Shifting from Victim to Survivor: The Healing Journey of Susan Snow
Episode 38
In this powerful episode of Life After Trauma, Susan Snow shares her journey of healing after the tragic loss of her father, LAPD Detective Thomas C. Williams. At just 17 years old, Susan’s life was shattered by trauma and grief, but through years of struggle, therapy, and resilience, she found her way to purpose and healing. Today, she’s an author, speaker, and coach who helps others reclaim their power after trauma.
Trigger Warning:
This episode contains discussions of trauma, loss, PTSD, abuse, and other potentially sensitive topics that may be activating for some listeners. Please take care while listening and pause if you need to. Your well-being is what matters most.
In this conversation, we explore:
The night Susan’s father was killed and how it changed her life forever
Living for years behind an emotional mask and struggling with PTSD
The turning point that led her to seek trauma-competent support
Tools and practices that helped her heal, including journaling, breathwork, and grounding
Why forgiveness and reclaiming your power are vital to healing
How Susan found purpose in sharing her story and writing her book
Susan’s story is a reminder that healing is possible, even after unimaginable loss, and that we all have the strength to move from victim to survivor.
Chapters:
00:00 – The night that changed everything
09:00 – Living in survival mode for years
17:00 – The turning point: finding trauma-competent therapy
26:00 – Reclaiming power through forgiveness and tools for healing
37:00 – Grounding, journaling, and nervous system regulation
46:00 – Writing her book and finding purpose in her story
55:00 – Words of encouragement for anyone struggling
Resources & Links:
Susan’s Book: The Other Side of the Gun: My Journey from Trauma to Resiliency
Susan’s Website: https://susansnowspeaks.com/
☕ Support Life After Trauma:
If you’d like to support the podcast, you can do so at buymeacoffee.com/lifeaftertrauma.
Speaker 2 (00:00.152)
Hi, Susan. Welcome to Life After Trauma. I'm really grateful to have you here. Susan, take us back to that time in your life. What do you remember about the moment it all changed?
Sure. Well, first of all, Jessica, thank you for having me on the show. Well, to start off, like you said, my dad was a Los Angeles police detective. He was actually a robbery homicide detective. And in that, being a kid and being a teenager, when he became a detective, I just had this false sense of security. Because in my mind, he had a desk job. He came in after the crime.
And so there was no way that he could be in danger. And unfortunately, that all ended on Halloween night of 1985. The day was kind of a normal day for me. I was planning on schmoozing my parents to go to a party that night for Halloween with my boyfriend and my friends. And the plan was that I would go home after school, my mom would come home, my dad.
was testifying that day in court. And so he would leave court and go pick up my brother from school. And my brother was six at the time. And then he would come home and the schmoozing would start. When I was home waiting for him to come home, my mom had come home and she was taking off her costume from the day. And I was putting mine on and the phone rang.
And back then in 1985, the phone was still attached to the wall. So I had to run out of my room and go answer the phone thinking it was for me. And it was not. It was a lady from my brother's school. And all she said was that there was a drive-by shooting and my dad was involved. Immediately, I saw my mom come around the corner and I handed her the phone as fast as I could give it to her and sat there trying to process like,
Speaker 1 (02:05.824)
what this woman just said to me. And of course, you know, my imagination was running away with me and I was watching my mom and I was watching her demeanor and I was trying to listen to the conversation a little bit. Her body language said it all. And she got off the phone and looked at me and said, we're going to the school. So it was about a seven minute drive to the school.
we didn't say two words to each other. And we got to the school and the way that the school is set up is there is a parking lot in the middle of the school. And after school care, and this was night, this was early evening now, the kids got out from the back of the school. So that's where we headed. And the sky was so bright because of all the police car lights. And then there was an ambulance that was sitting there with its lights on. And so we just kept walking towards that.
And both of us caught from the side of our eye, our peripheral vision, we saw my dad's truck. So we started running towards the truck. And as we got closer, we saw glass on the ground and we rounded the corner of the truck and there he was partially covered up. So my mom and I saw that my mom dropped to her knees and started to scream. And I froze.
Being a kid, not being able to process what I was looking at. So what I ended up doing is hyper focusing on the ambulance that was sitting there. And all my head was telling me was why isn't anyone helping him? Because I wasn't piecing it together. And it wasn't very long. Two officers grabbed both my mom and I's arms and escorted us away from the scene and back into the school.
into an office. I sat down and was just trying to wrap my head around everything that was happening around me. It was very chaotic that night. And so I had no idea where my brother was. I didn't know if he was hurt, didn't know. I had no information. My mom was taken aside by some detectives. And as I sat there, I could hear two ladies in the office that worked there.
