Truth Paranormal will be joining Dragon Steps again this year at the Rainier Food Bank for Halloween events coming up this October 30th and 31st. The Rainier Food Bank is located inside the historic (and possibly haunted) Rainier Grade School in Rainier, WA. There will be amazing fire performances outside by Dragon Steps and a haunted house in the basement of the historic school itself. Everything gets started around 6 p.m. and ends earlier on Halloween night because it is a Sunday. Activities are free with a donation of cash or nonperishable food. Please be as generous as possible to benefit people in need.  For more information on Dragon Steps or the Rainier Food Bank, please visit their websites:

And to take a look at some of our photos from the more paranormal side of last year, follow the link...

Rainier Grade School Photos!

2009 Press Release for Halloween Events
 

I copied the following information from a paranormal investigator's page. It is called "Color of Orbs." This has GOT to be the funniest thing I have EVER heard! All I can say is, "Really? For real though?" Apple green orbs? Salmon pink? Buttercup orbs??? LOL!  Are you serious? What if I lose my secret decoder ring and I can't tell if the "orbs" I've captured are emerald green or forest green? What the hell am I to do then???

God, other people in the paranormal field just get on our nerves to NO END!  This is one of the main reasons that we don't participate much in the paranormal community anymore.  Having to act tolerant to this kind of crap is too much for us! And things like this and investigators who believe it are, sadly, very very common.

In the category of OVERTHINKING a subject, this would be at the top of the list...

Check this out:

Scarlet Red - overinflated ego, strong willpower, survival oriented, realistic
Deep Red - Short-tempered
Vermillion - creative, powerful, energetic, competitive, passionate
Light Pink - true love, sensitive, compassionate, affectionate
Salmon Pink - immature, dishonest
Orange-Red- confident

Orange - strong motivation, healthy, adventurous, courageous, outgoing
Peach - caring communicator
Amber - strong and courageous
Orange-Yellow - optimistic, scientific, intelligent, perfectionist

Pale Yellow - shyness, optimistic, hopeful
Lemon Yellow - strength of direction, fearful of loss
Buttercup - focused on a course of action (determined), inspired
Mustard - manipulative, overly analytical, making up for lost time
Gold- higher level of consciousness, wise, protective, enlightened

Apple Green - friendly, communicative
Yellow-Green - liar, cheater
Olive Green - scrooge
Emerald Green - healer, love-centered person, teacher
Forest Green - jealous, low self-esteem, overly sensitive

Turquoise - therapist, communicative, sensitive
Sky Blue - strong instinct, intuitive, peaceful, truthful
Cobalt Blue - intuitive in a higher dimension
Royal Blue - knows their chosen path, generous, highly spiritual
Navy Blue - shyness, slow yet safe and sure, fearful of truth and being onesself
Indigo - strong psychic ability, intuitive, deep-feeling

Lavendar - daydreamer, visionary
Violet - sensitive, wise, intuitive, idealistic
Grape - laziness
Mauve - humble

White - pure, transcendent, often a new undesignated energy
Silver - linked to spiritual realm, spiritual and physical abundance, nurturing
Gray - feeling trapped
Payne's Gray - depressed, fearful
Black- tortured, abused, unreleased grief

Here is a slideshow of many of the investigations we have conducted or been a part of in the past few years or so.  Some of our investigations remain 100% confidential, of course, but here are some that we are happy to share with you...

And many many more to come!!!

Check out our photo albums for more info on these investigations...

So my name is Ella. I help run Truth Paranormal. And this is my little paranormal soap opera… Unfortunately, it has not one damn thing to do with ghosts. Sorry if you were hoping to hear about the actual paranormal. This is not a ghost story. But, trust me, it was way scarier to go through than the spookiest tale I have ever heard. I’d rather encounter a twelve-headed demon who is eating little children for his own amusement than go through any of this crap again. Whether this will mean anything or be even vaguely interesting to someone outside of those most closely involved, I don’t know. Doesn’t even matter.

This is just a brief glimpse at some of the things that we’ve endured since officially joining the paranormal community several years ago. These are the parts of the whole experience that I have desperately needed to vent to someone, anyone, but have mostly kept inside until now. I need to finally get this crap out of my head and out of my body. I know that it might make quite a few people angry or hurt or both. There’s just no way around that. But I need to speak out regardless of any repercussions. I changed the names of anyone who might have a problem with what I’m going to write. I wasn’t terribly creative about it. I hope that they will understand. I’ve held this in long enough. So, here goes…

The other day, I was editing a slide show I made of my paranormal research group shortly after we had just started, which was September 1st, 2008. I was editing it because two of the co-founders featured in that slide show are now long gone. That left me reflecting. So much has happened since then. Amazing things, painful things, exciting things, sad things, all kinds of things… They’ve each left their mark on my heart. Some marks were good, like laugh lines, but some were like gnarled, ugly scars from bloody wounds. I wear them all the same.

It was supposed to be so perfect. I had my man, Aaron, and I had my two girls, Tammy and Andrea. Andrea was my partner in crime, my paranormal wonder twin. I truly felt like meeting these people was absolutely meant to be. Especially Aaron and Andrea. Things were exactly how we wanted them to be at long last. It was our own group and we were in charge. We could investigate and run the group exactly how we wished. All of this was especially thrilling after the many, many struggles we had been through in the group we were in before this.

In the former group, the chemistry between us was powerful. Right from the first second. That is undeniable to this day. It was so intense that it always held the potential to be either magical or dangerous. We’d either do great things together or end up killing each other. We were the Sid and Nancy of paranormal groups. Thrilling, but incendiary. Perfect together, but doomed. We had the loudest laughter and the loudest fights. Our meetings would stretch on for five hours or more because there was just so much to say.

