*WARNING: This podcast mentions suicide, sexual abuse & trauma and may be triggering.
Episode Summary
In Episode 1 of Season 3, Lisa is joined by Natasha J. Layton, the new cohost of The Survivors. And together, they explore their shared experiences with suicide, grief, and childhood trauma and the profound impact of loss.
The niece of Warren Jeffs, incarcerated prophet of the polygamy cult the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), Natasha shares her harrowing story of surviving and being excommunicated from the FLDS, the loss of 5 brothers to suicide, her own multiple suicide attempts, and her ongoing struggle to keep surviving. The conversation highlights the power of community and the ongoing journey of healing.
🎙️ Episode Sponsored by The HelpHUB™
Struggling with your mental health? Feeling lost, overwhelmed, or just alone? Well, you're not. Welcome to The HelpHUB™—your online destination for mental health resources, treatment options, content, and tools to help meet you exactly where you are in the moment. Visit TheHelpHUB.co to get started.
Takeaways
- The podcast aims to discuss heavy topics like grief and suicide without filters.
- Connection is a powerful motivator for sharing stories of survival.
- How Lisa's personal experiences as a 3x survivor of suicide loss shaped her advocacy work.
- Natasha's background in the FLDS polygamy cult adds depth to her survival story.
- Humor can be a coping mechanism for dealing with trauma.
- The impact of losing multiple family members to suicide is profound.
- Community support is essential for healing and survival.
- Sharing stories can help others feel seen and validated.
- Healing is not linear; it can be cyclical and unpredictable.
- Survival often begins with acknowledging one's struggles.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to Season Three
02:26 - Meeting Natasha J. Layton
05:18 - Lisa's Journey of Loss and Advocacy
07:42 - Natasha's Story of Survival
09:55 - Understanding the FLDS Cult
12:11 - The Impact of Trauma and Humor
18:44 - The Ripple Effect of Loss
21:38 - Navigating Grief and Mental Health
23:18 - The Importance of Sharing Stories
27:05 - Final Reflections
Mental Health Resources
- If you or someone you know is struggling, please call 988 for help.
- The Survivors Podcast Website – https://thesurvivors.net/
- The HelpHUB™ – Mental health resources, tools, and support networks – https://www.thehelphub.co/
Follow & Connect With Us
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🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-survivors-podcast
🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSurvivorsPodcastChannel
🎵📱TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thesurvivorspodcast
See you next week! In the meantime, keep surviving.
#TheSurvivorsPodcast #EndTheStigma #MentalHealthMatters #SuicidePrevention #YouAreNotAlone #BreakTheSilence #GriefSupport #988Lifeline #SurvivorStories #MentalHealth #SuicideAwareness #MentalHealthPodcast #Community #Hope #Grief #Stigma #MentalIllness #Support #LisaSugarman #TheHelpHUB #NatashaJLayton #FLDS #WarrenJeffs #SexualAbuse #Abuse #Trauma #ChildhoodTrauma #Depression #SuicideLoss #SuicideAttempt #Cults
00:00:01 --> 00:00:05 Hey, friends. Before we dive into this week's episode, just a heads up.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:09 Our podcast talks about suicide, sexual abuse, and other trauma,
00:00:09 --> 00:00:13 and some of what you hear may be triggering. So please listen with care.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:19 This is The Survivors. Real stories, raw conversations, and the truth about
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 what it means to keep going after the hardest things.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 We're so glad you're here. Let's keep surviving together.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:32 Welcome, friends, to The Survivors, Season 3.
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 Can't even believe I'm saying Season 3. I'm Lisa Sugarman.
00:00:35 --> 00:00:40 For those of you who are brand new, if you've been part of The Survivors community
00:00:40 --> 00:00:45 for a while, you know the show has always been about telling the truth about the heavy,
00:00:45 --> 00:00:49 hard stuff like grief and suicide and all different kinds of survival without
00:00:49 --> 00:00:54 any filters and without pretending that we're okay when we're not okay.
00:00:54 --> 00:00:59 So this podcast was born earlier this year from an awful lot of pain.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:05 But it's always really been powered by connection. That's the most important thing to me.
