of everything falling apart in slow motion: a father who went silent, a boy who wasn't who I thought he was, one accidental phone call that told me everything, and a "perfect" family whose foundation I never checked before I moved my whole life onto it.

And it ends in the one place nobody — NOBODY — knows a guy for. Chapter Three drops next Monday.

In this episode: • Five positive tests, one due date, zero keg parties — happy 18th birthday to me • The get-out-of-jail-free card — and the kitchen memory that wouldn't let me use it • Mr. D, the psychic with the glass eye, and the two baby girls he called before I existed • The laundry basket — "Are you mad at me?" and the answer that decided everything • Nine months of silence: the first time I was ever a disappointment • The butt-dial that told me the truth — "there are things she doesn't need to know" • Nine months pregnant, stone sober, chasing a car down the highway (yes, there was a cop) • "She already made one mistake — why is she gonna make two?" My mother's finest sentence • Daddy Tissues University: CURB APPEAL — why you never buy the house on the shutters alone • You're Not Crazy: the victim game, and why the truth-teller always ends up apologizing

Every name in this story is changed. Every single one. The people don't matter — the pattern matters.

💸 SUPPORT THE SHOW — THE SWEAR JAR Every "fuck" costs me a quarter. Bail me out here: https://daddy-tissues.captivate.fm/support

⭐ LEAVE A REVIEW That helps more than you know. It tells the algorithm that this white trash right here is worth listening to. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daddy-tissues/id1896925409 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/daddy-tissues-6514529

🎧 LISTEN + FOLLOW Everywhere: https://daddy-tissues.captivate.fm/listen Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033ygF97LFxvu3ZpHysLMb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daddy-tissues/id1896925409

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Music: "Do It Anyway" by Scarlett Solo (licensed)

Daddy Tissues is a personal storytelling podcast for entertainment, reflection, and connection — not legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice. Take care of yourself. Names and identifying details may be changed or omitted to protect privacy.

Episode Type

Full (not trailer/bonus)

Explicit

YES — mark explicit (swearing throughout)

Publish Setting

Schedule for Monday, July 20 at 4:00 AM via Captivate

PREVIOUS EPISODES (for reference / episode links)

1. I'm F*cking Doing This
2. The Roots
3. The Boiling Frog
4. Let's Get High
5. OPI Don't Lie
6. White Trash
7. Chapter 1: Who is Vicky?
8. Chapter 2 ← this one

CHECKLIST BEFORE YOU HIT PUBLISH

1. [ ] ElevenLabs-enhanced audio uploaded (the MP3, not the raw Descript file)
2. [ ] Title picked and entered
3. [ ] Show notes pasted (all links real — no placeholders)
4. [ ] Tip link works — test it: https://daddy-tissues.captivate.fm/support
5. [ ] Explicit = ON
6. [ ] Scheduled: Mon Jul 20, 4:00 AM
7. [ ] 🚨 Lawyer read done (or ⚠ beats softened) — your rule for the Neighbor's chapters
8. [ ] AFTER scheduling: clips (locked order of ops — episode → schedule → clips)

Follow & share: New episodes of Daddy Tissues drop every Monday. If this one hit a nerve, send it to the friend and follow so you never miss one.

Connect with Daddy Tissues: Follow along for more brutally honest conversations about dating, divorce, motherhood, daddy issues, toxic relationships, healing, self-worth, and all the emotional junk we somehow inherited without asking for it.

Music: "Do It Anyway" by Scarlett Solo, used under license.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for entertainment and personal storytelling purposes only. It is not therapy, legal advice, medical advice, or a replacement for professional support. If you are in an unsafe relationship or crisis situation, please reach out to a qualified professional or local support service.

Gina: I'm 18 years old and I'm sitting in a basket of dirty laundry. Not next to it, in it. Whole ass in the basket in my mother's cellar. This cold, dark underground room that I swear to God always reminds me of Willy Wonka. You know the part where Charlie goes home and all four grandparents are just living in one bed?

Weird. That kind of energy. That's our basement And I've been following my mom around the house the entire day. She vacuums, I'm behind her. She goes upstairs, I go upstairs. She comes down, I come down, like a little puppy walking around following her. She had to think something was wrong with me, obviously, and something was wrong with me.

This is your host, Gina Sullivan, and you are listening to Daddy Tissues[00:02:00]

Okay, if you were here last Monday, you already know where we left off because I left you somewhere evil. Chapter one ended on the morning of my 18th birthday. Keg party planned that night, fake ID fully loaded, insurance card, credit card, the whole supporting documentation package, rest in peace. My whole life out in front of me And that morning was the morning I found out I was pregnant If you haven't heard chapter one, pause me, go back.

