From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is my unsung hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

I would like to thank my unsung hero.

I do not know.

He just pulled up a chair and we talked.

I'd say for about...

I can't even express to you how much you've changed my life.

Today's story comes from Tanya Eby.

In 1983, Tanya had a core group of friends in her sixth grade class.

But one day, without explanation, her friends decided

she couldn't hang out with them anymore. Tanya was heartbroken. A few days later, she started

crying uncontrollably in class. Her teacher, Mrs. Welch, pulled her into the teacher's lounge.

She wanted to find out what was wrong. And I told her about the girls.

But then I told her the rest of the story.

And the rest of the story was a few months prior to this happening,

my mom and my stepdad decided my big brother,

my anchor in life, needed to go live with my dad. So overnight, they took him and they

dropped him off with my dad, but they didn't allow him to say goodbye. So I woke up one morning and my

brother was gone. So this was the background of what had happened when the girls told me that I was

no longer part of their group.

It felt like everywhere I looked, everywhere I turned, people I loved disappeared.

And they stopped loving me.

...