00:01:05 --> 00:01:09 And this season, we're making a very, very big shift.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:13 You can see if you're watching the video, I am joined by somebody very different.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 And I'm excited. I'm so excited about the season ahead. We're going deeper.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 We're going way deeper. We're going wider.
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 And we're opening the door in the
00:01:22 --> 00:01:26 conversation to have dialogues that most people just don't want to have.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:30 So this season, I'm joined by somebody new, somebody amazing,
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 somebody who I cannot wait one more second for you to meet.
00:01:33 --> 00:01:39 So I want to officially introduce my new co-host and somebody I consider to
00:01:39 --> 00:01:46 be now a great friend and the ultimate survivor in my eyes, Natasha J. Layton.
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 Natasha, meet everybody.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 Hi, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 So natasha's story is is
00:01:55 --> 00:01:59 a gritty one it's layered layered and
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 layered i think it's more complex than most survivor stories
00:02:02 --> 00:02:07 that i've ever heard myself and the minute that we were introduced i knew that
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 there was something there i knew we had a connection and we've definitely had
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 a lot of similar experiences and we've had a lot of different experiences but
00:02:13 --> 00:02:17 that same fire i think in our bellies to just break the silence and to start
00:02:17 --> 00:02:21 talking about real survival so this is not just a new season.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:25 This is a whole new era of the survivors.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 Natasha, I just want to start right here. Just want to jump right in headfirst
00:02:28 --> 00:02:33 about how we found each other, because it was kind of more or less a random experience.
00:02:34 --> 00:02:38 Introduction, wouldn't you say? Absolutely. Totally. It was,
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 I don't know if I believe, fate, the universe, just the stars aligned.
00:02:42 --> 00:02:46 Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely not like we were out there looking for each other.
00:02:46 --> 00:02:50 It was more like people who had similar experiences were just kind of put together
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 by someone mutual to both of us.
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 And when I, I'll never forget when I first heard your story,
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 and I have to admit this, and I don't even know if I've ever admitted this to you.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:02 When I heard your story, I didn't even hear all of it.
00:03:02 --> 00:03:07 I heard one part that really related to suicide attempts and suicide survival.
00:03:07 --> 00:03:11 I didn't hear anything else. And just from what I heard, to me,
00:03:11 --> 00:03:15 it felt like the most dramatic survivor story I had ever heard.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:20 Then I was introduced to you formally by this mutual acquaintance you and I have.
00:03:20 --> 00:03:23 His name is Joe Massa. He is the host of my suicide story.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 And I remember thinking, oh, my God, that is a survivor. This is someone who
00:03:27 --> 00:03:32 speaks the language and not like the clinical language, the language of lived experience.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:36 So before we before we go any further, I just I feel like the best place to
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 jump in is for me to ask you a question.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:43 OK, so take us back to our first conversation. I remember it was like an hour
00:03:43 --> 00:03:44 and a half you and I were on the phone.
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 Yeah. Did you feel the click the same way that I did?
00:03:49 --> 00:03:53 100% yes. I mean, I just I right from the get go.
00:03:53 --> 00:03:59 I mean, I just felt like, wow, I can totally open up to this person. There's no judgment.
00:04:00 --> 00:04:04 And I literally just laid it all out there. And you just listened.
00:04:04 --> 00:04:08 And it was incredible. I felt so safe talking to you.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:12 And I think that's just something that you uniquely bring to a conversation
00:04:12 --> 00:04:16 as you are such a calm and sincere person.
00:04:17 --> 00:04:21 And you it's I can tell. You've worked for the Trevor Project and all the things.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:27 You've been doing this a long time, and it's incredible to be able to work with
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 somebody that has such an amazing heart.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 I appreciate that. I really appreciate that. And you know what?
00:04:33 --> 00:04:37 I could say the same thing about you because that was exactly how I felt when you and I talked.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:45 It was just this instant moment of kind of finding each other and seeing each other.