Apart from the indisputable chemistry, it was a thoroughly dysfunctional group on all levels. It was a big ol’ mess of incompatible personalities, interests, opinions, outlooks, beliefs, methods, agendas and levels of enthusiasm. It was a clamoring cacophony of clashing voices. No single person was at fault. It was everyone. It’s such a long, complicated story that I don’t even have the energy to explain all of it. It had more ups and downs than the most wild, undulating, rip-roaring roller coaster. Sometimes it was a blast. Sometimes all you could do was close your eyes and hold on for dear life.

Something usually pretty innocent and well intended would happen. This would get made worse and worse until it was a huge drama. I’m as much to blame as anyone. I overreacted to certain things just like everyone else did. The overreactions would pile up into a mountain of noise and paranormal pandemonium. The very epitome of a mountain out of molehill. Nothing should have gotten that out of hand.

Some of us were often singled out unfairly. That hurt those of us who were in that position. If you screwed up, they’d make you feel like you’d killed someone. And I was not the only one who was made to feel that way on more than one occasion. The deep sense of shame that we were made to feel for often truly minor things was wrong. The tiniest little thing became a big deal. Most of those problems should not have been such a great crisis. But they became epic ordeals requiring hours and hours of phone calls, “emergency meetings” and other outrageously overdramatic stuff like that. Needless. Exhausting. Ridiculous.

After months of this, we were all just worn out. I think it got to a point that we were all so tired and so on edge that the slightest issue made us all flip out. So these problems got worse and worse. I knew I was getting to the place that I would either start my own group with Aaron or leave the paranormal community altogether. But I didn’t mean for it to happen the way that it did.

I had a vision of two distinct paranormal groups. Not enemies. Not competitors. Friends. Colleagues. I imagined us working together often and playing together even more often. I wanted it to be a collaborative and complimentary effort. I always felt this split would happen eventually because the styles with which we investigated differed so significantly. But I wanted it to be a positive thing. It did not go as planned.

We all had our reasons for splitting. I didn’t ask anyone to follow me. Not even my own boyfriend, even though it was probably a given that he’d leave as well. I never requested it of him or anyone. The four of us each left of our own accord, even though I’m sure some of them have since blamed it on me somehow. But they all left with me, so they must have agreed with me about something. I never talked one of them into anything or tried to influence them in any way. Each of us left because we wanted to leave. Before this, during another crisis mode in the group, Andrea actually quit, but we got her to come back. That reunion didn’t last long though!

Tammy has since gone crawling back, which I find really sad, but totally expected. I think it’s indicative of someone with little self-respect or dignity. She always kind of left the option of returning open, even though she left just like we did and felt the exact same way about these people. I doubt they know the full extent of the feelings she had about them. But she’s not a very deep person and just wants to hunt ghosts, so I get it. If it had been me, I’d pick any other group than that. But I’m a proud creature. I don’t crawl back to nobody! No way, no how!

The main reason my involvement with the group started to fall apart was that I had started to feel rejected by Paula, one of the leaders with whom I was very close for a while. I fell in platonic love with this lady, that’s for sure. Totally head over heels. I felt like I’d known her all my life. I called her Mama Bear. I was so grateful for her friendship. She even introduced me to the man who would become the love of my life and the father of my precious little boy. I will be forever indebted to her for that. My gratitude is endless. How she knew we’d be perfect together, I’ll never know. But she did. And she changed my entire life. She gave me a life so beautiful that I could not have imagined it had I tried.

She and I eventually had some considerable disagreements and neither of us behaved well. We are both strong, extremely opinionated, but very stubborn women. There’s bound to be a conflict of wills when two women like us disagree about anything, no matter how small. We can both be like impenetrable stone walls. Good luck moving or getting through either one of us. We are equally matched in terms of imperviousness. Conversely however, we are both exceedingly sensitive. Someone who is as quick to get offended as they are to cut you out of their life is a touchy combination.

As one outside of her great walls, I felt shut out by her. I had to sit and watch others come and go just like I once had. I kind of lost my mind over that. But it was truly because of hurt, that’s all. I never felt anything but love and respect for her. And I never felt anything but hurt and regret over that whole situation. What seemed like anger directed at her was really just the anger of feeling rejected. I was like a child who was feeling unloved and turned away.

My head was kind of a mess anyway from months of conflict and turmoil and then losing a pregnancy earlier that year. My body was an even bigger mess because of that. If you’ve been pregnant, even without going full term, and gone through those changes, you know what I mean. It’s rough. Your body goes absolutely haywire, hormonally and emotionally. I wasn’t myself. I was devastated and confused. It takes quite a long time to get back to normal.

Though there were many reasons why I behaved the way that I did, I felt horrible for disrespecting in any way the person who brought Aaron into my life. That killed me and I beat myself up for weeks. It still bothers me.

I would later suffer a betrayal from the other leader in the group, Chris, which is how things really deteriorated so badly and so quickly. I ended up despising him because I really adored and respected him immensely and he let me down with a colossal crash. He broke my heart. Turns out he was a snake. I was enraged and got very ugly because I felt totally justified in my wrath. Still do. I don’t feel bad for a single thing I said or did to him as a result of his treachery and my disappointment in him. I was disgusted.

He originally earned such resolute loyalty from me because of a very kind gesture that he made when I barely knew him. I stood by him far longer than I should have because of that. When people earn my allegiance, they usually have it forever.

Fairly early on in the group, I felt somewhat in fear of my safety because of a kinda weird, borderline scary guy, John, who was kicked out within the first couple of months. He was supposedly a holy man and called himself Rev. John. I think he was the “Rolling Stone ad” variety of reverend. His Myspace page featured many pictures of him looking like Neo’s stunt double in The Matrix Trilogy. Curious for a preacher. That was the first of many red flags.

At all times, he carried with him a bag containing items like holy water and various other Christian things so that he could “bless” any and all locations he thought were haunted. Every haunted or allegedly haunted place no matter what. All of us totally disagreed with this idea. I am a very outspoken heathen type, so it pissed me off. In general, I think “cleansings” are the dumbest thing ever. Christian, Wiccan, whatever. Not for me. If a client requests it, then I begrudgingly bite my tongue.

