Episode 42: Mandy Bass, Home Invasion Survivor

Intro Voices 0:05

Where do I go? It only happened once. I think I was singled out. The phone calls began about one month ago. What is hazing? Something happened to me when I was younger. I'm worried about my safety. He said he was sorry. Can someone help me? Where can I get help? Can someone help me?

 

Intro Voices 0:31

This is “You Matter”, a podcast for the NYU community developed by the Department of Public Safety.

 

Karen Ortman  00:37

Hi everyone and welcome back to You Matter, a podcast created to teach, inspire and motivate members of the NYU community who have been victimized in some form or fashion, and to identify resources both on and off campus that can help. I am your host, Karen Ortman, Associate Vice President of Campus Safety Operations at the Department of Public Safety, and a retired law enforcement professional. Today, I welcome Mandy Bass, the survivor of a brutal home invasion attack that almost killed her. Mandy is going to share her journey of recovery, both mentally and physically that resulted in Mandy forgiving her attacker. Mandy, thank you so much for joining me today on You Matter.

 

Mandy Bass  01:19

Thank you so much for having me, Karen.

 

Karen Ortman  01:21

So Mandy, if you wouldn't mind, take us back to Sunday, February 7, 2016m and tell us how your day began?

 

Mandy Bass  01:30

Well, it was a typical Sunday morning.  I got up, I went to my Zen Meditation group in the morning, then I worked out and came back home and decided to make myself some chicken soup. So, I got all the ingredients together, put it on the stove and while it was cooking, went to my desk and sat down and checked my email.

 

Karen Ortman  01:53

So you're done. So you're off. This is your office area?

 

Mandy Bass  01:58

Yes. So I have a way my house is laid out. There is, you know, the the common areas are all in the center of the house. And then off to the one side, I have two small bedrooms, where I have my office, my home office, and on the other side of the living area, and the living room is my master suite. So I was in my office on the one side of the house and then I heard the sound of glass breaking coming from the other side of the house, it's a one story.  I live in a very quiet neighborhood and, you know, it just was unusual. It was the middle of the day. It was like three o'clock in the afternoon.

 

Karen Ortman  02:41

So when you heard the sound of breaking glass, what were your immediate thoughts?

 

Mandy Bass  02:45

Oh, I just figured that my cat, I have two cats, I figured one of them had knocked something over. It never occurred to me that there was anything scary going on at all.

 

Karen Ortman  02:57

So you heard the breaking glass? Did it cause you to pause or did you just continue doing what you were doing?

 

Mandy Bass  03:02

Well, I didn't quite know what it was but I figured I better I finish my email that I was writing and then I just got up. I thought I was gonna have a mess to clean up. I wasn't in a big hurry to go clean up a mess, because I could tell it was something big that had fallen. And I just casually walked across the living room to go and see what it was, you know.

 

Karen Ortman  03:31

And so you went across to the location of the of the sound of the breaking glass, and what did you discover?

 

Mandy Bass  03:41

Well, I saw a man coming out of the shadows as I approached my bedroom door and he saw me too. He came toward me and then next thing I know I was under attack.

 

Karen Ortman  03:57

Is this a person that you had ever seen before?

 

Mandy Bass  04:01

No, I'd never seen him before at all. I didn't, you know, he was no one I never had I'd ever seen. Was he in disguise. Yeah, he was dressed nicely, he was dressed nicely and he was in regular clothes. You know, he was just was somebody that you'd see walking down the street, you know?

 

Karen Ortman  04:26

Did he say anything to you when he saw you?

 

Mandy Bass  04:29

Well, I told him to get out of my house. I started shouting at him and he just started to mimic me, whatever I said he would say back to me. And then next thing I know his fists smashed into my face and, and he started to brutally attack me.

 

Karen Ortman  04:48

While he was attacking you, he was using his fists.

 

Mandy Bass  04:53

Yes, and kicking me when I fell backwards. I fell backwards and hit the floor. And then he said to kick me in the ribs, and um...

 

Karen Ortman  05:05

Was he saying anything during the attack?