Speaker 1 (04:21.815)
they were talking to one another. And the one lady said that my dad was deceased. And that's when my world cracked. I sat there and all I could think of at that very moment was that I wanted to run out of that room and run as far from this nightmare as possible. And the issue was my entire body felt like it was filled with cement. I couldn't move. And I was just...
I was just trying, there was so many things that I was trying to process all at once. And my mom came to me a little bit later and she said, I'm sending you with a neighbor. And I know that like, I wanted to run out of there. I know I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could, but the other side of me, the kid's side of me needed my parent, my other parent. I needed to be with my brother. I needed to be with the family unit. And unfortunately I didn't get that.
The neighbor came and I felt really bad for her because she had known my family for years. So this poor woman is trying to process for her own, her adult self, everything that was going on around her, what she had heard, and process that. And then on top of that, she's got his daughter standing in front of her just completely out of sort. was inconsolable and.
I had only been dating this guy, my boyfriend, for three months. He was 19 at the time. And all I wanted was him. I just wanted her to call him. And she did. And unfortunately, when she called him, she didn't give him a lot of information. So when he showed up at the door, he was like, okay, you know, grab your purse, get your jacket. What hospital is he at? Where can I take you? Where's your mom? You know, all the questions that you would hear normally.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:16.902)
And the words could not come out of my mouth. I just, couldn't tell him. And he became more persistent on me leaving. And that's when I just blurted it out. He's gone. He's not coming back. And he's like, what do you mean he's not coming back? What do you mean he's gone? And I said, he's gone. And at that point, my 19 year old boyfriend dropped to his knees and started to sob.
And both of us were just trying so desperately to navigate everything that was going on around us. And we just had no clue. Back then in mid eighties, there was no talk of mental health. There was no resources for kids. And even LAPD, they had systems in place to support the widow or the widower. Not a lot for the kids. And so we were basically kind of on our own with that.
When I did finally go home, my entire quiet neighborhood was filled with police officers. There were helicopters overhead. The media had ascended.
Yeah.
And so I immediately, had nowhere to run. I could not process or grieve or anything without someone in my face. And unbeknownst to me, we too were a target. This was a planned out assassination of my dad as retaliation and for him testifying that day. Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:48.482)
So I didn't know that. That didn't come out until the trial. So I had no idea about that. When I finally went home, I still didn't see my brother. There were people. I had no idea who they were. And they were in my living room. I could hear my mom, but she never came out of where she was. And I just, my boyfriend and I just bolted to my room and hid, basically.
I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to answer any questions. I just wanted to hide in my room. And so that's what I did. And even when my boyfriend left for the night, I could hear him get stopped in the hallway by somebody. And he just basically told them to leave, leave me alone. I heard my brother that night crying. So I knew he was at home and I knew that he was okay physically. My dad actually saved his life that night.
And that was the last thing he did on this earth is save his son. Wow. And I didn't, I got to see him the next day. It was about 11 a.m. when I saw him and I was able to hug him and tell him I loved him and that we were going to get through this. But it was, you know, almost immediately that I started to have emotions that I felt like I was not living. I was existing. I walked around in a fog.
I had anxiety because not only was my dad my best friend, he was my protector. And with all of this police presence and all of this stuff, even with that, I felt unsafe. I had panic attacks, which I didn't know what they were. I was anxious. I went into a deep, deep depression.
didn't know what that was either. I just knew that I didn't want to get out of bed. And, you know, we had this police presence for six days because it took them six days to arrest all the men that were involved. And there were multiple and, you know, went through the funeral, was like a president had died. That's how it felt. It was, it was so out there in the media and it was public and my community, even though it was
Speaker 1 (10:13.112)
part of Los Angeles was very aware and present. And again, I just, I went through the motions. I had bodyguards during the six days. I had bodyguards who followed me around to even go shopping for the outfit I was gonna wear to the funeral, you know? And it was, it's not a life that I wish on anyone. At the time,
I heard if you go to a therapist, you're crazy. That was like my mindset back then. Like you must be nuts if you're going to go. But with everything that I was dealing with, I was totally afraid to tell people what was happening with me. I didn't know how to advocate for myself and I just kept it in. I didn't say anything.
My mom came to me about a month after everything settled down and people went home and you know, all the things. And she said that LAPD was going to pay for a therapist for all three of us. Back then, and I always describe it this way, like if you pushed me in a direction, I would just go that direction. And so when my mom, Valen, told me that I was going to therapy, I thought, okay, I guess I'm going to therapy.