Despite the antipodal beliefs, John developed a strange obsession with me. It seemed harmless at first. I mean, he was married to a really beautiful woman and they had a new baby at home. So I didn’t take it too seriously. But, I have to say, he really did seem more interested in serial cleansings than being with his own family. That bothered me.

Though it seemed like a fairly innocuous thing initially, his fixation started to deepen and get more concerning. He wrote me long messages every day. He told me of his very detailed dreams and “visions” in which he had apparently seen me before meeting me. Very lengthy, overly affected blogs were dedicated to me and his fantasies about me. There were many fantasies about “saving” me, even though, as far as I knew, I didn’t need any saving. I was no helpless maiden tied to any proverbial tracks.

Some of his painfully trite fantasies involved me being in leather and lace, which to this day, cracks me up. Has anyone worn those two together since heavy metal was on the pop charts and people had crunchy bangs? If they have, they shouldn’t. There are make over shows devoted to people like that.

It was all very creepy. He would call me dozens of times in a row. Sometimes just the morning after the group had been together until nearly dawn the night beforehand. Without being invited or encouraged in any way, he had actually been to my workplace, which was about an hour from his own home. It’s not like he was just in the neighborhood. That freaked me out. It crossed a line.

Once he was kicked out, his blogs and messages took on a vaguely threatening feel. They were very intentionally enigmatic though, so it was really difficult to get an idea of his true intentions. As weird as this guy was, who knows what he was capable of. Maybe nothing. We just didn’t know.

He also began telling other members in the group of his “visions” of something being terribly wrong with my health and that I was in danger. He was telling them to urge me to go to a doctor. I knew that was a deliberate attempt to rattle me. It didn’t.

Everyone felt very uneasy about the situation. No one more than I. There were a couple of nights that I was definitely anxious. I was also scared to go to work because he could easily get to me there. We had no security guard at the time. I felt very vulnerable. Especially knowing that he had already been there looking for me. I wasn’t scared of his so-called visions, but I was scared of how delusional he might be.

On one particular night, I spoke to Chris for a while. He made me feel better. He told me that all I had to do was pick up the phone and he would come down and sit on my front porch with a gun all night. He definitely had firearms, so it was not entirely implausible. But even if he wasn’t serious, it meant so much to me. He made me feel safe. And the whole thing made me feel like there were people in my life who cared a lot about me. That was an amazing feeling. He had earned my complete trust. It would not break easily. But it eventually did. It would shatter in a violent burst like exploding glass. It was obliterated in a single shocking moment.

Many things would change in the months to come. Chris would slowly become like a different person. I don’t know when it happened, but he turned on me without me even knowing what was going on. I don’t know why this happened because there had always been such a familial affection between us. I felt like his little sister. I looked up to him. But something happened and it was different from then on. I’ve even questioned my original perception of him. Maybe it was never like I thought it was. I’ll never know.

The intense anger I had at Chris was mostly because I had been his most vocal ally, even as he fucked things up so badly. Apparently he had wanted me out of the group for a while. He had been asking people if they really needed me in the group and what they thought about kicking me out. I didn’t know, of course. Not until I was told by someone else at the very end.

While he had been asking people about kicking me out, he was telling me how indispensable I was and that I was such an important person in the group. At the same time. That’s the sick part. That’s the part that bothered me more than anything. These are the kind of messed up head games he regularly played with all of us. He liked to “stir things up” (his words) and see how everyone reacted. He liked to make you think that he was your confidant so that you would easily tell him anything and everything. Then he would find a way to use that information against you. He was a mind fucker.

Sadly enough, he never knew how loudly I’d defended his every mistake. Well, until I found out who he really was. I talked others into staying with the group when they wanted to leave by sticking up for Chris. They were fed up with him. I made excuses for all of his errors in judgment. I believed in him as a leader and a friend. Up until the point that the truth about him was revealed to me, of course. Then my anger was ferocious.

I had been fiercely (and stupidly) loyal to him. At the very end, I don’t think he would have believed me if I had told him that. I don’t think he would believe me now. He had the wrong idea about me. That frustrated me to no end. I finally gave up trying to convince him that I was not the person he thought I was. Everything I did or said started to be misunderstood or twisted. All of my absolutely genuine heartfelt words fell on deaf ears. I was done explaining myself. I was done trying so hard to fix something that wouldn’t stay fixed. It always went off the tracks all over again. Eventually you have to stop and ask yourself, “What’s the point?” I’m not one to engage in futile actions. I just move on.

At first, we wanted to take back the group that we had helped build. And we tried to take it back. We had the majority of members after all. That was the main reasoning. We didn’t feel we were doing anything wrong initially because we felt it was our group. We were the ones who did all the work of the group and we believed it would have already fizzled out without us pushing everyone forward so relentlessly. That’s how we saw it at the time. It was totally innocent in intention. But they really did have ownership.

After quite a few angry e-mails, we quickly realized that it was a huge mistake and we stepped aside. It was better that way anyway. So that’s why we started our own brand new group with a brand new name and a clean slate. That was the right thing to do. It just wasn’t clear to us at first because our minds were cloudy with anger and hurt. It happens, ya know. And, believe as they might that I was the one responsible for the whole thing, it was not the case. We were all on board for that one. And I was the one to call it off.

It seemed perfect though in the beginning of the new group. At least on the surface. But, deep down, I knew that this initial line up didn’t have a shot in hell. How did I know that? Because of the other two girls who founded it with us. I hoped for the best, but knew it would probably go bad somehow, some way, some time. No doubt in my mind. But I believed in the actual group that we were building, despite who was in it. I knew it would survive regardless and end up just how it is now: stronger, but with fewer original members.