 

Mandy Bass  05:08

Well, he  was ranting and screaming, "Do you believe in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ?" Which was just a crazy thing to say. And obviously, he was under some kind of influence. You know, you could tell that there was definitely something going on. This is not a normal, this was a crazy situation. Either he was crazy or he was under influence or something was going on. There was a moment when I tried to escape through the front door and he pulled me back, picked up a chair, very heavy dining room chair that I have and he lunged toward me trying to hit me over the head with it. I blocked with my right armm and the chair came down on my arm and broke my arm, but the shift in momentum sent him off balance and I used it as an opportunity to run and I got out of  the front door thinking I was going to need to get across the street and find a neighbor. But to my surprise, as I ran across the front lawn, I was pulled off to the side and turned out that they were police that actually had been outside and they were attempting to surround the house. They knew that he was inside. And they... What had happened was, there had been an incident, somebody had called 911 in another location, the girl that he was living with, the woman that he was living with, they're both students at a nearby college. And what had happened was he had tried LSD for the first time, the LSD must of been laced with who knows what. But in any case, he was having a psychotic break, and she was trying to restrain him because she thought he was going to do damage to himself. When the police came, he took off on foot and he started to run. They were chasing him and..

 

Karen Ortman  06:43

How did they know? They being the police?

 

Mandy Bass  07:25

The police, yes. So the police saw him. He broke into my house in order to escape the police and they sort of get over my fence and get in through the bathroom window. So they knew he was inside. They didn't know if anybody was inside, if there was a fire. I mean, they didn't know what what was inside but they knew that he was there. And they were outside. I had no idea I had time to call 911 or anything.

 

Karen Ortman  08:05

That's what I was gonna ask you if you actually were able to do that? So how long would you say the whole event took place inside your house?

 

Mandy Bass  08:15

I don't know. I mean, you know, you have such a distortion of time because time changes but I would imagine it was probably a good 20 minutes.

 

Karen Ortman  08:26

Wow. So I'm assuming you went to a hospital after this. What were your injuries?

 

Mandy Bass  08:34

Yes. I had a broken arm, cracked skull, bruised ribs, bruises, contusions all over my body - a lot. You know, I my face and my entire body was just completely black and blue. We didn't know if anything else other than my arm and the concussion and the skull and you know, those kinds of things where I had stitches. We knew where those were, but we it took us a while for the swelling and the bruising to go down for me to be able to get all the appropriate testing to make sure that nothing else was broken.

 

Karen Ortman  09:16

Wow. What an event you experienced. Can you can you speak to what resources as a victim of such a brutal attack, what resources you saught? And how did any sort of post traumatic stress come into play for you given the extreme nature of this assault?

 

Mandy Bass  09:50

Yes. So a couple of things. Firstly, I've been doing teaching personal growth in my business for you know, 20 years and so, I'm, uh, I'm probably more aware than most people are of resources that are available. And one of the things that I think really helped me, right in the beginning was that I knew some of the effects of PTSD and I understood some of that. In the beginning, I wouldn't let them give me morphine at the hospital, I think that was really important because I didn't want to be sort of put to sleep, if you would, with what had just happened and being put in a situation like that. So immediately, you know, very soon after the attack, I did trauma therapy. And I did some techniques and exercises that I've used in the past with people that have had smaller traumas, but it did help me at least get through that evening. And then, you know, going and getting the trauma therapy, which they've got some great techniques that are available for people, victims of crime or any other kind of trauma. I mean,  there's a lot of other kinds of trauma, being in an accident, there is a lot of different ways people can experience trauma. And so what was very, very helpful is that they have techniques that bypass the conscious mind. So a lot of people resist wanting to go into therapy because they don't feel like they want to relive the incident of what happened over and over. There are techniques that you can use, or that therapists can use, that don't involve you necessarily playing back, you know, the whole event. So they can actually bypass that, the conscious mind,  you don't have to relive it every time and speak about it every time. You know,  that was very, very important to me, right off the bat. And...