And I went to therapy and this gentleman that was my therapist, in hindsight, he was not trauma competent, nor was he informed because he did not want to dip his toes in the weeds with me. He did not go in the weeds with me. just, he didn't even ask the pertinent questions. He didn't ask how that night affected me because that probably would have opened me up a little. So every time I saw him, all our conversations were based around was,
my relationship with my mother, my relationship with my brother, my boyfriend in school since I was a senior in high school. And that was it. And every week I kept thinking, he's going to say something, do something to help me, you know, feel better. And it didn't happen for an entire year. At the end of the year, he looked at me and said, Susan, you're a well-rounded young lady and you're going to be fine for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (12:21.518)
And I don't need to see you anymore. Yeah. So I walked out of there thinking I was nuts. I literally thought, okay, this is it. I've cracked. I'm crazy. Not even a professional can help me. I'm just going to have to figure this out on my own. And so what I ended up doing is creating my emotional mask based on people would say to me, Susan, you're so brave. Susan, you're so strong, right?
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:49.932)
And I just was like, okay, that's what I am. And that's the emotional mask I concocted. so nobody around me could see on the outward side. You nobody saw all the turmoil that was going on inside of me. My boyfriend knew a little bit of it, but there were even things that I wouldn't tell him. Like I had suicidal ideation.
I didn't know what it was. I just knew that I wanted to be with my dad and I didn't care how that was going to happen. And so I, you know, I didn't want to say anything. I thought they would lock me up, you know? And I lived like that for 14 years of my life in fight or flight. And that's, that was hard because I, have a, one of my chapters is rose colored glasses.
And it's because that's what I walked around in and I was not healed enough to recognize that certain relationships around me were toxic. I did a lot of people pleasing. I did a lot of blending to fit in or feel like I belong somewhere. And you know, and you do that in fight or flight. don't.
You know, you don't see things or understand that certain relationships are not in your best interest or are toxic or unhealthy. And so you tend to take a lot of crud on.
You can swear on this, that is okay.
Speaker 1 (14:28.184)
So, you know, I just, I live like that and I did what people expected me to do. I married the boyfriend and we're still together. Wow. 40 years. It's just like weird. So weird. But I married him and we had two kids and that's when we decided we were going to leave Southern California and move to Denver, Colorado.
We moved here in April of 97. And part of it was I wanted to leave that part of my life in Southern California. And at the time I was not in a place, nor was I comfortable in telling my story. Like I wanted to pretend that was someone else and someone else's life, even though it was mine. And so I wanted to go somewhere where nobody knew me. Nobody knew the story. When I was here a couple of years in,
I was working as a hairdresser at the time. And I was working in a salon that was close to Littleton, Colorado. And I was working on April 20th, 1999. I was doing some clients' hair. I had taken a break and went into the back room and my colleague had turned on a little TV we had back there and up popped the live coverage of the Columbine shootings. I sat there watching this and I had
flashbacks of the school and of my dad. And I saw the teenagers who were around my same age and the police cars and the ambulances and all of the things. And as I was sitting there, I started to have a visceral reaction. I turned pale white. I started sweating. I knew that I was going to have a panic attack. And my colleague was looking at me like I was like, what is going on with you? I, I,
I have no idea, because remember, I was told I was going be fine for the rest of my life. So I didn't recognize what was happening to me. But what I did was what I always do. And I stuck that mask back on. I got my proverbial crap together, and I went out and finished my day. Now everybody around me was so upset. They were angry. There was like so much emotion.
Speaker 2 (16:35.244)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:54.394)
And I was just doing my clients hair like nothing was facing me. However, the minute I walked out the door and got into my car, all of it came flooding back. And this time it scared me because I literally felt like I was spiraling. It was everything all at once. It wasn't just this happened and then this happened. like when I was younger, it was everything all at once.
I would have thoughts and I would make plans and I would have conversations in my head about, I don't want to feel like this anymore. I don't want to hurt like this anymore. But at the other side of my brain, I would remember you have two babies at home that you need to stay here for and a husband. And so it was just this fight with me, but my husband being the smart man that he is, he recognized it.
He saw the spiraling and he knew it was a slippery slope. He knew. And so when he met me at the door one day and he said, you have two choices. You either go get help today or I'm putting you in a hospital. Wow. And I, at that point was so frightened. I was so scared that I put up that white flag and I was like, all right, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll go to the doctor. I'll do whatever I need to do.
And so I did, I went to a physician and the physician ended up putting me on antidepressant, because that's what they do. And then he handed me a business card and he said, I want you to make an appointment with this therapist. And I laughed in his face. I said, I tried this 14 years ago. It didn't help me. What makes you think that this is going to help me? And he said, honestly, you have no choice. Like you have no choice. You have to get help.