The people don't matter, the pattern matters. And this is my story from my memory, the way 18-year-old me lived it. Everybody in it was a kid or a work in progress, including me, especially me. Time machine, girls. Right back to that bathroom So it's my birthday and I'm at my girlfriend's house and I say, , totally offhand like you'd mention the weather, ", I never got my period." And she goes, "Oh, I have some pregnancy tests under my sink." Which, ma'am, why do we have a stockpile of pregnancy tests under your sink? We'll come back to that another day.

I don't even know how long. You just sit there staring at it like it's gonna perform, and I look down. Positive. And I laughed. I laughed. And my friend is not really laughing. She's laughing 'cause I'm laughing, but she goes, "No, Gina, you're, you're pregnant." "I'm not pregnant." "Yes, you are." I'm like, "I am not fucking pregnant.. This thing has to be bad. [00:05:00] I probably have, like, a urinary tract infection or something." , A urinary tract infection. That's where my brain went. Some mystery infection that just happens to show up on a pregnancy test.

Denial is a full-time job, and I was employee of month. But I couldn't concentrate on anything after that, so I get in my car, and I'm like, I have to take care of this. I have to figure this out." I drive to the pharmacy. I buy, , four more tests. Four. Different brands. Like the truth was a brand issue. I go back to her house, and I take them one by one.

Go home." They did the test, and then They gave me a due date. . A due date, and that's when it sunk in. Holy fuck, this is real. There is a real baby with a real arrival date inside my actual body, and I'm 18 years old as of this morning So I canceled the party, told everybody I didn't feel good, which honestly isn't a lie.

I thought to myself, "All right, you know what? What are the chances? It was one time. My friends have done this, , a million times. I'm in college. I have a paper to write." The chances, apparently they were excellent. The chances were excellent. You always think, "This isn't gonna happen to me."

And I'm here to tell you, I was somebody else's, " This isn't gonna happen to me."

So, now, I have to tell him. Remember him, end of chapter one, the funny one, life of the party, the house out back of the shore house. We're calling him the neighbor. I call him, and this boy does not know what to say. What do you say? We're kids. So he does what he always did when life got too big for him. He goes, "Let's ask my sister," his older sister.

And I wanna say I loved her. I genuinely did. She was older. She was cool. She had some life experience. I hung out with her all the time. She was the one that we looked up to. So we go and sit in her kitchen like two kids in the principal's office, and she looks at us, and she goes, "No. Absolutely not. You two cannot have a baby.

"Okay." Both of us right there in that kitchen, we agreed. She was the grown-up in the room, and that was the plan, and that's what we were doing. I was going. And I wanna be really honest with you now, because we don't do fairy tales on this show. I had decided I was going to do it, except there was one voice I could not get out of my head.

Chapter one, still not over it. And my mom, out of absolutely nowhere, goes, " What would you girls do if either of you got pregnant?" And we're teenagers, so we're, like, immediately annoyed. And rolling our eyes.

"I don't know, Mom, why are you asking us that?" And she says, "Well, I would hope that you would never have an abortion. I'd hope you'd have the baby and give it to a family that can't have one, because there are so many people in this world who would give anything for a baby." Now, here's why my mother of all mothers said that.

Like getting struck by lightning twice. Something was wrong with both sides of this operation, is what I'm saying, and it was crushing them, so they just stopped trying. Meanwhile, my grandmom, the mayor, you met her in chapter one, 90-something and still running every room that she walks into. -- She used to host demonstrations at her house.

This psychic, his name was Mr. D. He was famous around our way. . He had a glass eye or a googly eye or something. I was never brave enough to get close enough to check. And he would just fire things off. He'd walk in and go, "Oh, Betty, your burner's out." And she'd go look, and her burner's out. That kind of guy. So my grandma asked him, because her daughter is breaking her heart trying to get pregnant, "Is my daughter ever gonna have a baby?"

She calls the doctor, and the doctor literally tells her, "You're not pregnant. You're just late. Come in and we'll look, but you're not pregnant." She goes in. She's pregnant. And the doctor looks at my mother and says, "Well, just goes to show miracles happen." That miracle, girls, is talking to you right now through your headphones. Hi. I found a letter she wrote me when I was in preschool, years later, in a box. She called me her miracle baby. And then right behind me, she had another baby girl, my sister. Two baby girls, .

Exactly like the man with the glass eye said, walking out of my grandmom's living room. Then came my brother,

And I thought, "My mom is my best friend. , And if I do this without telling her, I will regret it for the rest of my life." So I made myself a deal. I'm telling my mom, and if my mom says, "Take care of it," I'll go.