 

Karen Ortman  12:10

I'm sorry, so before you continue, if there's somebody listening who experienced trauma that we're speaking about, that you experienced, where you bypass having to recall the specifics of the event, what should a victim be looking for in a therapist in their location that is experienced in what it is you're talking about?

 

Mandy Bass  12:35

Well, I think they can go online. And look, I mean, you just go online and look for trauma therapy. And if you do have somebody that you know, who's a good therapist, and they will have referral sources for trauma therapy,  it's a very specific specialization. Typically, people who do trauma therapy, that's pretty much what they do.  you want  to be with somebody who's trained because there's various techniques, I don't want to get into if this technique is better than that one yet. It's very out there. It's very individual but you want to find somebody who specializes in trauma therapy.

 

Karen Ortman  13:25

How long did you stay in the hospital? So I insisted on getting out that night. I wouldn't let them keep me there.  I was afraid that my cats were at home and the window was broken and the police had tried to secure my home with my hurricane shutters. They could not find my my two cats so I was insistent on going home and then one of the policeman drove me home from the hospital that night.  Did you find your cats?

 

Mandy Bass  14:04

Yes, they came home early the next morning, they came in, I have a little cat door. They came in very hungry, and it had been very cold.

 

Karen Ortman  14:16

So after the attack, how did you or did you get to a place where you were no longer afraid; afraid of being home alone, afraid of reliving the experience with this attacker and maybe perhaps even afraid of the attacker? How did that journey happen for you?

 

Mandy Bass  14:43

Well, initially, it was very, very hard. I was traumatized and the attack triggered every fear, every insecurity I'd ever experienced from childhood. And because I'm somebody who's has a regular meditation practice, it kind of forces you, when you sit and your quiet, it forces you to also look at, you know, what is the situation that I'm in right now?What am I doing that making my suffering worse than what it needs to be, you know. It's one thing suffering over something that happened to you, but then we tend to pile it on. I was definitely doing that. And so I just began a process of really intense personal growth,  looking at things that I was doing. I kept up even though, initially, I couldn't really meditate, my mind would just like sit around like a moth caught in the light thing. I would sit and I would force myself to just keep that 20 minutes alone, and in quiet. And then I started, using books and tapes, not tapes, I'm giving my age away here,  listening to downloads and things that helped me to start valuing myself again, start looking at ways that I could be more compassionate toward myself. I recognized that a big part of my healing had to come from loving myself again. It sounds kind of funky but what what I mean by that is, oftentimes when we get victimized we begin to buy into that role. So in order, like the opposite of being a victim is to be empowered and to feel powerful and not be the person that everybody is piling on to, but I was piling onto myself. I knew that I had to stop doing that, I had to stop beating myself up, even more than I had been beaten up, because the attack had paused. Now I needed to heal.  I really started to do all kinds of practices. And, if anybody's interested I wrote a book about it called Taming the Tokolosh: Through Fear into Healing, where I put all the techniques that I used. I go through all of them and give step by step instructions. But you know, these were things that I had learned over the years, or I had, you know, gotten from other teachers, and just intuitively went through the process of healing myself taking the time for myself every day. Then each day I would, you know, I knew that I needed the car, cuz at first, I was afraid to go out the door. I mean, I wouldn't leave my house, but then I was afraid to be in the house. So it was kind of weird. You know, I was afraid to just do anything. And so

 

Karen Ortman  18:07

I'm sure you're talking to so many people out there who have been victimized and experienced exactly what it is you're talking about. Which is so important. Why it is so important to have you as a guest on this podcast, because I know that you are reaching many people who don't have the same information and background that you do. Like you sound like you really knew what steps to take in order to heal. And

 

Mandy Bass  18:42

I was very blessed.

 

Karen Ortman  18:44

Yeah. And there's so many people who don't know, really what that first step should be so I'm certain that that your story is resonating with them. So sorry to interrupt you.

