Latest / Surviving-ISH Podcast / Sheyann Straub: The Smell of Honeysuckle and Cigarettes

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Sheyann Straub: The Smell of Honeysuckle and Cigarettes · Surviving-ISH Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why it was me.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll ever be the same.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Is the same what I?
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: want.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Anyway, you took what I thought I could never get back.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I quit holding onto that anger and broke down just to begin again.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Can you breathe any longer?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I'm there.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Surviving Podcast.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I think whenever one logs in, they know that they're gonna come across some topics at our little roth.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: But there are some topics that we haven't really discussed before, so I'm so excited to have you.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Cheyenne, thank you so much for being with us.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Thank, you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I'm Cheyenne Straub and I published my debut memoir called Honey Circle and Cigarettes.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a running family secret so that my daughter doesn't have to, and I'm super excited to be here and chat through my journey and my story.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, first, I want to know how did you come up with that title?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I'm in love with it.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: But how did you come up with it?
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: It sounds like a country music song.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you, that's hilarious.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I mean that as a compliment, because I love country music.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Well, you're a country music fan too.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: So if you read the book, one of the opening lines is about my mom and how I'm a toddler and I'm toddling under her and she smells sweet and earthy, like Honey Circle, with the sharp smell of my dad's cigarette slingering on her.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: And then at the end I tie back this analogy of you have to be willing to take the sharp with the sweet, like Honey Circle and Cigarettes.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, and what Three lines you sold me.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to read it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: I can not wait to read it Before we get to started.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: There was so much you said in just those opening lines, right.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: I did not realize until doing this podcast and experiencing my own trauma that happened in my adult life of generational abuse and the fact that you made a point just now to say I don't want my daughter to have questions, which means to me that you're breaking that generational abuse.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Is that okay?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I wouldn't.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: In my case, I wouldn't necessarily say generational abuse, I would say generational trauma because my parents did not abuse me.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Now alcoholism runs in my family pretty rampantly on both sides and my mom's mom was emotionally abusive to her and this whole concept of mental health that I feel like we in the younger generation have really embraced.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: They didn't grow up with that right Kind of shh and you brush things under the rug and you deal with it quietly if you deal with it at all.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And so that's my biggest thing is this trauma, this abusive husband that my great-grandma had and then divorce and then alcoholism and then my Nana being abusive to my mom and then my mom making a terrible decision is because none of this hurt ever gets dealt with, it never gets healed, and so my biggest thing once I had my daughter was I'm done with this.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: This is ending with me.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: We're going to confront this and we're going to deal with it so that she doesn't have to.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that because you're so right we have to look at where we are and where we were in life and the generations, that and the stuff that plays in that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Speaking of counter music songs, one of the songs that really makes me think of generational abuses, that song with Miranda Lambert, liny Lips, paint your Toes.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: The Mom Is Broken Heart.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Mom Is Broken Heart, yeah like that song.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: I think I've mentioned it two or three times on this in the two years I've had this podcast and every time it's time for me to do my debut and sing, and I cannot, but that song reminds me of that generational abuse.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Like you are to be pretty and shut your mouth.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, but you can't fix anything that you're not willing to fix.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's a big one.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: My biggest goal with this is obviously my daughter and protecting her and keeping her out of this cycle, but also for other people to say you know what?
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I also have some trauma that runs in my bloodline and I'm going to be the one who can run it.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't tell you how many people have contacted me and said I've listened to your show accidentally and I didn't realize that I was experiencing like because no one told me it was trauma.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah everyone told me this was just everyday life.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Welcome to adult world, welcome to teenage years, welcome to poverty or whatever the case may be, and we don't need to welcome that, we need to fix that.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I agree with you so where would you like to start?
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: In 2019, I had my daughter, lola, and I had really horrible postpartum depression and anxiety and almost ended up getting a divorce because it was so bad.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: We were not functioning well and, in that postpartum depression and anxiety, some repressed trauma that I had never dealt with, started popping up.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Now that I was a mom, I was looking back on things that I had been through sexual abuse-wise and decisions that my mom had made and thinking what are we doing?