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 I think for me that was what it was. it was like, oh my God,
00:04:47 --> 00:04:51 so much of your story was like, that's me and you get it and you understand.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:58 And that's so much a part of what we do on this podcast is create that bond
00:04:58 --> 00:05:04 and expose that bond and create a place for people to come and bond over all
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 of these things that we share.
00:05:06 --> 00:05:10 So I want to take a second, just a second before we dive into your story,
00:05:10 --> 00:05:11 which is such a powerful one.
00:05:11 --> 00:05:18 I want to just kind of ground into this moment and talk about why this podcast even exists.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:22 For people who have been around since the beginning, I appreciate you being
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 here now up to season three, so you know my story.
00:05:25 --> 00:05:29 But there are going to be people who are joining us who have never heard either of our stories before.
00:05:29 --> 00:05:34 So I myself am a three-time survivor of suicide loss. I started.
00:05:34 --> 00:05:38 That experience, that relationship with loss and grief and suicide,
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 when I was nine years old, I lost my cousin to suicide.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:45 A year later, when I was 10 years old, my father passed away very,
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 very suddenly, and I was told it was a heart attack.
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 And for 35 years of my life, I lived with that narrative that it was a heart
00:05:51 --> 00:05:56 attack until I found out when I was 45 years old that my father had actually died by suicide.
00:05:56 --> 00:06:00 And then only just four years ago, my husband and I lost one of our closest
00:06:00 --> 00:06:04 childhood friends to suicide. Also, again, super unexpected,
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 never saw the signs, didn't know anything was wrong.
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 So that just changed the course of my life.
00:06:10 --> 00:06:14 Those three losses in particular, the loss of my dad, just completely shifted
00:06:14 --> 00:06:18 my gears into a different space. I became a mental health advocate.
00:06:18 --> 00:06:22 You mentioned I work with the Trevor Project. I'm one of their lifeline counselors.
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 I am on the board of Samaritans.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 I moderate one of their grief groups for suicide loss survivors.
00:06:27 --> 00:06:33 Everything I do revolving around content creation, books and columns and work
00:06:33 --> 00:06:37 that I do online revolves around mental health advocacy and sharing my story.
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 And I founded the Help Hub.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 It's a resource platform that puts people in touch with resources.
00:06:42 --> 00:06:48 And so that's that's the two minute version of my story and kind of where I come at all of this from.
00:06:49 --> 00:06:54 And I just I needed a place to put everything that I was feeling.
00:06:54 --> 00:06:58 And someone to talk to in a place where I knew people would understand.
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 So that's the genesis of this podcast.
00:07:01 --> 00:07:05 And I started it with someone else, another survivor, Gretchen Schozer,
00:07:05 --> 00:07:11 who had had her own experiences with ideation and had her own attempt story.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:16 And so we've brought it to this point. And now, Natasha, you're here.
00:07:16 --> 00:07:21 And I want to just go deep. And I know next episode, episode two,
00:07:21 --> 00:07:26 we're going to be really diving into your story. But I want to ask you now the
00:07:26 --> 00:07:27 question to kind of start it all off.
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 If somebody asked you directly, what have you survived?
00:07:31 --> 00:07:36 And you only could answer with, you know, a couple of short thoughts.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 How would you answer that about everything that you've been through?
00:07:39 --> 00:07:47 Okay. Survivor of the FLDS cult. I was raised in that, actually born of that family, Warren Jeffs.
00:07:47 --> 00:07:52 He's my uncle. I've lost five brothers to suicide, three of which have been
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 just in the last two and a half years.
00:07:55 --> 00:08:01 Also lost my dad to cancer. I have attempted suicide three times in the early 2000s.
00:08:02 --> 00:08:07 It's an absolute miracle that I am still alive. There's no medical reason that
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 I should still be here, to be perfectly honest.
00:08:10 --> 00:08:15 Now, I did get really close again in 2023.
00:08:16 --> 00:08:19 Was really close, writing letters, preparing.
00:08:20 --> 00:08:25 Surviving a lifetime of depression. I've kept journals since I was a child,
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 and that deep darkness of depression is there.
00:08:28 --> 00:08:32 And I believe that stems from being sexually abused by my older brother when
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 I was between the ages of three and four years old.