I had hope though, naturally. I hoped I was wrong. I hoped I was wrong about them. I hoped they would surprise me. I hoped they would behave differently. I hoped they would finally be happy this time. But I’m not a complete idiot, so I made damn sure Aaron and I had ownership this time. Just in case. Andrea was also constantly talking about how unhappy she was living here in Washington State anyway, so I always knew it was a possibility that she might suddenly leave at any time. She made that clear to us. So this group needed to belong to Aaron and myself.

Just before the old group started to completely unravel, I sat in the backseat of Tammy’s SUV and listened to she and Andrea bitch and complain about everyone in the group and every single thing about it. When we were about to get in, I was bluntly ordered into the back seat so Tammy could have Andrea sit next to her as a passenger. It was so rude that Andrea kind of flinched about it. But Tammy being kind of a brat was nothing new, so I shrugged it off and quietly got into the back seat. I mean, the word brat is in her profile name, so... …What do you expect?

I sat back there and listened to them talk about everything they disliked. And there were a lot of things! They were saying really harsh things about everyone. I didn’t share all of their feelings at the time and I found the whole discussion kind of irritating. They didn’t see me rolling my eyes since I’d been banished to the back seat. Whereas they focus on the negative, I tend to focus on the positive. I’d had some problems in the group and things weren’t always perfect, but I was actually happy. I was still very much hoping for things to get better between Paula and myself.

A little later, I got back into the other car with Andrea as we drove back to my car and she started complaining about Tammy in the same harsh way. I was like, Jesus, where does it end? They were both very unhappy with every single thing and every single person. Even though I acted understanding and listened, I mostly didn’t feel the same. I honestly thought the group was fine. It did leave me wondering, however, what the hell these people said about me when I left the room. Who knows!

Andrea is someone who would go after people in our old group and pretty much get them to leave for no real reason. Her chief complaint was usually that they weren’t doing enough. This was a constant issue to her. She was always bitching about people not doing as much as she and I were. I really didn’t give a shit if people weren’t contributing the same amount. But this was always a big deal for her. She’d want someone out of the group every damn week. It was draining. I knew that this tendency would not end just because we had started our own group. Little did I know it would be worse and she would turn on me as well. I’m foolish for being shocked that she eventually turned her viciousness on me. No one was immune to her criticism or temper. Not even me.

One of the main reasons that I knew this initial line up was totally doomed happened on the very first day of our existence as a group. We were shooting a thousand e-mails between the four of us. It was so exciting and fun. What’s our name gonna be? What should our website be? What should be the Myspace url? What’s our logo gonna be? You know, really important stuff like that. There were a staggering amount of e-mails dancing around between all of our addresses. Pages and pages of e-mails on the screen.

At the same time that this was going on and we were having so much fun, Andrea was e-mailing me privately about Tammy. Andrea was saying she didn’t trust her, she didn’t want her in the group and that Tammy didn’t do anything anyway so it wouldn’t be a big loss to our new group. And Tammy was e-mailing me privately about Andrea. All of this at the very same time!

I talked Andrea out of not having Tammy in the group and stood up for her. This would be an upcoming theme. I felt like, yeah, she was pretty bratty sometimes, but not in a really bad way. I didn’t feel like she meant anything by it. But Andrea wanted her out of the group from the start and never stopped wanting her out. In my case, I loved having anyone around who was passionate about the paranormal, so I never cared about how little or how much someone did. I’m the control freak type who kind of prefers doing everything myself, so I couldn’t give one shit how little someone does. That’s fine with me. I’ll happily do it myself and get it done right. I’m totally nuts that way.

Little did Tammy know that after every meeting, every investigation, almost every phone conversation with the other, Andrea would immediately talk to me about kicking her out. Andrea said she didn’t do anything in the group, that she never spoke a word or did anything during or after investigations, that she stared at the table during meetings like she was pissed off, that she would never drive anywhere and expected rides everywhere, even that the supposed haunting in her own house was probably fake. She wanted to arrange things to happen when Tammy couldn’t make it, which was during the week. I had to remind Andrea to invite her to things because it would “slip her mind.” Oops. I was the reason Tammy remained in the group. She wouldn’t have been in it in the first place if it weren’t for me. I was a better friend than she knew.

Everything was going okay though, apart from the constant cross talk. We’d landed some great investigations and were doing what I felt was really solid work. Aaron and I always made sure of that. But it all went wrong when something that should have been very auspicious happened. Within 11 days of each other, Tammy and I both became pregnant. It seemed like this incredibly amazing and uncanny thing for a brief time. I mean, how special for us both get knocked up at the same time! Cool, right? Well, this sent Andrea (the only one not pregnant) into a tailspin that would tear the group apart.

Over the course of the next few months she would be consumed with jealously and fear. Jealousy that it was not time for her to be a mom, even though she wanted that very much. Jealousy that she was left out of this extraordinary thing that Tammy and I were going through together. Fear that things would change. Fear that she would lose me, her partner in crime. Well, she did. But she did it to herself. She never would have lost me otherwise. She was such an important part of my life. I would have done almost anything for this girl.

Less than a week after I found out I was pregnant, came the first melodramatic e-mail from Andrea. “Depressed about the group, sad about the group, omg, omg, omg, the group, the group, the group, the sky is falling, the sky is falling.” Less than a week! It was silly because we had JUST wrapped an amazing case, I had just purchased a very expensive new set of IR cameras and dvr. Plus, I had just been out scouting a big historical location despite wanting to hurl the entire time because I was only four or five weeks pregnant. Things were good. Heaven forbid a girl take a week or two to relax and enjoy the glow of finding out you’re going to have your very first baby. Apparently, it was the end of the world.

I felt that my initial glow time had been interrupted with her ridiculous drama. But I bit my tongue and comforted her. This would be the first of many freak-outs to come. I would find myself in the same situation with her again and again. I had to repeatedly reassure her and tell her she wasn’t going to lose me, that my devotion was the same and that nothing would change (LOL). Having to constantly explain myself and validate what I was going through to her as something very real and normal totally drained me of what little energy I had. And I was losing patience for it. I had no energy left over for actual group things. Besides, the last thing I wanted to do after coming home from work was to turn on the computer and see what she was freaking out about today. No thank you. Nobody needs that kind of shit, much less a woman struggling to work and cope with the rigors of pregnancy at the same time. So my computer would sometimes sit for days just collecting dust and cat hair.