 

Mandy Bass  18:58

So another thing I'd like to also share with people who are in that situation, if you wouldn't mind, is to say that one of the things that I did was, you know everything seemed hard, and I kind of made the connection between building courage which I felt like I didn't have any and going to the gym and building muscle. I had always been pretty fit so I know about working out and staying fit. One of the things I know is that it doesn't, you don't need to lift heavy weights in order to get strong and to build your muscles. You can use little light weights. And so what I started to do was make a commitment every single day to do three little things that were a stretch for me. So maybe it was like reaching out and calling somebody because I didn't like reaching out and calling somebody, asking somebody for help. Or make it you know, just doing any small thing that I wouldn't have done the day before, jjust one small thing, you know, maybe instead of eating junk, eat a healthy meal, do something that's going to be good for me today, right? What three things can I do? They were just tiny little baby steps. But what starts to happen with that, if you start to do that consistently, is that you start building these small little successes, and success breeds more success. And so all of a sudden, you know, two, three weeks later, now you've done dozens of things that you wouldn't have done a month ago, and all of a sudden you're becoming a different person. The more you start to do and accomplish, the better you feel about yourself, the less victimized you feel, you know, and empowered really, very empowering.

 

Karen Ortman  21:00

So when did you see the offender again, if at all, after the attack?

 

Mandy Bass  21:08

Okay, so while awaiting trial, this is a federal, a felony offense so it takes a long time to come to court. And while we're waiting trial, the attacker's attorney was trying to get the DA to plea bargain, you know, they wanted to settle the case, and they wanted to, have it not adjudicated in trial, but they were trying to get a get the DA to agree to a shorter sentence, and so on. The DA was a wonderful woman who wanted me to be part of whatever the solution was going to be, which was great. I've heard from other people that's not necessarily the case with all DAs, but in my case, the DA wanted to make sure that I was going to be okay, with whatever plea bargain we were going to come up with ..

 

Karen Ortman  22:12

Made you part of the process.

 

Mandy Bass  22:14

Yeah, and that was very helpful. I got a copy from the attacker's Attorney, of the case that they had presented to the court. I read the entire document, and I was just like, who is this guy who attacked me because it didn't seem like anybody that I had met in my house or who had actually done it. He was he was a great student, he was an athlete, he had been very, very accomplished. In high school, he was a prom king, he was a band leader, there was a day named after him in his town that he came from. I mean, he was like really the super great kid, an overachiever. And so I just couldn't believe it. I was like this cannot be. There were letters of commendation from the president of the university. He had been an Eagle Scout, you know, it was just so incongruent what had happened. So I decided that I wanted to meet him before I would agree to anything. I wanted to look into his eyes. I really wanted him to apologize to me. And I asked for a meeting. The meeting was set for a time in my lawyer's office, and was November the 11th was the date. At this point I'd done a whole lot of work. I'd spent the prior six months just working on myself, just working on getting rid of anger, really building myself and also my my spiritual connection, because I think that also had quite a lot to do with it. And it was the most bizarre thing Karen,  I was in this conference room, and he came in with his lawyer and his dad was with him. And they came in carrying  two big vases of roses for me, and they were all dressed up in suit and tie and I just looked over at him, I didn't know what to say because I had like, visualized everything I was going to do up until the point where - I hadn't thought about, what am I going to say when I see him.

 

Karen Ortman  24:58

Now what did you think the moment he walked in with his dad with roses?

 

Mandy Bass  25:05

Well, it was like this bizarre moment. It felt like I was in a dream, honestly, I was like, this is bizarre.

 

Karen Ortman  25:17

But was it a positive sort of response, or negative response?

 

Mandy Bass  25:24

Um, well, I I think my thought in my mind was a dumb thing,  they can think I'm going to agree to anything because they bought me flowers. That was my initial thought. And so when he, he came over to me, he was now standing next to me, and I shook the other two gentleman's hands and then I was about, you know, he put his hand out. I just looked at him and I just blurted out, gee, you don't look nearly as scary as you did when I last saw you.

 

Karen Ortman  26:07

What was his response to that?

 

Mandy Bass  26:09

I just saw him, his lips started to quiver, and he just started to shake.  I could just see him beginning to just break down. I could just feel that he was just about to sob. And without thinking, without any thought at all, I just went toward him and I put my arms around him and he just started to sob in my arms. And next thing I knew, I was just saying to him, you know, I forgive you, I forgive you.

