A TikToker by the name of thebeardedmom went viral claiming she found out she had been a missing person since she was kidnapped as a baby in 1980.
With 1.1 million views on her first video, a woman—only identified as thebeardedmom—explained how she was kidnapped at birth but eventually found out as an adult.
In a 16 part video series, she took viewers through the moment she learned about the kidnapping. She relayed how she left her kidnappers and found her biological family, the tumultuous relationship she has with her new family and how she made it to where she is today.
You can see the first video here:
@thebeardedmom how I learned I had been kidnapped #storytime #realshit #thisismylife #nomoreshame #kidnapped #survivor #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp
In the first video she said:
"I was 26 years old, I was in a healthy place in my life for the first time and I was preparing to get married, and I had two young children."
"I assumed that the fastest way to track my biological mother down would be to seek out a criminal record for her."
"I don't know what compelled me to call the sheriffs department in the city that I was born, it just seemed to make sense at the time."
After contacting the sheriffs department and explaining what she knew about her biological mother, the officer became very interested in her personal information. He came to the conclusion she was the missing person they had been looking for.
The TikToker explained:
"[The sheriff] told me he couldn't find any information about my mother, and that I was a missing person."
"I had been since 1980."
"There had been a police investigation I could not access because the records had been achieved, but that I had been kidnapped."
After the video went viral, thebeardedmom explained her whole story as quickly as possible within the one minute time constraint of the TikTok video format.
With quite a few hundred comments, people certainly had questions.
@vadaiguess/TikTok
@white.trash.goblin.queer/TikTok
@p246019430/TikTok
@clar0922/TikTok
She said:
"My [biological] mother actually sold me to the man that I grew up with, and when her mother found out about it she reported me kidnapped and then participated in looking for me even though she knew where I was the entire time."
Her biological family was convinced no one knew where she was. The family of her kidnappers thought she had been saved from someone who would have done her harm.
Unfortunately, her kidnappers became abusive.
@thebeardedmom explained she spent her childhood trying to escape the abuse, especially after her kidnappers got a divorce. That's when she initially learned her captors were not her biological parents.
She eventually became a ward of the state at age 14 then aged out of the state's custody. She believed she never knew she was kidnapped because the state gave her a new social security number.
@thebeardedmom part 4 my kidnapping
After she found out she was kidnapped, she attempted to contact the state she was born in and the state she was brought to.
She claimed neither attorney general's office or the FBI wanted to take on her case.
@hellogoooodbye/TikTok
In part five, she explained how she found her mother after being rejected by many private investigators and news agencies.
"I did find a private investigator a couple of months later, and she helped track down my biological mother rather quickly which was..."
"They must have spent a ton of money to do it because by the time I had found her in 2006 she had already been married at least 13 times that they knew about. Which means 13 different last names."
"She's a bag of crazy too."
@mae.keovers/TikTok
@aquatofanah/TikTok
Upon finding her biological mother, she attempted to form a relationship with her. However, all of her mother's siblings warned her not to get close to her biological mother.
She explained in part 9 of the series she had was this imagined person in her biological family's minds, but her actual self was not this fictional version.
It created distance between her and her family members.
She described this next chapter of her life to be the most 'depressing' part. But a loving relationship grew between her and one of her aunts.
Sadly, her aunt was killed by her husband.
At the same time she was mourning her beloved aunt, she was struggling in her own abusive marriage. She had two children at the time, and leaving her abusive husband would be difficult.
@thebeardedmom part 9 my kidnapping
@thebeardedmom part 11 my kidnapping
@thebeardedmom part 12 my kidnapping
While she attended her aunt's funeral, her husband closed all of their bank accounts, essentially cutting her off from any financial assets she could possibly have from a divorce.
Because of this, she decided not to go back to her husband.
She left her life in Utah to stay with her sister in Washington, after her aunt's funeral. She had two teenagers at the time who eventually both came to stay with her at her "crazy" sister's place.
@thebeardedmom part 13 my kidnapping
After years of fighting to take care of herself and her kids, she found herself in a much healthier place after finally cutting all ties with her biological family.
@thebeardedmom part 14 my kidnapping
According to her videos, she is now in a stable place in her life.