When Rebecca Stuhlmiller was 19 years old, she felt like her life was falling apart. Her parents had just divorced, her boyfriend of three years had stopped calling, and she had just dropped out of college.
On a whim, she packed up and moved from Billings, Mont., to Phoenix, Ariz. She started a new job as a receptionist and began spending more and more time with one of her co-workers.
"He was a little bit older than me, he dressed professionally with a suit and tie [and] he had a nice sports car," Stuhlmiller recalled.
It didn't take long for the two to start dating.
"I felt like I was having a new start in life," Stuhlmiller said.
But she soon started to see red flags in her new boyfriend's behavior.
"He constantly belittled me, mocked me and blamed me for everything," Stuhlmiller said. "We spent a lot of evenings at the dog track, and if the greyhound he bet on lost the race, it was somehow always my fault."
The confusing part of the relationship was the way her boyfriend would be demeaning or cruel in one moment, only to suddenly do something sweet the next moment, like buy her perfume or teach her how to choose wine. It made Stuhlmiller think that deep down, he was a good guy.
"So I kept hanging in there, thinking I just needed to give it more time, but more time wasn't fixing anything."
Far away from friends and family, Stuhlmiller once again felt stuck. Not knowing what to do next, she got in her car and drove.
"I don't even know where I drove. I think I just wanted to get out of the house," she said.
At one point in her drive, she was sitting at a stoplight, sobbing into her hands. Just then, she heard a honk from the car next to her. When she looked over, she saw a man in a neighboring car giving her a thumbs-up.
"That's it. He just pumped his thumbs-up and then drove off when the light turned green. And for whatever reason, that small gesture from this good-hearted man, it gave me hope," Stuhlmiller said.
More than 40 years later, she still thinks about that man.
" It reminded me somehow of who I used to be and the world that I used to be a part of. It was just like balm to my aching soul," she said.
Stuhlmiller eventually broke up with her boyfriend and moved back home. She's in a loving partnership now and has a thriving business. But she thinks about her unsung hero all the time and tries to pass along his kindness to others.
"Because no one knows when their small act of kindness will bring a lifetime of gratitude."
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
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