 

Karen Ortman  26:46

Where did that come from in you?

 

Mandy Bass  26:49

Where did it come from? It came from the highest highest part of me. It came from the highest part of me, you know, when I was driving over to that office that day, I really didn't know what to do because I knew that his life was in my hands. I thought about what would happen to this young guy, you know, who's 21 years old? What would happen to him in prison, like after reading his whole story, like, you know, would he come out to be a worse have a criminal? Would he...what should I do? Like, what? Oh, I just didn't know. And  I just kind of turned it over. I surrendered. I turned it over to God. I said, you know, God, I mean, I'm a very spiritual, I'm not a religious person, but I'm very spiritual and I was just like, God, you know, I'm giving this to you. I surrender, let me see whatever I need to see. Let me feel what I need to feel. This is up to you. I have no idea what to do. Because I really felt so much pressure because the DA was asking me what I wanted and this young man's life is going to be in my hands. You know, and so, I really just felt that when that happened, when we had that meeting, and I just, all I felt honestly, in that moment, that embrace,  all I could feel was love. It was as if he was son I didn't have, you know. And that's all I could see. You know.

 

Karen Ortman  28:26

Did he say anything while you embraced him? And you said he was sobbing.

 

Mandy Bass  28:32

He was just sobbing.  I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And you know,  that's what he was, he was just, crying how sorry.

 

Karen Ortman  28:43

So what happened after the embrace? Did you sit down? Did you talk about

 

Mandy Bass  28:49

We sat down? Yeah, we sat down, we talked about his life and his life, his dad. They were really wanting me to understand who they were as, as people and see them differently. And, telling me about their family, and they have great family. So, I didn't make any decisions at that meeting at all.  We talked for a couple hours and then we left, and I said, I'll think about it. The lawyer did make a big pitch to me to, you know, what I consider helping them or or at least agreeing to some reduction in the in the sentencing. And I said I would think about it.

 

Karen Ortman  29:41

So take the defense attorney out of it okay? And,  think back to the conversations with just dad and the offender., was there any exchange of information that you found helpful in making whatever your recommendation ended up being to the prosecutor?Was there like an honest sort of discourse between yourself...?

 

Mandy Bass  30:18

Yeah, I mean, we spoke about everything very frankly. What they showed me, and the dad had actually printed out their cell phone records, and what had happened was that day - so this attack happened on Sunday, but the man who attacked me this young man, he actually took the LSD on Saturday and something had happened when he took the drug and I don't know, I mean, people have said to me LSD doesn't do that. I don't have enough information about what was in those drugs. But something happened that day and he showed me these texts that they had been exchanging and he was -s o this took place in Florida, and his father was up in New York and so  - what happened was this young man was saying to his dad, dad you got to come help me there's something really wrong. These texts have been going back and forth and his dad was saying, you just got to stay in the house, don't go anywhere, you know, those kinds of things. Then finally, the next morning, something just snapped. But I think that his dad felt very guilty that he hadn't just hopped on a plane and come down to Florida, recognizing that there was something really, really wrong. They showed me their pictures of where he had been at school, and that he was the prom king, and, you know, all the different -and I'd already seen everything.  So I just knew that they were, you know, I could just feel that they were just really good people. What had happened was definitely a problem and it was a behavior but I did feel like something triggered it, whatever it was that triggered it, I didn't feel like he was some bad, evil person that was going to do this again, I just didn't feel like that at all.

 

Karen Ortman  32:34

During the course of the conversation with dad and the offender, was there anything that was said, that made sense to you with respect to the assault? Was there anything that that made sense? Any additional information provided that you didn't know prior to the meeting?

