Woman Inspired By Viral TikToker Reesa Teesa To Share Her Disturbing Story

Sharing cautionary tales and personal stories to help others who may experience the same thing is a big theme for TikTok creators. 

Viral TikToker Reesa Teesa has helped many to come forward and reveal the toxic relationships they’ve experienced in the hopes of making others feel less alone, as well as to share red flags they wish they picked up on earlier in the relationship.

Even off the app, many are openly sharing their stories in the hopes it will help others avoid the frustration, heartbreak and confusion they’ve gone through. And that’s exactly why Dr. Samantha Tsang wants to share her story.

Tsang, who studied social and behavioral sciences and received a doctorate of philosophy, felt inspired by Reesa Teesa's viral 50-part "Who TF Did I Marry" series to share her own story of her toxic relationship and the abuse that occurred. It's her hope that sharing her personal story can help others to recognize red flags in a relationship and maybe save someone from going through similar things that she has.

Tsang dated a man, who she keeps nameless, for about three years. Their relationship was advanced with the purchase of an engagement ring and a dog. But about six months ago, everything fell apart. That's when she found out he had multiple serious, long-term girlfriends, as well as many casual girlfriends and women he would just go on dates with. She also found out he was active on dating apps.

It was a shock when she started to realize she was “systematically, psychologically abused” for three years and had no idea. Near the end, she started to suspect things were very off. 

"I think the more unique component to this story, there are a few things, one is that no one in his life knew what he was doing," she said. 

"He played himself off as just a really good standup person, but I found out he had been telling some truly horrible lies. One being that his parent had pancreatic cancer and to my knowledge, she did not have cancer."

Pieces started to come together like a puzzle for Tsang. And at one point, she realized that he's been working really hard to keep his secrets.

One time, he offered Tsang his phone so she could look at his texts. She read a string of texts from one woman who she had suspicions about.

"I looked back years and it looked like a platonic text. It talked about things with our relationship. At the end of the text, he had asked her, 'Hey can you talk to Samantha? I think she’s misunderstanding we’re friends and I haven’t communicated it well with her so can you talk to her?' She was like, 'I don’t feel comfortable being dragged into your relationship. You should be more open with your girlfriend.' And eventually in these texts she said, 'I don’t think we should talk or really be friends anymore,'" she said. 

"I found out later on when I tracked this woman down that she had been dating him for over four years." 

Tsang took screenshots of some of the texts she read and sent them to this woman. She said that none of those texts actually happened, and even showed Tsang the texts between her and this man to compare.

"He had completely fabricated the texts in his phone and I have no idea how he did it," she said. "I know he’s very tech savvy. This level and nuance of manipulation is one that people don’t often talk about.”

In many cases, people look at the bigger, more obvious red flags and miss the type of behavior Tsang was faced with. She feels it’s important for people to not feel alone who deal with this and that's why she's speaking up.

One question that's popped up for Tsang is about how he had time to be active in so many relationships. She said he's running a successful startup and has many side hustles, in addition to all the relationships. Tsang said what's really confusing is that he spent so much time with her, so no one's quite sure how he was able to pull it all off for so long.

"Another tactic he would use is when we first started dating he told me he was seeing a therapist, a green flag, and he told me one thing he was working with his therapist on was trying to be better at asserting his needs and setting his boundaries," she explained. "As the oldest child he was so used to catering to his siblings and what they want and he’s really working on trying to be more vocal about what he wants and not people please.” 

Tsang wanted to be a supportive partner, but now hindsight is a glaring 20/20 and she realizes that his alone time was likely when he was running around with other women. But it's important to note that he didn’t do it so much that it raised a red flag at the time. 

The women he dated all live in the same area, and Tsang is now friends with many of them. She’s met some in person and will be meeting another in the near future. 

Tsang and the other girlfriends worked together to a craft letter to his parents, who worked in the mental health field, to let them know that they were concerned about his behavior.

“I don’t know if it’s indicative of anything in terms of a disorder, but I think he needs help because if he continues to do this to people, he will continue to harm them," she said.

"I knew that he was lying and I was worried he wouldn’t tell his family the whole truth since it was clear he didn’t tell his mother about the cheating initially. We crafted an email giving an idea of what he’s capable of, what he’s done, so they can make sure he gets the correct help that he needs.” 

Some people don’t talk openly about things like this because of the possible repercussions, but Tsang wants to share her story to point out the patterns she experienced. 

Tsang feels it starts with the "destigmatization of publicly sharing your experiences of psychological abuse in romantic relationships."

"Reesa Teesa is a great example of that. That can encourage more stories to be told. She inspired me to get the word out more," she said.

"Another part of destigmatizing is recognizing and stopping the victim blaming discourse of this type of experience. Sometimes when we hear stories, we think well she should have done that, why didn’t she do that, I don’t feel bad for her, when in reality you shouldn’t be blaming someone for being trusting and open and loving someone.”