Very shortly after that, the brief glow was GONE. And the first trimester fatigue hit me like, as Ani Difranco said about love, “a piano dropped from a four-story window.” I felt like my arms and legs weighed 200 lbs each, an elephant was standing on my chest and I was dragging a Buick filled with bricks behind me. After, of course, a ravenous vampire had voraciously drained me of every last drop of blood. Horrible, horrible fatigue. Truly indescribable exhaustion. All that with constant nausea hovering over me like an icky green cloud. Somewhat minor nausea compared to other women, but always there. I felt like I must have appeared green in skin tone. A can of ginger ale was always in my hand. I sipped it all day and throughout the night.

On top of that, I had to stop ingesting the 100’s of mgs of caffeine that I was used to. Cold turkey. I had to stop taking medication for a chemical imbalance that causes a lot of physical and emotional problems if not managed with medication. This medication is so dangerous and difficult to come off of that it has to be carefully tapered. You can have seizures if you suddenly stop taking it, so you are weaned from it gradually. A week later, I was totally off of it and feelin’ the pain from that. I also had to stop taking a medication for general anxiety, a condition that raged throughout my pregnancy. It was made far worse by the constant pressure I was under from Andrea and the group.

All of this while still working at a really physical job and being on my feet. I fainted twice during this early stage. I had very little understanding at my workplace and was pushed to do all my normal duties up to the point that I had a very substantial belly. I struggled every single day just to put one foot in front of the other. I didn’t show for quite a long time, so I was given dirty looks at work when I took a moment to sit down. Even at five or six months pregnant. It’s like people can’t get it through their heads until they see a big belly. And I really didn’t get a big belly until just before my maternity leave.

I had almost no encouragement to take it easy or have other people take over certain things. Quite the contrary, I faced annoyance and indignant confusion at even the suggestion of altering or changing some of my duties. I was still doing really physical work at 37 weeks pregnant. Many times, the foot pain alone was so intense that I retreated to the bathroom to be able to sit down where I wouldn’t get dirty looks. Fortunately, people don’t question a pregnant woman going into the bathroom a lot. At work and at home, I was struggling.

The fatigue was the worst of it. I was totally unprepared for that. I thought that during pregnancy I would feel beautiful, maternal and radiant. Nope, I felt tired, blah and devoid of any passion, inspiration or motivation. This lasted until about half way through the second trimester, then returned near the end. My friendship with my “partner in crime” would be irrevocably fractured by then anyway.

I was trying so hard to still care about the group and the paranormal thing as a whole. I wouldn’t admit to myself that I just didn’t give a shit right now. Ghost schmost, ya know? It was too difficult just trying to live my life under these heavy restraints to care about anything. I could barely work every day. I could barely even take care of myself. I was losing weight when most women would be gaining it. I lost about 25 lbs during my pregnancy. I felt like I was being eaten alive by the pregnancy.

I should have asked for time away from the group. I should have formally asked for it. That was a huge mistake. But how did I know? I’d never been through this before. I’d never felt like this before. I kept thinking it would be better very soon. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next month, everything will be fine. Had I asked for time away, the same thing would have happened anyway though, so it doesn’t really matter. It might have happened more quickly even.

If it had been someone else in my condition, I would have told them to take all the time in the world to rest or just relax and get prepared to be a mom. I’d say things like…. “We totally understand what you’re going through right now. We’ll take care of everything and you just participate when and if you can. Take a break if you need to, whatever. Whether it’s one month or one year, doesn’t matter. We’re here for you. And the group will be right here for you whenever you’re ready. You can step back in whenever you want.” It didn’t have to be the end of the world. It didn’t have to be spiteful and cruel. I didn’t have to be made to feel guilty and like everyone hated me.

But that’s not how it started to unfold and, much to my (and, apparently, everyone else’s) dismay, the severe fatigue stretched on. And the pressure to do all the same stuff in the group was mounting. Andrea got crazier, the dramatic e-mails and phone calls came more often and got worse. I started to have literal panic attacks and hives when she called me. If I saw her name pop up on my cell phone, I’d start hyperventilating. I felt besieged by her and her nonsense.

She started telling me how annoyed people were with me, how they wanted to join other groups, how they didn’t understand what my problem was, how they were “moving on without me anyway.” So unkind to tell me things like that. I never would have done that to her if she had been in my position. And I would certainly not do that to a pregnant woman. How messed up is that? Some people only have empathy if they have been through that particular experience. In my experience, this indicates an extreme weakness in one’s character.

She even did the really cruel thing, which was to make sure I felt like the only pregnant woman in the whole world who had ever had such difficulties. That was fucked up. Especially when it’s your first time. You’re already scared shitless and don’t know what to think or expect. But to make a pregnant woman feel alone and isolated like that is horrible. Like I was a weakling or a freak or something.

She cited examples of all the pregnant women she had ever known who hadn’t felt this way. They’d been just fine. Let me just say that I highly doubt that! She told me that she didn’t understand why I was having such a hard time because Tammy was just peachy keen. She told me at length how normal Tammy felt, even though I was told differently about her pregnancy when I spoke to her. Her Myspace status usually said tired or sick. Doesn’t sound fine to me. It sounds normal and pregnant.

Meanwhile I was hearing from lots of women how difficult pregnancy had been for them. Terrible fatigue, lethargy, depression, constant nausea (sometimes for the entire pregnancy), acne, other skin problems, back pain, foot pain and swelling, false labor, early labor, high blood pressure, dizziness and fainting, even bed rest, really fun stuff like that. There are things that only a pregnant woman would know to ask women who have been through it. Before being pregnant, I never knew to ask things like, “Hey, were you tired during your pregnancy?” The answer 98% of the time was, “Oh my god, yes! Horrible!” Sometimes you have to know to ask the right questions. I had never even heard of pregnancy fatigue before actually being pregnant the first time. I think you have to be pregnant or, at the very least, live with someone who’s pregnant to get an idea of how challenging it can be.