 

Mandy Bass  33:02

No, I think, it was more a matter of being able to see with my own eyes that this was, in fact, a good kid. I was able to feel that and see it with my own eyes because obviously, the first time I saw him, you know, that was not the case. But I was able to see them as human beings and I was able to, I think that one of the things that happened, and, you know,  it wasn't something that was said, but it was more a sensation, is that I could feel the feelings, or I imagined what the feelings of the dad were at that moment. Here,  they've done everything for their kids, see he was more my age, you know, they've done everything for their kids to get them through and get them into college and all this stuff. And now, this young man, he had graduated from school, he had graduated from college that May in between the attack and this meeting. And now he's just going to start his new life as a college graduate, and he's facing prison. You know, he's facing  at that point, it was that they were looking for a 20 year sentence. And so, I think I was able to identify more with the dad, like thinking how would that be if that were my son, right? How would that be? What would that be like and I think that the father being there really helped his case because I couldn't identify with him but I could identify with the dad you know, and what that would be like to be faced with that situation. So I think that gave me the emotional flexibility to be able to kind of move over, you know?

 

Karen Ortman  35:08

So what was the recommendation to the DA?

 

Mandy Bass  35:10

So what happened was I asked the DA, I pushed the DA, into downgrading all the chargers so that he wouldn't be faced with any felonies on his record. They gave him, I think, it was a five or seven years probation and if he is if he sticks to all the requirements, which include - he's not allowed any alcohol, he's not allowed any drugs, you know, there's kind of some criteria there. If he sticks to that, it'll all be, I forget what the term is now...

 

Karen Ortman  36:04

Expunged?

 

Mandy Bass  36:04

Yes, expunged, it will get wiped off his record so that he won't have to go through his whole adult life with having this on his record.

 

Karen Ortman  36:16

So let me ask you, this was in, you met him in November of 2016. The assault was the previous February. We're now in 2020. Did you make the right decision?

 

Mandy Bass  36:29

Absolutely.

 

Karen Ortman  36:30

How do you know that? No question.

 

Mandy Bass  36:32

Well, the young man and I have, have become good friends. I'm a mentor of his and he is doing very well in his career. He's a great young man, we stay in touch. He's just doing really, really well. I'm very proud of him.

 

Karen Ortman  36:56

That's, that is awesome. That is such a nice story you know. Look, every every victim has their story to tell, and I'm not judging,whether they forgive or they don't, you know, that's their choice and everyone makes the best decisions for themselves. But your story is, based upon you telling it and what you knew about the offender, particularly after the incident, and your basis for forgiveness and talking to the DA about, you know, pleading the case down to a non-felonious sort of level is amazing. It's nothing short of amazing. You're,  truly like an amazing person.

 

Mandy Bass  38:08

Thank you. Well, you know, I think that forgiveness helps me. Forgiveness was important to help me heal so whether or not I helped him, you know, that was the forgiveness was important to me regardless of whether I was then going to act upon, you know, an order to get his sentence reduced. I do think that coming to a place where you can forgive somebody who's hurt you is just a very important part of healing. It doesn't mean that you've forgotten them but when we hold anger, it just poisons our cells, rapidly poison.

 

Karen Ortman  38:51

Yeah. So it's freeing to forgive.

 

Mandy Bass  38:53

Yeah, it's very freeing. I mean, the forgiveness was for me.

 

Karen Ortman  38:58

No doubt. Yeah. Wow. So is there anything else that you would like to share? Before we conclude our conversation today?

 

Mandy Bass  39:10

Well, if there's anybody in the audience that has any kind of trauma in their history, and or something that's happened and they're struggling, please reach out for help. You know, don't try to do it alone. You don't you can do it and you don't need to do it alone. I mean, that's really, regardless of what it is that's happened to you. There are people that can help you and you don't have to go it alone.

 

Karen Ortman  39:43

I appreciate that. I appreciate you sharing that with our audience. And if there's anybody that would like to get in touch with Mandy bass, you can reach out to youmatter@nyu.edu. Thank you too much to our guest, Mandy, and to all of our listeners for joining us for today's episode of You Matter. If any information presented today is tiggering or disturbing, please feel free to contact the Wellness Exchange at 212-443-9999 or NYU Department of Public Safety and their Victim Services Unit at 212-998-2222. Please share, like and subscribe to You Matter on Apple podcasts, Google Play, Tune in or Spotify