Yeah, did you tell him? But no, I was told I'm going to be good for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1 (18:54.6)
Yes. And he said he lied to you. And so I did. I made an appointment. And I am so grateful that I did because this woman that I saw in the first three minutes of sitting in her office, it felt different. She actually asked me the questions and allowed me to feel comfortable and be able to be vulnerable with her.
that I was able to go through everything that I had gone through at 17 and what I was currently feeling. And, you know, little did I know, I mean, until I met her, that she specialized in severe trauma and her specialty was PTSD. So I, when I met her and I told her all this, she looked me in the face and she said, Susan, everything you've gone through since you were 17 is normal.
because you have PTSD and I was like totally confused because I said, I'm not in the military. I didn't go to war. What are you talking about? And she said, no, she said, anyone who has gone through any kind of trauma can experience PTSD. And what you need to know about that is that it's not something that goes away. It's something you learn to manage. I
in that very moment had hope. This woman was my person that I had been wanting and searching for for so long. And I finally found her and I told myself, you mean I'm not crazy? Like I can heal from this. And she said, you can absolutely heal from this. And I was just, you know, I always tell people it was like the sky opened up and rainbow shot out because I won.
had answers to what was actually happening to me, which was powerful in itself, right? And in doing all of this, you know, we're getting into the survivor mentality. The one thing I can tell you from the very beginning, I hated being called a victim, hated it. And when I started working with her, I told her, please still call me a victim. I don't like that word. I am a survivor. And that was the mentality that I kept.
Speaker 1 (21:17.036)
And I think part of it too is doing the work that I did with my mental health. It also made me stand back and understand that when you make the choice to heal, part of that too is finding forgiveness for yourself, not the person or the thing that hurt you. But I looked at it different. I looked at it as you're taking your power back from that person.
from that thing that hurt you, right? You're telling that person or that thing, you are no longer going to have a hold over me because I'm gonna heal from the hurt and the pain that you gave me. And so that was a process in itself and a process that I never thought I would be able to do and I was able to do it.
Susan, is such a powerful story and I'm, I cannot even imagine what you went through. I just want to thank you for sharing that with us. That moment in the therapist office where you realized that you had PTSD. I have had that exact same moment and it was exactly like you described it. Like, Oh my gosh. So wait, I'm not crazy. Like there's a reason.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:40.248)
that we're feeling all of this.
Yeah. Well, and a lot of it too is in conversations I've had with people is that when you're going through all of the different emotions that PTSD gives you and you don't know that you have it, I think a lot of it is because people think of trauma like my, you know, extreme trauma is what's going to give you PTSD. What they don't understand is you can get PTSD from anything, a car accident.
a phone call that you got because someone died. mean, there's just so many different ways that you can get it. And I think the other side of that is I've had conversations with people who have thought that because they were struggling so much with different things that it made them weak as a person, that they were weak and that's the reason why they couldn't get over it.
And I always tell people, for one, when you make the decision to heal, because you have to make that decision for yourself, no one else. The other message that I always give people is what you heard. I found someone that was trauma competent, that allowed me to be vulnerable and gave me a safe space, right? And so I feel like a lot of people will go to therapy and they will not feel that.
And so they don't jump over the cliff. They don't tell people, you know, they're not a hundred percent vulnerable. They hold back because they don't feel comfortable or they don't feel safe telling them everything. That is not your therapist. So I always tell people, you know, this is your healing. This is no one else's healing. So if you're going to take the responsibility to get the help,
Speaker 2 (24:24.675)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:37.45)
and to heal, there's no reason why you can't interview your therapist and make sure that they understand your type of trauma because understand, you know, my trauma is different from someone who's had a sexual assault or childhood trauma. I've had that too, but childhood trauma or whatever, right? They need to understand your type of trauma in a way that
they're gonna be able to find the modalities to help you and move you through your healing.
Yeah, definitely. And it can be so hard, like even for the people who do open up like you and I did to previous therapists, and you just kind of get almost like shut down. Like it feels, right? Because
People get medically gaslit or...
And you're like, okay, you just you don't get this. Right. You don't get it. You don't understand me or what I'm saying. And that can be hard. Like I know in the past when I had faced that it was it was hard to continue looking for another therapist because it's really easy to assume that that will just be the general experience.
Speaker 2 (25:50.548)
If somebody is out there watching this and wanting to find a therapist, there are good ones out there.
There is, you know, even certain people, they don't like to go to therapists, but they'll go to a spiritual advisor or a coach or someone like that. Just, know, again, you just want to make sure that you are in the presence of someone who you have, you feel safe enough to be vulnerable with.
But know that you can't do the work without the vulnerability. Sorry, sorry, I'm gonna tell you the truth. It sucks. know, doing the work is not easy. It's not, and it can be scary. you know, there's no tiptoeing around that, right? However, I will tell you, the more work I did, the harder it was. The more work I did though, the more I felt this.
peace about where I was and who I was. I felt more powerful because I had found the forgiveness and I was not in the victim mentality and I had taken my power back. so all of that is a part of your healing, all of it.
that little bit more. What strategies did you find really helpful to reclaim that power?