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: What is this world?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: So I ended up in therapy and in therapy she had me journaling and writing down these repressed memories and reflecting on it and affirming my inner child, and as I was writing it, it developed into my memoir, and so my memoir is really about four truths that I hate about my life.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: The first one is that whenever I was six, I was molested by a family member, and then it's some identity stuff in elementary and middle school and then in college or sorry, let me back up in high school my mom went to prison for an inappropriate relationship with a minor, which really well-peaved any sense of identity that I had at that time.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I'm from a small town, usa, everyone talks about everyone, and we were now the talk of the town in the worst possible way and I ended up turning to alcohol and it was pretty promiscuous in college, just trying to feel something other than shame around that.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: But then I did end up in a situation where I was date-raped in college and my life just fell apart, I would say after my mom was arrested, and it didn't get better until about four years later when I finally started to come out of that haze of alcoholism and shame and dealing with feelings, not really, but met my husband, started teaching, had more of a normal, stable life and then, like I said, my daughter was born and it upheavied all these things that I hadn't dealt with and hadn't talked about to anyone.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And that's how we got here.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: That's a lot to unpack, it is, and that's a lot for a child to go through, and especially in those detrimental years of your life when you're trying to find yourself and you're learning about sex, and I know that I even went through a phase where it was always consensual, but it was not me being consensual to myself and my own needs.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I was given consent to this person, but it was because of something that I was missing or lacking and not knowing how to deal with.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And I think, when people hear even just about the arrest portion, you were 18 at the time and you were college age.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: You were an adult and it's hard even now to articulate but no, I wasn't.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And years wise.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Our society considers 18 an adult, but mentally you're not there 100%.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I agree with that.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: I've had friends and partners that have.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: When they see me and my family together for the first time, they're like there's a whole different.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: David, your mama's boy, you ask grandmother what she wants to do.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I get a phone call right now that says David, your grandmother has sneezed twice.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: I'm dropping everything and driving to her house.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: I don't think, when it comes to your family like that, that you stop being their child.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think when she was arrested, the expectation was and not even necessarily on her part or my dad's part, but just everyone in the community was okay, you're an adult now, so deal with it, Get over it, move on.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And so I always felt like I had to be super stoic, right, oh, I don't care if people are whispering about us in the grocery store, or if I had to graduate high school early because I was too embarrassed to go back to school after Christmas break when this all happened, or if I started college and had no idea what I was doing, because it was just your mom was arrested Christmas breaks over.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Now you're in college.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: People didn't process that I was still a kid Two weeks before I was an adult.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I was still a kid and so I never dealt with that shame.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I just held on to that stoicism and said, okay, I'm moving on, but that wasn't healthy.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And then all of the aftermath proved how unhealthy that was.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even though my trauma is completely different, I can relate to the things that you're saying.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to build this box and dump my trauma in there and I'll deal with it later.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: It's funny you say that you put your trauma in a box and just I'm not dealing with it, because I did the same thing and I literally did not talk about it.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So like I moved away two hours away from college and like my roommates didn't know, none of my friends knew, like no one in my life knew.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And even recently I had past coworkers, past teacher friends that have read my memoir and stuff.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: They had no idea I still had not told anyone about my mom's arrest, about the sexual abuse because of all that shame that I was carrying.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: And I 100% relate to that idea of I'm going to put this in a box and hide it away because if no one else wants me to talk about it, then it must be something really awful and I don't want to burden people with the uncomfortable.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: It is a double-edged sword and I even write about that in my memoir.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: All relationships that I had friendships, relationships with professors, anything like that was so surface level because I felt like I had to keep everyone at arm's reach.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I can't fully be who I am because I've seen what that does.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I've already been the girl whose mom went to prison in my small town and everyone stopped talking to me and people look at you funny and people talk about you horribly behind your back.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I can't let anyone get close enough to really know me.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: So everything stayed surface level.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: But when you're living that way, your life is surface level and that's a horrible way to feel and a horrible way to live.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: So I 100% agree with you.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: In hindsight, that would have been a great opportunity for me to start over.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I failed miserably, which you can read about in the book also, but that's a hard thing to do.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: That's a hard thing to do around that at 18 years old.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Forgive me if I'm messing this up, but from the timeline, if I remember correctly, you were sexually assaulted by someone before your mother went to prison, right by someone in your family.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so when I was six I was molested by a family member.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: So when I was six, a female family member molested me and everyone said did she try again?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Did she try again?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Like when they hear this story, they don't only happen the one time, which I don't know why.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: That's the question we ask Sexual abuse survivors.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: She tried one other time and for whatever reason, like that time I was more firm in my no to her because I knew what was what was coming, since it had already happened once.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: And for whatever reason, she listened to me and I repressed that memory so hard because I grew up in small town purity culture and if you had sex before marriage, you were not pure, you were not going to be wanted by your future, your husband, your spouse or whatever, and so I repressed and repressed that.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: And then, yeah, my mom was arrested and then in college I was off the rails with partying, just drinking way too much, hanging out with people I should not have been hanging out with and was in a date rape situation than in college.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And really when that happened was when a lot of my memories of the six-year-old situation resurfaced, because it was like my body had figured out a way to keep that hidden from my mind almost in a way.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: And then in college, when that happened, it was like oh, this is what it feels like when you're violated, and that kind of resurfaced those feelings from whenever I was six.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So what?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: happened after those feelings resurfaced?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: You had already been dealing with the trauma of losing your mother to prison, and then the sexual assault.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Did you wake up one day and think oh, wow, or was there more destructive behaviors that came with beforehand?