You're gonna hear all about it. But I don't know if I've ever been scared like that I was about to be in trouble. The perfect one was about to be in trouble

"Mom?" "What?" "Mom?" "What?" "I have to tell you something." And she turns around and says, "You're pregnant." I never said it. I never got to say it. To this day, I don't know how she knew. She just knew, the way mothers know things, the way her mother knew when a burner was out. And the second she said it, I burst into tears.

And she says, "No, I'm not mad. I just feel really, really bad for you. You're gonna miss out on so many things. You're not gonna get to do what everybody else your age is doing. You're gonna have to grow up really fast." And girls, I have to tell you, what I felt when she said that, because it tells you everything about who I was at 18, I felt relief, pure, warm relief, head to toe.

My mother never said the word abortion, not once. She never asked me what I was gonna do. She never asked me what I wanted to do. There was no conversation, no options, no, "What are you thinking, Gina?" She just started talking like the baby was coming, like it was already decided. And so it was decided, right in a cold basement in Northeast Philly in a basket of laundry, without anybody ever actually asking me the question.

Nothing I'm not being dramatic. I do not remember that man saying one word to me for my entire pregnancy. Nine months. Not a lecture, not a fight, not a how could you? I could have handled a, "How could you?"

Chapter 1, Section 3: The Perfect One. That was my whole job in that family, and in one November, I got fired That was the first time in my entire life that I was a disappointment , and I didn't hear about it from him in words, because words would've ended eventually.

Because chapter one version of him was the funny one, the life of the party. Everybody loved him. Funny and uncomplicated. Remember? A vacation Girls. The vacation ended first of all, he's out all the time because he can be. I'm the one who can't go out. I can't drink. I'm home growing a human. He's out every weekend living his best life, and the drama is constant. Girl drama, fight [00:22:00] drama. Every week, a new fire, and me home with the anxiety, eating for two and worrying for six

. And somewhere in there, this situation happened. He asked me a question have I ever done cocaine or something like that. , I'm an open book, so I was like, "Oh yeah, I did it this.. This one time," and when I told him that, he freaked the fuck out like a psycho. He went from being obsessed with me, , to looking at me like I was disgusting, like something on the bottom of his shoe. Went on and on about how he didn't think I was like that, and he didn't think, you know, I was that type of person.

Because a little bit later, I see a girl that I know and she goes casual, breezy, like it's nothing in conversation, "Oh yeah, I just saw him at so-and-so's house the other night. We were all doing coke and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." I'm sorry, who was doing what now? I made her say it again. The neighbor?

My phone rings. It's him. Except it's not him. It's his pocket. He butt-dialed me. And instead of hanging up like a lady, I listened. And what I heard was him tearing that girl apart for telling me. That voice, that scary one, one that made people shrink, the one he used when he wanted somebody afraid. "Why would you ever tell her something like [00:25:00] that?

. There are things she does not need to know." And this girl apologizing to him over and over, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know." She's sorry for telling me the truth about him

And I recognized that voice too. I'd grown up around a version of that voice. That's the part that should have scared me the most, how familiar it sounded, how familiar it felt. And that, ladies, is how you end up doing what I did on that highway Some fight, I don't even remember what it was about. That's the thing about that kind of relationship.

, . And then the lights, red and blue, were right behind me. And you know what his reaction was when I got pulled over chasing him? Totally relaxed.

"Don't worry about the ticket. My dad knows people. My dad will get you out of it. We got lawyers, the union, the guys, the connections. Don't worry about it. We know people." Remember that sentence: . Pin number two So I fight the ticket, I show up at court, and I'm telling you, I stand up in that courtroom nine months pregnant, belly out to here, and the judge looks down at me.

That's the thing about that season of my life. I kept ending up in these insane situations going, "How do I keep getting here?" Like I was an innocent bystander of my own car, which I was literally driving now, I gotta tell you about his family because this is the part of chapter two that took me 20 years to understand, so I'm going to hand it to you for free I loved his family. Loved them. They did the thing my family never did.

They sat down to dinner together every night. They did family dinners. They did family everything. They actually hung out with each other on purpose. His mom would buy me things, treated me like I was one of her own. They were warm and fun. Everybody was so nice to me, and I remember thinking, "This, this is what a family is supposed to look like.

The ticket? We know people. The problem? We know people. And it wasn't just that they had connections, it's that they loved it. It was their whole thing. It was the family superpower. Nothing sticks to us. And I remember lying awake pregnant one night doing the math. I'm about to be connected for the rest of my life to a man whose family believes there's nothing you can't get out of Except a baby.