Speaker 1 (27:22.446)
Yeah, well, I can tell you that when she met me, I was a hot mess. There was a lot going on, right? And so I was very grateful for the fact that she did not want to overwhelm me. So what we did is we picked apart the different emotional things that were going on. And we did it by what was the most urgent. So at the time, I was not sleeping.
And you know that if you don't sleep makes the depression worse. It makes anxiety worse because your systems were all out of whack, right? And your nervous systems out of whack. mean, all of it. So when we started to talk my first session, she said, what is the one thing that is the most dire for you right now? Like, what is it that's, you you want to address? And I said, I'm not sleeping.
I'm not sleeping because every time I shut my eyes, I go to a dark place." And she said, okay, so we're going to address that. And I said, all right. And she said, have you ever journaled? And I was like, what? And she goes, have you ever journaled? And I said, I don't think so. And she said, well, you can do it by writing. You can do it through music. You can do it through art. Now people are podcasting.
Yeah. And what it does is once you get everything that's swirling around in your head out, it will calm your nervous system enough where you will be able to go to sleep. And I thought she was nuts. Like I was like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now? And she's like, just trust me on this. And I said, okay. So she said, you know, what's your flavor? Like, what, what do you like to do? And I said, well,
it takes.
Speaker 1 (29:18.252)
I'll write, I write. And she said, okay, great. So what I want you to do is take a pad of paper and a pen and put it next to your bed. And before you go to bed, I'll give you a couple of prompts and you just, whatever is in your head, you just put it on the paper. She says, don't worry about spelling, punctuation. Like it doesn't even have to make sense, Susan. Just put it on the paper. And I said, all right, totally skeptical. I was like, this is not gonna work.
All right, I'll play. And I went home and the first night I did it, I got a couple hours of sleep and I thought, oh, okay. And then the next day I got a little bit more sleep and by the third day I was sleeping like a baby. And I didn't want to admit it. I just, I don't get it. And I went back the next week to see her and she said, well, how did it go?
Wow.
Speaker 1 (30:17.39)
And I said, I've been sleeping for four days and it worked. She said, well, great, then just keep going. Right. And I, and I still journal. I'm not a daily journaler, but I do journal, especially if I'm feeling extremely on edge, stressed out, whatever it is. It is definitely a modality that I go back to.
Cause I understand how powerful it is. And even though it's as simple as it is, it's super powerful. And then we went into the anxiety and she started to teach me about breathing techniques. And I learned about box breathing and I learned about controlling your nervous system. I felt like as we went along till we got to the big guns, the EMDR that came.
years later, I felt like I was putting tools in my tool belt, you know, and I felt because I had the tools in my tool belt that it gave me confidence to know that whatever came up, I could be like, I know what works. And then I would pull out that modality and utilize it. There isn't a one size fits all, right? If you are in therapy or you do think you're thinking about going to therapy, just know that you've got to try a lot of different
things to see what works for you. And what worked for me might not work for you. I will tell you the one thing though, the breathing and the journaling are two things that are super powerful that anyone can do and they work.
Yeah, and they're free and easy.
Speaker 1 (31:58.754)
and they're free and easy. So, you know, and I use that modality even with my coaching, even with, you know, those two modalities, especially if someone is getting riled up about something, you know, and we just take a break, take a breath, you know, and come back down. So, I mean, those are things that were so vital to me being able to even write the book. It was vital.
Yeah. My next question for you was going to be how can listeners begin to feel safe in their bodies again? And I feel like the breathwork ties into that a lot, but is there anything else that you would recommend there?
Feet in the grass. Grounding techniques as crazy and like, you know, they make fun of people that say go hug a tree. If you want to look at it this way, ground, grass, trees, all those things have energy and we are energy. And so when our energy is like this, like it is just all in a ball of flames.
The first thing you should do is take your shoes off and go stand in grass. just plant your feet and feel the nature underneath you. It does ground you. It does do something. Call me crazy. Call me weirdo. Call me whatever. I don't care. It works. Touching trees. I tell people like if you're super anxious, go plant something. Like seriously, like.
Dig in the dirt. I don't care if you're in apartment or if you're in a house, whatever, like go dig in the dirt. know, be one with the earth in a positive way. And it does, it really does ground you and it really does make you feel better.
Speaker 2 (33:53.462)
Yeah, you know what I've to realize lately is that I didn't think of it necessarily in a grounding aspect, but the things in my life that make me feel calm and at peace, content, even joy, it's the things that force me gently to be present. And that's exactly it. It's that sensation of feeling nature, touching that tree, feeling that grass.
feeling the breeze on your face, the sun on your skin. Also, I'm a big yoga.