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: So when my mom was arrested and I went to college, I was really heavy into alcohol.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I was partying with college kids.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: It's such a romanticized thing to just be partying all the time, which I absolutely hate.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I am not a prude.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: If you want to go out and have a drink, go out and have a drink, I have to, I don't care.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: But the getting blackout drunk every night of the weekend that's where I was living and the alcoholism, the partying was going on.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I wasn't taking care of myself physically.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I was still passing my classes somehow, I'm not really sure how and just not taking care of myself.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: And then the date rape happened and I cooled off a little bit.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I think it was like holy shit, this is what happens when you don't have any control in your life whatsoever.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Cooled off a little bit, still dated, an idiot that was emotionally manipulative and abusive, and I just hit my breaking point and needed to move back home.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: And so my junior year of college, I ended up moving back home, closer to family, closer to a support system, and that was my actual fresh start from everything, because it was like I'd gone, tried to create this new version of myself.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: That didn't work.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: So let's go back to the roots and start over again, and that was when I met my husband.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I cooled way off on partying and yeah was on the upswing.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I hadn't really I hadn't gone to therapy and really dealt with anything, but I was living physically healthier than I had been, which I think was a big reason that I was able to eventually get mentally healthy.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Sure, because when you try the cold turkey it does that work.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: So when you met your husband, you were already.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: You said, on the upswing, was he already on the up of his life, and what kind?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: No, so he was still living at home and he was partying quite a bit.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: He was partying quite a bit, not as much as I had been my first years of college, but yeah, he was partying quite a bit.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: We both were still in school, but his was never like a destructive partying Like his was.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: He's like the fun, happy, go, lucky guy, like he doesn't get rageful and want to fight people or like black out and say something stupid.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: So is his like that age appropriate?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: I'm in my college years, I'm going to go out and drink with my buddies, kind of thing, because there is a difference, right?
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: So is it age appropriate times where you go in and you just be a little loose?
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Versus when you're being destructive.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Now it might be a fine line.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was more him, and he knew about my mom when we first started dating, so that wasn't something I ever heard from him.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: He did not know about the sexual abuse that I endured as a child or in college.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until two years ago that he knew about that at all.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: But he knew about my mom and so I think he was always like cognizant of she's dealing she's going to need to deal with this or she's dealing with it and he's always 100% supported me and however I'm feeling, whatever I need to say, whatever I need to do on this journey, so he's the best.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I'm appreciative of him.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Did anything ever come out of?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Was there any exposure, any acknowledgement to?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Let's start with the molestation.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Was there ever any conversations or confrontations about it in your adult life?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: There hasn't been yet.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if certain people have read the book.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: There hasn't been yet the person that the perpetrator has basically ruined her own life.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: But I, like I said, I never told anyone about it until two years ago when I was in therapy because I didn't want to get a divorce and ruin my child, and I think it was so far past it happening and my family in general is not one to talk about the hard things.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: So I don't know that we'll ever get that conversation will ever happen, but I don't know that I necessarily care either, because I feel like conversation or not.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It happened and I've done what I need to do to heal from it.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if that makes sense or not.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: That makes perfect sense and it was beautifully said.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: And where are you in your relationship with your mother today?