Our house has three bedrooms. My brother's got one, my parents have one, and me and my sister share the third. There is no room for a Gina, a neighbor, and the baby. So my mom goes, "I'll redo the basement. I'll make them a little more room down there, , a little living area with a TV. I'll put in a bathroom, a shower, a whole little apartment

That was the first time in my life I looked at my parents and thought they might actually not make it. They almost divorced over that basement, over me. . Add it to the tab of things 18-year-old me was quietly carrying. . Oh, and there was a second reason my dad was furious , and I genuinely forgot about it until I sat down to tell you this story. My dad wanted us to get married. That was his whole solution. "You're having a baby, you get married. That's what you do."

And everybody in that sentence knew the mistake wasn't the baby. My mother had seen that relationship up close, the drama, the fighting, . She watched it with 20/20 vision while I was walking around legally blind in love, and she was not about to watch me sign a lifetime contract with it .

That was my thing. . That was what I've always wanted to be. - Was always doing everyone's hair, makeup, and I loved fashion and style and beauty, all of it. The deal I'd made with my parents was get the degree first, then hair school after. Now, there's no degree, and here's the kicker.

I got a job downtown working for a defense attorney. I would get his lunch, I got the dry cleaning, I filed papers, whatever they needed. It was a big office. There was like seven lawyers in there or something like that, and I was terrified to tell the paralegal who I reported to that I was pregnant.

I thought that they'd fire me right on the spot. When I finally did tell her, I was crying and I felt awful about it, like I was keeping this lie. I remember that she told me the whole office had basically been quietly debating whether I was pregnant or just really liked to drink beer. And they couldn't have been kinder when I told them.

Back to the neighbor family. They started talking about me moving in with them. And me, the professional people pleaser, episode one, I really didn't want to, but I heard myself go, "Yeah, okay, maybe we can do that." And then they started making a baby room there, even though I already had everything set up at my house.

Because saying yes to what other people wanted was the only setting I've ever had. Okay, pop quiz. Everybody listen up. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. -- In real estate, there's a term, curb appeal. It's how good the house looks from the street. Fresh paint, cute shutters, flowers out front.

, Curb appeal is what makes you slam on the brakes and go, "

The favors, the fear, the scary voice on the phone, the things I didn't need to know. And here's the trap, girls. When you grew up in a house with no curb appeal, chaos, fighting, the stuff we talked about in chapter one, somebody else's nice paint job will hypnotize you.

I would know. Some of my best revelations happen in cellars.

Because nine times out of 10, they don't say sorry. They get hurt for you saying it ", I can't believe you would say that to me. Do you know how that makes me feel?" And now look at what just happened. You're comforting them about the thing they did to you, and you can't play that game forever. "I'm hurt."

Who did the first thing? Because the person who did the first thing is always, always too busy being the victim of you noticing

And the new version of this? Oh, the new version makes me crazy. The therapy words. Everybody's got the therapy words now. People will gaslight you in real time while calling you the gaslighter. They call you manipulative in the middle of manipulating you. They took the words that were supposed to set us free, girls, and they turned them into ammunition.

The girl who told me the truth ended up apologizing to him for telling it. That's the victim game, championship edition. Watch who's ending up apologizing. In the victim game, the truth-teller always ends up apologizing. That's how you know you're in one -- So if you've ever walked away from one of these conversations dizzy, doubting your own memory, feeling like the villain in a story where you're the one bleeding, look at me.

And 18-year-old me took every one of these verdicts and filed them neatly away in the folder marked true. I carried disappointment around like it was my maiden name But look at what that little girl in the laundry basket actually did that year. She was scared out of her mind, and she told the truth anyway.

Chapter one girl stayed friends with a copycat to keep everybody comfortable.

Chapter two girl sat in a basket of wet tails and blew up her whole perfect image

By saying the words, "I have to tell you something." The star didn't fall, girls. The star just stopped performing homework. . I want you to find the spot in your life where you're still performing perfect instead of telling somebody the truth.

That's it. That's the assignment." So where does that leave us?

I'm 18, I'm keeping the baby, marriage is off, the apartment fell through, I dropped out, I got the job, I got the silent dad, I got the toxic boy and his beautiful cracked foundation family, and the two of us are getting along worse by the day. Just anxiety all the time the closer it gets. And then one day it stops being a someday and it starts being a right now.

Chapter three, next Monday If this one did something to you, the swear jar is in the show notes and so is the review button. Leave one. It helps more than you know.

It tells the algorithm that this white trash here is worth listening to. And if you know a woman who bought a whole house on the curb appeal, send her this episode. When one woman tells the truth, another woman gets free. Grab your daddy tissues, girls. This shit is just getting good. Till next time, my queens