Yeah, for a lot of people, moving your body is good, you know. And even meditation, you know, a lot of people are getting into meditation and I think that that's super important as well. And I started getting into that recently. I started to meditate and it's just being well aware of your body and well aware of how you feel. And when you're having that emotion,
it's usually somewhere in your body, right? So if you can figure that out, like for me, when I'm anxious, it's all in my chest, man. It's all in my chest. And so I will either meditate or I'll go outside and I'll just put my hands on my chest and breathe.
just take in deep breaths and stuff. And I can literally feel the anxiety leave my body. so, know, practicing those kinds of things is also showing yourself love. Like you were finding the love for yourself. And what's really interesting is the other conversations I've had with people is that they've wanted to heal for other people. So for instance, I had a mother who
Speaker 1 (35:45.152)
and I tell this story a lot. This mother, I had met her and she was on her way to rehab for the third time. And she had picked up my book and just kind of was browsing through it. And I just asked her out of curiosity, why did you go to rehab the first two times? And she said, for my kids. Like I wanted to get sober for my kids. And you know, I would.
go and then I'd have a week where I'd be good and then I'd fall back into patterns. And she said the second time I had another child and it was when she was having kids too. She said I had another kid so I stayed sober during the pregnancy but then after I had the baby then back to old patterns, right? And so this time I asked her, why are you going this time? And she said for myself. And I said, awesome.
The more I talked to her, she said, and this was a big aha moment for me because she said to me, reading a little bit about your trauma, I didn't go through that much trauma. didn't, you know, and I was like, okay. And she said, well, you know, when I was young, um, my mom had a boyfriend and you know, this boyfriend and she started to describe stuff and it was molestation and it happened with her.
and her brother. And because it was her cousins, was her family dynamic that she didn't recognize that that was trauma. she's telling me this story and I'm taking it in and I looked at her and I said, you 100 % had trauma.
You had childhood trauma, had sexual trauma, you had drama, right? And she looked at me like I was green with pink polka dots. And I said, one thing I'm gonna tell you, one, it wasn't your fault. It was their fault, and you didn't deserve that.
Speaker 1 (37:55.318)
And this is what floored me when she told me this two times in rehab. I said, have you ever told anyone this story? And she said, no, you're the first person, which I was like, so taken aback. was like, honored that I gave her that safe space to be able to tell that to me. But on the other side of that, I do in that moment that what
was coming out of my mouth next was going to be really important for her to hear. And I said to her, you had trauma. You haven't told anyone this story. Here's what I'm going to tell you. When you go to go to the rehab tomorrow, you tell everyone. You tell anyone and everyone that you can tell. You told me you got it out. You tell other people because here's the thing. When you tell the professionals, when you tell them,
they will be able to lead you in a direction to be able to get the right therapist, the right therapy, the right people to heal that. Because when you heal that, sobriety will be easier to attain. And she had tears in her eyes. And I gave her my book and I said, want you to read this in rehab. It's not an easy read, but it's an important one.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:22.592)
When I came back from that conversation, I realized that there are people walking this earth who have this mentality that my kind of trauma or, you know, extreme trauma is trauma. That because it was their environment, they can't, they didn't see it as trauma. They didn't see it as not normal. And I hear this a lot, especially from people who have had abusive parents.
to either, you know, physically abusive, emotionally abusive. And I had one of those, no narcissistic abuses, probably one of the hardest ones to heal from. And I've gotten that too. So it was just crazy for me to know this, that there are people out there walking around, not knowing that the behaviors that they have, whether it's using drugs, drinking,
whatever it is that is self-sabotaging type behavior stems from trauma that has not been healed.
I want to add to that too, that this might not have been the situation with her, but keeping it quiet for so long, like there are a lot of people who have been through extreme trauma and don't tell anybody and it's so important to get it out because what also comes along with trauma is this feeling of shame and shame can be so devastating and debilitating to you.
And once you actually speak your truth and shine light on that, shame can't live there anymore. Once you put that out in the open, it eliminates that shame. And it's not easy to do to talk about it, but you will feel better afterwards. Just, you know, obviously choose the safe space to do
Speaker 1 (41:14.722)
No, it's not.
Speaker 1 (41:22.252)
Yeah, I mean, it's funny you said shame because that was one of the things that she, she literally had shame in who she was to the point where, and I think a lot of it too was the manipulation from her mom because she felt like she took something from her mother by allowing the boyfriend to do what he was doing. Even though she was three years old when it started, three.
And so as a little girl, not knowing that this was not right, but on the other side, she said that her mom would get jealous of her. knew what was happening and didn't stop it, but she would get jealous that this lady was getting the attention that she wanted. And so there was a lot of shame around that. And that was why I said to her from the very beginning, it was not your fault.