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're good.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: We're good.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: My mom and I have been.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: So it was a slow build back to our relationship.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: So she was sentenced and she went to state prison and I write about this in the book too.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Like every other Sunday I would drive two hours and go visit her in prison which is not what most college kids are doing on their weekends and kind of superficial surface level conversations through that.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And then she ended up getting out early on, time served and good behavior.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And it was this weird dynamic of I was 19,.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: She had missed my first year of college when I really needed her.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I was still really pissed and angry at her, but she wanted to be the mom role still because she'd missed out on that time.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: And so it was this delicate two step around each other of I know you're my mom, but I'm so angry at you and I know I'm your mom, but I know I messed up and you are angry at me.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: We didn't really know how to be around each other, but it just was this slow build of rebuilding that, building it into a friendship, rather than like we are a mother and daughter, but more of that friendship at an adult level than a child and an adult.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: And then she was really there for me after when I moved back home junior year of college and that was a good turning point in our relationship.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: And then whenever we had our daughter, she was there from day one through postpartum and helping me navigate newborn life and all of these things that were so new to me, and that's really when our friendship blossomed.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: She's a little bit worried about the book being out there and people obviously having negative things to say, but I think she understands that this is my journey and this is something that I'm trying to do for my own daughter.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: So we're good.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: We're good, yeah.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: And as far as her having some weird feelings of the book being out there, writing the book as part of your therapy, I think it's healthy and it's a part of that damage control to set things straight and have control of my narrative again.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I feel like and you probably relate to this more than anyone that I've talked to because your story was so public.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like when your trauma occurs in the public eye, everyone feels like they have a right to write your story Right, they have a right to say this is what I heard, so this is what happened, or she said this thing to me one time.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: So she's this kind of person and really a big part of writing a memoir or doing a podcast, where you're telling your story over and over again, is saying no, you don't get to tell my story because you didn't live it Right, you didn't live it.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: You lived it through the rumor mill, but you weren't there.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a big weight was off my shoulders when I published this.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Here is my actual story, here is who I am, and I fought really hard to become this version of who I am and I'm proud of her, and I want you to know how I got here and I want you to know the real story of how that happened.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Did anything ever come out with the date rape situation Like how did you handle that?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: He was like the big man on campus, so white, straight man, hard to hold him accountable sometimes.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: So it happened and then I didn't.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I think my roommate maybe knew, because she picked me up the next morning and I think maybe she had a hunch, but I never told anyone because, again, the shame, right, I'm this broken human that was molested.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: My mom went to prison.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: All these people think I'm trash, so I am, and this is what happens to people like me and that's where that's really where I was living.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: That was my mentality.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: But then a few weeks later there was a frat party which, if you're in college, don't go to frat parties.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Nothing good ever happens at frat parties ever.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: And he was there and I was with a big group of friends and there was this girl that was hanging on him and one of my friends was like hey, I know her from class, I'm gonna go talk to her.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Long story short.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: My friend came back and was like, yeah, she is a virgin and wants to hook up with him, she wants him to be her first.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And I tried so hard, don't go say anything to her.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Let it be Like that's her life, let it be.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: But I just couldn't.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: That's just not my personality.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: So all I said was I see, you're with him tonight.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Don't go home with him.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: He's not a good guy.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: And I left it at that and walked away.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: About 10 minutes later, big hand I'm on the dance floor with my friends grabs my arm, pulls me through the crowd, shoves me up against the wall and it's him.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: And he's screaming in my face and I had gained weight keeping trauma.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: He's screaming in my face you're a fat fucking bitch, keep your fucking mouth shut.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: And then he punches the wall so hard right by my head and I say this in my memoir too.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think he meant to miss my face.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I think he was fully intending to hit me and it wasn't until he punched the wall, after he screamed at me for five minutes, that someone finally stepped in and pulled him away from me.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So that's the kind of power that he had on campus.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: And what was I going to do?
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It was his word, big man on Campus that everyone loved against mine.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: What would you say to these people that either have went through it or are in situations where they could?