Apart from trying to make me feel as bad as possible about my pregnancy and what I wasn’t doing for our group, there were other problems. Turns out she had been telling a lot of lies and talking shit about people too. We caught her in lies and never confronted her. We loved her and overlooked everything. In my condition, I just didn’t want to have to deal with any of that bullshit. She did things that would have gotten her kicked out of any other group. Early on in the group, she publicly attacked a client. AND did so under the name of our former group. Crazy, right? But we let everything go.

God knows what she was saying behind my back. Probably hours worth of phone calls about me. Bitch, bitch, bitch, blah, blah, blaaaaaaah… Don’t know what was said, don’t care. I had become “the problem” in the group. All because of what was supposed to be the happiest thing in the world. Becoming a mama. As far as she was concerned, it was the worst thing that could have possibly happened to our group. And to her. She was ruining this experience for me. I have to wonder if pregnancy in general would have been easier or better without all the pressure. I will always wonder that.

It came to a head one night when she texted me about the activities of our former group. Again. She likes to obsessively check what other people and groups are up to, especially our old group or anyone who she feels has given us trouble. Every little thing. Every event. Every comment on every site, every profile. She scanned their website, their Myspace. She is a habitual Myspace stalker. I thought that was pathetic. I think I went to their website once (because she told me to). I just didn’t care.

I usually tried to be understanding of her ways. I always had been in the past. But since we weren’t doing much of anything (because of ME) and our former group appeared to be busy like we had been (before I ruined everything by getting pregnant), it was a little like hearing about your ex’s hot new girlfriend/boyfriend when you’re not getting laid and don’t even have a date. I had already told her many times not to bug me with this crap right now, that it made my unmedicated anxiety worse. She never honored my requests to keep it to herself. I didn’t even care about them anyway and didn’t understand why she did.

I’d had enough of it with this last time. As fed up as I was, I still wasn’t even rude about it. I just told her to please spare me right now. That’s it! But a flood of anger was about to come my way. My god, I would be drowning in it.

I said not one word of anger or hate that night. Not one. I spoke of love and friendship. I told her how sorry I was for not being able to do what I used to. I told her I would try harder and that I had lots of ideas and plans. I told her how special she was to me. I begged her not to act like this. I kept trying to make it better. I kept trying to segue it into something positive so that what I thought was about to happen might not happen. I was a pathetic pregnant girl sobbing like a big helpless dummy and trying to save a friendship that I thought was worth saving. She was doing everything she could to destroy it. It worked.

She spoke words that broke my heart. It was vicious. She kept saying that I promised her that nothing would change. So silly. Anyone who has had a child is laughing their ass off right now. Yes, I had promised her and reassured her. *rolls eyes* But when someone is about to become a parent for the first time, they are blissfully unaware that soon everything is going to completely change forever and there’s no going back. I’m speaking now as a parent, so I know better. A pregnancy and a baby will change your entire world. You can’t anticipate it, you can’t plan for it, you can’t stop it. How could I know what to expect?

I could not believe she was unleashing such a torrent of bullshit on me. Did she not remember how many times I stood up for her? How many times I was the one to defend and praise her? I don’t even know how many times she thought we’d never talk to her again because of things she was up to, but we loved her anyway. I was always understanding to her, even when I totally disagreed with what she was saying or doing. I loved her for who she was, flaws and all. That’s what it means to be my friend. I always thought I deserved the same thing in return. As she was being such a horrid bitch to me, I kept thinking, “How dare you.” Some people have a dreadfully poor memory.

I was a fool to think she’d never turn on me like I had witnessed her do to so many others. But, months of repressed rage and frustration came flying out. She went total mega bitch on me. On me, a woman who was six months pregnant, dealing with unbearable anxiety and so exhausted from working and carrying a child that I could barely hobble around the house at the end of the day. Nice. She spewed such ugly, hateful crap that I was weeping and shaking. I could barely speak because I was hysterically upset.

I began having cramps because I was so distraught. I was terrified of losing the baby. That’s when my man took over and called her to chew her out for hours. He was enraged. She was literally jeopardizing my health and the life of our unborn child. Over what? A fucking paranormal group? Seriously? Are your priorities in life so completely fucked? Are you that selfish? I knew then that my well-being was less important to her than the group. That’s when I knew I was done. I didn’t want to explain myself to her one more time. I wasn’t going to have this same conversation one more time. I wasn’t going to reassure her one more time. If she didn’t believe me by then, she was never going to. I wasn’t going to overlook her ugliness one more time. Done.

The next day we asked her to leave the group. Even my sort of goodbye letter to her was filled with love and hope. It killed me. I couldn’t even work the next day. I was a wreck over this. I hadn’t gotten angry yet. Kinda hard to do while you’re six months pregnant. You just want everyone to keep their bullshit the hell away from you and make your life as easy and simple as possible. I think I was too tired and defeated to be angry.

The anger came later. As did the realization of how fucked up a thing it was to do to a woman in my condition, especially knowing all that she did about what I was struggling with. She either didn’t give a shit or she knew what she was doing to me. Either way, she’s an asshole. I desperately needed kindness and understanding, but I got nastiness and cruelty. This was devastating to me. I was not a well person at that time. This was too much for me.

That devastation endangered my baby. He was fortunately very strong. Much stronger than his mom. But this girl didn’t give one shit about this baby. My whole pregnancy was an inconvenience to her.

Aaron helped to shed some light on her frustration and anger. He’s very good at that. When people are inexplicable to me, he sees right through them. He pointed out that we could do an investigation (any investigation, large or small) without them. We have the equipment and the knowledge. But they could not do any investigation (even very small) without us. We stood in their way if we didn’t participate. They needed us.