It was their fault. It was not yours because I felt like maybe she hadn't heard that before and maybe I needed to say that to her. A lot of the things that spring out of my mouth, just so you know, I'm just a messenger for a message. So I don't take any credit for this just for the fact that it wasn't just me saying this to her. I just knew that, you know, it was important for her to hear.
what I had to say and understand something. When my mom went through what she went through and my brother went through what he went through, they both took the addiction highway. Like my mom was a drinker and my brother got into drugs, right? I didn't choose that. I chose to hide, which is not healthy either, but I am in no way putting shame on using things like that for coping because we all
We all deal with things differently, right? It's unfortunate just because it hurts you, right? And it hurts the people around you. But I also get it. I get the feeling of wanting to hide. I get the feeling of not wanting to relive stuff and not wanting to, you know, take in and feel it and know that that's your life, right? That's, you know, part of your life.
Speaker 1 (43:49.71)
I get that part. I don't blame my mom for that at all. I don't. I wrote the book. It was scary when I wrote the book because I had to be 100 % authentic.
Yeah.
and 100 % vulnerable. You want to talk about vulnerability.
No, I was going to ask you, how did writing your book play a role in processing your trauma and finding purpose?
my gosh, so much. You know, I didn't write this book until I was 50. Kind of drew a line in the sand and I said, this has to happen. It has to. And I knew in going into writing the book, part of the reason why I wrote the book was because for so many years, people had my life story written in their heads and they had a perception of who I was as a person, which was usually not
Speaker 1 (44:41.464)
person that I was. And so I felt like I needed to finally tell my story. I finally had to show people, you know, that I'm not this broken little bird in the corner, you know, for the rest of my life. And I also knew that there was so much anger and sadness, especially in law enforcement world around my dad's death because of how he died and because my brother was
there that I thought it was important for them to be able to see the healing and to see the resiliency side so that it would give them some peace and knowing that if I can heal from it, they can heal from it as well. But there was fears. There was fears in riding it as well. My mom and I have never had, our relationship has been kind of toxic.
I'll be totally honest with you, even though, I mean, she's a narcissist. So the persona she puts outside of us, everybody thought, you know, we were super close and, you know, it just was not real. And that was unfortunate, right? And so I knew in writing this book that one of two things could happen. It could destroy what was left or it could open a conversation. And I needed to be okay with
whatever the outcome was. I could not marry myself to a particular outcome. The other person, because my husband and I have gone through a lot, that it would hurt our relationship because I do talk about certain things in my book about our situations, what we've gone through. And the third was my safety because two of the men were still in prison and there was always that
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:35.702)
little thing in my head that me putting myself out there again, because it was such an out there kind of situation and you know, case that I was afraid of retaliation. However, when I sat back and I really asked myself, why are you writing this book? My purpose came forward and my purpose is that I wanted my words and my message to help others, to give others hope.
like hope that I didn't have for 14 years, right? I wanted to give people hope. I wanted them to be able to read my book and, you know, and see pieces of themselves in there and know that they can heal from anything. And so that was the purpose of the book. And I had to, I always say I have to bulldoze through that fear because it was the only way the book was going to get done is
I had to move through that fear and just put those faceless people out there in front of me and keep driving towards that goal.
I'm so glad you shared that. We have a little bit of an echo now, but that's okay. We're almost at the end anyway, so it's all right. So I was going to say that I'm so happy that you shared that and I actually completely understand that fear because it was very much the same when I started the podcast. for other people out there, it actually is really helpful to find a meaning.
for your trauma, right? Because it helps you to better integrate it into your life. And when you can give it a meaning and a purpose, it's like, okay, this happened for a reason. It didn't just happen to me. It happened for a reason that like you're talking about taking your power back, like this is something that I can now take and give back and feel good about this. So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:42.066)
Absolutely. I feel like when you get to a point in your healing, it's almost like the next step is to help others. And it doesn't necessarily have to be as crazy as us, like writing a book or having a podcast or anything like that. But if you hear somebody who is struggling with something, you're going to know how to give them a safe space. You're going to know the things that they needed to hear.
they need to hear and in that you're going to be able to help them, right? Mine was just almost like I torpedoed certain feelings in order to understand that this is my true purpose. My message is important for people to hear and whether I'm on a stage, on a podcast or one-on-one in a coaching, it doesn't matter. The reasoning behind my message
is important. And when somebody goes through things, you always feel like you're alone and nobody understands. And honestly, I don't ever say I understand how you're feeling because everybody's experiencing things differently. And so even when someone loses someone, I don't say, I know how you feel because I don't. I didn't have the same relationship with that
person. So I can't say that, you know, same with trauma, say, you know, what everybody's trauma is different, and you can't compare, you know, and so I laugh because when people say, I don't want to trauma dump on you. And I'm like, dump away because
your experience is different than my experience. And if you trauma dump on me, I'm learning something about you or something about your situation that's going to help me, right? Kind of know and navigate you and meet you where you are. yeah, when I hear that word trauma dump, it just kind of makes me giggle because it's like,
Speaker 1 (50:56.416)
I get it. Some people are like, whoa, I don't want your stuff. But someone like myself, someone like you would understand like, okay, I get it. You need to get this off your chest and out of your head, you know, and that, you know, unless someone has gone through something in life and understands that feeling of need to get it off my chest or I, you know, I'm, I'm feeling like I'm
being eaten alive by the situation. So I think it's just important for people to realize that they aren't alone. And even though we have different experiences, we can still support one another.