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: If they have gone through it.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I would say don't be quiet, find someone safe that you can go to and tell the truth and hold that person that hurt you accountable, because chances are if they did it to you, they're probably going to do it to someone else and they're going to keep doing it because they're getting away with it.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: And if I could go back, my life was already imploded.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: So I probably, if I could go back, I would have said something, I would have held them accountable, but I didn't and I have to live with that.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: People who are college age and who are going to parties be safe.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Don't take drinks and these are things that you are common sense.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Don't take drinks from people that you don't know what's in them.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Watch your alcohol consumption so that you are functioning and stay with around people that you know have your back.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: It's all fun and games and everyone's party hardy until it's real, and then where are those people going to be?
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: And if you can't say those people are going to be beside you, then you shouldn't be hanging out with them.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I think about that story from Canada and for the laugh of me, because I'm on the spot, I want to say it's Jessica, but either way, there was this girl in Canada that had told her mom and dad that she was going to sell that with a girlfriend.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: She and that girlfriend went to a party with a bunch of boys and there were photos taken of her hanging up the window by my team while being sexually assaulted, and she ended up unaligning herself.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Luckily, in Canada they took a very serious and they changed some bullying laws and because the picture that of her, she went to school.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: This happened on a Friday.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: She goes to school on Monday and even her best friend's not talking to her.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: She's walking around campus and everyone's pointing and laughing and then finally she's seeing that this photo of her getting sexually assaulted, hanging out of a window, sick of a dude, a boy behind her given the thumbs up, and somehow this was okay and she ended up, bless her heart, unaligning herself.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: And that's why people like us need to stand up and I'm so proud of you.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, in a perfect world you would have said something sooner.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: In a perfect world, something would have happened a long time ago, but there is no perfect world and you're doing amazing things and I'm so glad that you are in your community and the survivor community is lucky to have you, and thank you for sharing your story with us.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: It is very important.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate that.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you to you as well, for being the hub for people to share their stories.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Thanks, I appreciate that.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: This is my therapy too.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I want us to convert, I want us to relate to each other and have that bond, and I cannot.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: As soon as we get off, I'm ordering your book.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: You have to tell me what you think about it, oh yeah Gosh, this hour went by so fast.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: I really enjoyed this conversation.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: I love to end on positive things the time that we talk about the dark things.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: One thing I love is we still laugh, we still smile, and I really appreciate that.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: But I love to end on something fun, and so I have a question that I want to ask you.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, just for fun, and I have my answer.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: There's no right or wrong answer.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I'll let you tell yours first.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: When you hit it big, when you're that number one bestselling book, when there is a live time movie about you, what actress would you want to portray you?
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that's a hard one.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: That's a hard one.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I feel like I don't know.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like I got to go with someone that's like big right now.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to say her last name, but Florence Pew, is that how you say it?
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she's big right now, so I feel like she would be a good one.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I love that she like looks real right.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: She's not like inerixically skinny and, yeah, like I love that she like looks like a real woman, so I would love for her to play.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that and okay, so the person I picked is Emma Stone.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I think Emma Stone would For me, yes, there's something about the smile and it's not always about looks right.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: What actress do you look like?
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: That's not what I'm trying to get, but watching you and listening to you talk and watching that passion and then and to see like when you would smile and then when you wouldn't, I was like Emma Stone would rock your role.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: That's funny, that's interesting.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: I cannot thank you enough.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: I've really enjoyed this.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I needed this and I cannot wait to read your book.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Definitely keep us posted on any and everything.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: We support you.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: We see, we hear you, we're fans of you and thank you so much.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: And that wraps up another powerful episode of Surviving Abuse.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I want to extend my deepest gratitude to our incredible guests for sharing their transformative journey with us today.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Your bravery is an inspiration to us all.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Before we go, I want to remind you to stay connected with us on our social media platforms.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok, where we will continue the conversation, share resources and provide support for survivors like you.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Remember you're not alone.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: To all of our listeners, thank you for joining us again.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Your resilience and willingness to heal is what makes this community strong.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: As we embark on this journey together, let's remember that there is life.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: After trauma, we can rise above it and create a future filled with hope and joy.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Join us next week as we dive into the healing process and share more incredible stories of triumph and resilience.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Until then, take care of yourself and remember you deserve love, you deserve happiness and, above all, you deserve an abundance of healing.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Music PLAYS.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Music PLAYS.