Without us, it was a bunch of girls who were scared of their own shadow. They were always convinced that they’d been “followed” home by “something.” They also had the technical aptitude of the fucking Amish. They had one video camera that could not see in the dark (that they didn’t know how to use anyway…seriously), a digital camera that would be used to take lots of lovely pictures of dust, some “evp readers” (what the rest of the world calls a digital voice recorder) and a digital thermometer (that one girl called “a digital ‘infer’ red thermo-meter) that would inevitably be pointed at cold-ass windows and interpreted as paranormal activity. Explaining to one of the girls why an IR spotlight would not help her video camera see in the dark was a long conversation. And she still didn’t understand why her camera was utterly useless to us.

They didn’t even know how to get the audio from their “evp readers” into a computer. And if they managed to figure that out, they’d have no way to analyze the audio and make clips for the client. Not to mention that there’d be no report with the proper scientific data. That would be their investigation. Crappy pictures and audio trapped on a dvr. So, yeah, they needed us. If we weren’t on board, there was no investigation. That was definitely at the root of the frustration concerning us. Good call, Aaron.

With the group, the whole thing was awkward after that. I knew that Tammy was closer to Andrea, even though she wasn’t really the friend she believed she was. She wasn’t her friend at all. I didn’t even say a word about all that. Not even after Andrea flipped out. I could have used that information to defend myself to Tammy because, no doubt, Andrea immediately called her to explain her twisted side of the situation. I called no one. I wanted to be discreet about the whole thing. Part of me wanted so badly to tell Tammy all the things Andrea had said about her over the years, but I was still being loyal and keeping those things to myself. Even now I’m keeping many more things to myself. Things I don’t really have the energy to go into.

I honestly really didn’t know what to do with what was left of the group at that time. I was intending to take a break and put the group on hiatus until we had our baby and had some time with him. Then we suddenly started booking investigations. Some that I just couldn’t turn down. Lucky for me, Tammy stepped down so that she could rest, which made it slightly less weird. I knew it was probably more about what had happened, but she was pregnant too, so she needed the rest as well. I understood and was fine with that either way.

I was well aware that because I wasn’t calling anyone to tell them my side of the story, then the whole thing had probably been spun by Andrea to look like it was all my fault and I was this big troublemaker again. When all I was doing was sitting at home like a big pregnant lump when this pile of bullshit landed in my lap at 11 o’clock at night. This bothered me. It wouldn’t be the last time that things would be painted to look like I was some kind of troublemaker when I hadn’t done anything wrong. It’s unfair and it hurts me deeply. Is it my fault that a bitch acted like a bitch?

Because of some of the things that had happened in our old group, I was sort of misunderstood that way. I did mess up a few times back then. Not as badly as it was made out to be. I sometimes got very loud with very colorful language when someone wronged me or someone I care about in some way. That was the past though. That was a different Ella. I’ve since had my spirit kind of beaten down. I now ignore people I’m not happy with.

This Ella is a shadow of that girl they knew. This Ella stopped even sticking up for herself for fear of being unfairly called a troublemaker. It’s really kind of sad. I haven’t been that Ella since the break up of our old group. I have since taken everyone’s crap every time, bitten my tongue, overlooked all kinds of things and let stuff pass right by me without saying one word. I no longer care if people disagree with me. There’s no debate or fight left in me.

The really pathetic thing is that Andrea still meant so much to me that I didn’t touch one photo of her in our group’s sites or pages, even though she crossly told me to do so. I left them all in tact. I wanted to preserve what we once had. It was that special to me. I felt that she would one day come to understand that decision and be happy that her presence in the group had not been utterly erased from our photo albums as if she had never been in the group at all. She really was my best friend here in Washington. Up to the pregnancy anyway. I couldn’t let her go yet. I didn’t delete her from the group’s Myspace page or my own. I didn’t even change all of our passwords until she told me to go ahead.

I very carefully kept all of our group activities on the down-low for fear of hurting her. If you only knew what the group was doing by looking at our Myspace page, you’d think we were only doing cemetery transcription work for months. There was even one investigation in particular that I passed on because she had really wanted to do it and I knew it would kill her if we went ahead with it. I passed up an investigation that I desperately wanted because I was more concerned about it hurting her. So I actually gave that one away to another group. She was still more important to me than any group stuff. There was even another investigation that was pretty much assured for us and I didn’t pursue it because I believed it also would have hurt her. What an idiot I was. She certainly didn’t give me such kind consideration.

The day that I found ugly comments about us from her on one of our mutual friend’s page is the day that I deleted her and no longer cared about sparing her feelings. Especially because of a rude comment about an investigation we had that week. I was so proud of this investigation. Every group in the state wanted to get this one. And we got it. We got it FIRST. But there she was hatin’ as usual because that’s what she does. She is a jerk.

I was sickened by her bullshit. She was so bitter, so petty, so unhappy in her own life. I saw her for who she really was. I saw the side of her that others had seen when I had looked the other way. That’s the day I totally removed her from my life in every single way. There was no discussion, no notification. I just quietly withdrew myself from her completely. I no longer wanted to preserve what we’d had. I didn’t want to hear about anything she was doing. I didn’t want to see one more ugly comment. Any chance of a friendship between us in the future was absolutely gone.

There have been more ups and downs since then. Dealing with members who were unnecessarily doing things behind our backs was annoying. Unnecessary because we wouldn’t have cared if they had been up front. They were sneaking around like children for no reason.

I had actually encouraged them to work with other groups while we were doing the whole new baby thing. Even though we weren’t neglecting the group entirely, we just weren’t as active as many would have liked. And I understood that they wanted to be out there more. I honestly hated being away from my baby for even an hour. I was just perfectly content to be home with him. I knew I wasn’t very interested in the paranormal at the moment and I didn’t care what anyone thought about that.