What words of encouragement would you like to give those feeling stalker scared? You feel like are the most important messages for the listeners to take away from your story, from your experience. What do you think that would be?
I what I said earlier is I understand that it's scary and it's a journey. I always tell people it is a marathon, it is not a sprint. There are days that you have to give yourself grace when you're in your healing. I had to do that a lot with my book. There were days where I was done. I had nothing left and I had to give myself grace and love myself.
do something that gave me joy. So if anything, and this is what I've told people close to me, that struggle is one, you're not alone. Like I said, you're not alone. The journey is not easy, but find somebody professional, hopefully professional, depending on what kind of trauma we're talking about. That is trauma competent. That knows your type of trauma.
Speaker 1 (52:55.296)
and is able to guide you in the way that you need to be guided in your healing. And remember that it is your healing and no one else's healing. And you have every right to interview your therapist to make sure that they have worked with people in your situation. And if they haven't, you have every right to say bye-bye and leave and find someone else. And it may take some time. I was lucky it took me two.
Some people it takes five, right? It takes five. many. Yeah, and it may not happen right away, right? The other thing that you can do is read books. Find books that are helpful, that give you some guidance that way as well. I think education is powerful. So if you can even do that, go to the library and do some research. I think when you've got some education behind you, it does give you your power back.
It does give you something, some confidence. And like I said, when you're healing, it's, it's, there are going to be days where you're just done, cooked, nothing left. And that is okay. You're going to have hills, you're going to have valleys, and that's okay. So on those days where you're not doing all right, it's okay to be not okay, but don't sit in it, right?
Find something that gives yourself joy, that changes your mindset. Browns you. Take time, go for a walk. You know, something physical. Just go out and get fresh air. And I don't care where you are. If you're in an apartment, just like go outside. It's just, you're doing something for you. I think a lot of people who are in healing tend to, like I said, they tend to heal for someone else, right?
grounds you,
Speaker 1 (54:48.45)
They think if they heal for someone else or that's their goal, your goal needs to be you. Your priority needs to be you. And what happens is, just so you know, when you heal yourself, it's a ripple effect. It will affect the people around you. They will see you healing. And in that, they heal.
I love it. So, our rapid-fire questions. To sum up the episode, what would you tell your younger self in one sentence?
girl. You have, I've always said this to myself, like having to talk to my younger self. You got this. You have it inside of you. Everybody does. Find the people to help you. Don't be afraid of letting people in if they're trying to support you in some positive way. Don't push them away. And you know, I know you have feel alone, but you're not alone.
Yes, love it. Okay, what's your go-to hype song when you need a confidence boost?
my gosh, you're going to laugh when I say this. Anything from Rage Against the Machine. No, it's something about their energy. It just, does. It gets me going and you know, and it gives me energy. And so yeah, when I need a lot of energy, I just put on a little rage and there we go.
Speaker 2 (56:20.246)
I love it. Do you have a mantra or affirmation you say to yourself often?
Gosh, I think for me, it's just, I always say find the love in your heart because hate will eat your soul. Yeah, and I live by that because I watched my mom live with hatred in her heart her entire life and it literally did exactly that. It ate her soul, kept her from having a joyous life.
i love that
Speaker 2 (56:48.674)
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:52.096)
Yeah, wow, it makes me think of that analogy that people use where it's like the hatred is like you poisoning yourself. Okay, final question. What does life after trauma mean to you in one word? Okay, it can be more.
Well, you know, I found purpose. I think that was, that's my word is purpose. found purpose.
Awesome! So, Susan, where can our listeners connect more with you? And get your book!
Yeah. Well, my book is on Amazon and it is a paperback form. It is in Kindle form and coming soon it will be in audiobook form. Yay. Working on that currently. And I do have a website which has all three. So it talks about my speaking. It talks about my coaching and it also gives some information about my book. I do put out that
I do a free 40 minute discovery call with people to see if there's some way that I can help them in any kind of way. So if you go onto the website, you can register your information on the website and I will contact you and set up the discovery call.
Speaker 2 (58:12.856)
Perfect. That's awesome. I will have all of that linked in the show notes. So it's easily accessible. Thank you so much again, Susan, for coming on here, for sharing everything, for being vulnerable. This has been great.
Awesome, well thank you so much for having me.
