From Suicidal to Shining: What a Therapist Learned by Healing Herself First

Natalie Saves the World: One Podcast at a Time · Apr 16, 2026 · 55m

What does it look like to go from planning your own death to standing in your light — and then losing a child — and still choosing hope?

Malisa Hepner is a licensed clinical social worker, therapist, author, and podcast host who has lived every layer of what she now teaches. In this conversation, she shares her journey from a childhood shaped by profound adversity, through her own mental health crisis, to the unimaginable loss of her 18-year-old son Jake — and how the tools she'd spent two years building are what's carrying her through.

We talk about:

Why trauma creates separation between you…