I spoke to a couple of the groups with whom we have really good relationships about using some of our members on their investigations. They declined because their particular teams were full and other miscellaneous reasons. But there are lots of groups out there. Too many, really. It’s getting kind of ridiculous. Everyone wants to start their own group without ever having worked with an experienced team first.

Some of our members had really serious problems that made me kind of pull away and focus on my newborn who needed and deserved my attention. I had a really hard time dealing with deeply unstable people because I had just become a mom and was really overwhelmed in my own life. Some of these people were extremely demanding of me. Sorry, a newborn wins.

Part of me just wanted to take some time to be a mom and only a mom for a little while and tell these people to leave me the hell alone. That time is so precious and is gone before you know it. Is that so bizarre? I’ll never get that time with him back again. Just as the fatigue of pregnancy had caught me by surprise, so did the intense devotion I felt for this little boy. I really didn’t want to be away from him for even a moment. I was cherishing every single second. I was mesmerized by this perfect little boy with the sparkling blue eyes.

As amazing as it was to be a new mom, things weren’t exactly easy. This little guy would sometimes scream at the top of his lungs for hours on end, sometimes all night. 7+ hours was the record. Seriously! I’m not even exaggerating! I was exhausted and my brain was fried. So, I had my own problems without having to hear about girl melodrama, pills, suicidal thoughts and violent vicissitudes. All of that tried to invade my time with my newly born son. It was just too much for me. The last thing I wanted to do was pick up the phone and chit chat. I wanted to turn off the phone and fucking nap nap.

So, with a couple of our members, I kind of just stood back and let things wither and die. It was totally unprofessional to let it happen like that, but I wasn’t able to address things properly at the time. I was too turned off and annoyed by them. I was too broken. Too overwhelmed with a new baby. Post-partum depression also hit me very hard. I couldn’t deal with anything. My anxiety was off the charts. I didn’t have the energy to even talk on the phone. And, unfortunately, if you don’t call people, they start imagining that you don’t want them in your life. But there are lots of reasons that people stop calling. Exhaustion is one of them.

I knew I was kind of over two of the other girls in the group when I asked one of them a couple questions about something she was doing behind my back, then calmly said, “Ok, cool.” even though I should have been pissed off. And the next day I was called a troublemaker by Tammy. That baffled me! I was like, whoa, what the hell did I do except sit home on a Saturday night and check my Facebook page? I didn’t even make a big deal out of it. I had to wonder if the other girl had made a big deal about it to Tammy.

Meanwhile I woke up to no fewer than 30+ hysterical text messages (not kidding!) from this girl begging for forgiveness and telling me how badly she’d fucked up (her words). Drama queen, much? I didn’t even care that much about it, that’s how burned out I was. That’s why I only asked her a couple of questions about it. When I told Aaron about it, he just kind of shrugged his shoulders about it like, “Eh.” We really just didn’t give a shit, frankly. We still included her on our following residence investigation.

The final straw came when I found an entire series of status updates on Facebook and Myspace ranting about how much one of these girls hated my family because of our new house. Using the word hate shocked the hell out of me. She hated us? Wow. Each update was also in ALL CAPS. I could not believe it.

I still didn’t freak out. I asked one question about it in a comment to one of those MANY status updates. Something about “Wow. Is this about us?” Like, duh, of course it was, but that’s all I said right then. I still wanted to think it was a big coincidence because the words she was using were so incredibly hateful that I didn’t think she could possibly be talking about us. But she was.

Next thing I know Tammy has suddenly logged into both sites and starts making comments. Not bad ones or anything, but it made me realize that one had probably called the other (since she almost never logged on at night) and obviously told Tammy to take a look for some reason and was probably already making a big deal about it. Just what I did NOT want. Discretion is not something that many people understand. Especially not these days. Discretion in the Myspace era? What a concept.

Well, she apparently believed we had purchased a foreclosed home and were jumping for joy at the expense of whatever family was forced out of their home. No family was ever driven out of this house. She jumped to that conclusion somehow and got very upset about it. She totally flipped out. I mean, we’re talkin’ bat shit here. Without ever asking me a single question. But she’s a very emotional person with a lot on her plate right now, so no ill will there. However, after lashing out so harshly at my family (not just me), I didn’t want anything more to do with this person. Her erratic behavior troubled me.

One of the worst things about that whole freak out was that I found those crazy status updates within the first 24 hours of moving into our new house. It was like a giant fire hose drenching us in the middle of a celebration of pure joy. A well-deserved celebration by truly good people. We didn’t even get a full 24 hours in our new house with some peace.

Lately, we can really relate to these articles. I find myself longing for the days of creeping around the many graveyards of Florida as a teenager with my camera and tape recorder thinking every single weird thing was a ghost making contact with me. I keep hoping that I'll recapture the passion of those days.

I first started investigating hauntings and paranormal phenomena over 18 years ago when there was no paranormal community. I know there were a lot of us out there though. I was 14 years old and I discovered a passion for answers. I sometimes wish it could be that simple and exciting again. Definitely a bit burned out at this point, but pushing forward anyway. Mostly in the hopes that I will again feel like I did back in the day. That and I feel a responsibility to our clients to provide them with the level of help I know we can deliver.

Paranormal Research is Dead

Dead and Buried: How the Paranormal Community Killed My Interest in Ghost Hunting

Some things coming up for T.R.U.T.H. Paranormal:

Major equipment upgrade and adding more IR cameras to our "arsenal"
New space for meetings (like a huge studio apt)
Training new members
Residence investigations
Sunset View Resort
Pike Place Market (Just a public ghost tour for fun!)
Seattle Underground
North Head Lighthouse
Ft. Worden
Oysterville School House
Non-profit status for the group
Overhaul of our websites, including the .com that we finally got ownership of
Charity proposal/project for most haunted town in WA

Those are just a FEW of the things that T.R.U.T.H. is up to...

If you're interested in any of these things or would like to come to a meeting, please let us know...

To check up on our progress, please visit our photo page!

Truth Paranormal Photo Gallery!