00:08:35 --> 00:08:39 So that's really where a lot of it stems from.
00:08:39 --> 00:08:44 And ultimately, being left to take care of that on my own,
00:08:44 --> 00:08:49 because I started having flashbacks at 14, and when I told my parents about it at 15,
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 nothing was ever done about it and I was
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 left to deal with that pain on my own and I
00:08:54 --> 00:08:58 think that shaped me a lot as a human is not
00:08:58 --> 00:09:04 having any support in learning to navigate those kinds of things until several
00:09:04 --> 00:09:08 years later when there was an organization formed to help people that were leaving
00:09:08 --> 00:09:16 the FLDS cult and a psychologist actually opened up his practice to start seeing people from the FLDS.
00:09:16 --> 00:09:21 And so I was able to get therapy for free. And he was absolutely amazing.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 The fact that he was there and he was willing to do that is amazing.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 And you know what, I just want to clarify for people who may be listening to
00:09:27 --> 00:09:31 us who understand what polygamy cults may be.
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 Maybe they don't understand what the FLDS stands for. Maybe they do.
00:09:34 --> 00:09:40 Maybe they don't. Can you just very quickly kind of give us the full true name
00:09:40 --> 00:09:45 of the FLDS and explain what a polygamy cult really is for people who might not know. Okay.
00:09:46 --> 00:09:53 So fundamentalist Latter-day Saints is what it is. It's a break off of the mainstream Mormon church.
00:09:54 --> 00:10:00 Polygamy started in the mid-1800s when Joseph Smith decided that he wanted to
00:10:00 --> 00:10:04 start his own church, and part of that was that people should have multiple
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 wives in order to get to the highest level of heaven.
00:10:07 --> 00:10:13 And when Utah wanted to become a state, the federal government said,
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 sorry, you can't have multiple wives, that's not legal.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:21 So in order to become a state, they had to basically outlaw polygamy.
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 And many people still believed that in order to get to that highest level of
00:10:25 --> 00:10:29 heaven, you had to live plural marriage in this realm.
00:10:29 --> 00:10:35 And so there was a breakaway, and those that still believed left and started their own church.
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 And there was their own prophets and things like that.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:45 And then I believe it was in the 70s, there was a breakaway with the council,
00:10:45 --> 00:10:51 there was some different beliefs in who should be the next prophet as the current
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 one was getting of old age and things like that.
00:10:53 --> 00:10:57 And my grandfather, his name's Rulon Jeffs. He's my dad's father.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:04 He basically believed he should be the next prophet and others believed that he shouldn't.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:09 And so there was a big, massive split and that actually affected my family pretty
00:11:09 --> 00:11:14 deeply because my grandfather on my mother's side, So my mom's dad,
00:11:14 --> 00:11:18 he left and went with the other group called, they call themselves The Work,
00:11:18 --> 00:11:22 and Ward 1, which is now my grandfather, Roland Jeff's church.
00:11:23 --> 00:11:28 So there was a split with my parents as I was raised in a household with three
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 mothers, Susan, Sherry, Martha.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:37 That was the order in which they were married to my dad, Ward Jeff's. And so it's kind of...
00:11:37 --> 00:11:41 For me, it's every day, but there's so many people that don't know about this.
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 Yeah, that's why I thought even just, I know you're going to go much,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:51 much deeper in next week's episode about the trauma and about the background
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 and the history and about Warren,
00:11:54 --> 00:12:00 who was one of the FBI's top most wanted criminals for a number of years and
00:12:00 --> 00:12:07 is serving I don't know how many life sentences right now for abusing minors. And this was your life.
00:12:07 --> 00:12:14 Like you lived in this community. You sat in front of him every week listening to him preach, right?
00:12:14 --> 00:12:18 Every day. Morning. It was called morning class. It was an hour the first day of school.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:24 And we had to sit there and listen to him preach. And then, you know,
00:12:24 --> 00:12:29 whoever he called to testify or not testify, bear testimony.
00:12:30 --> 00:12:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:37 I'm really glad that you can laugh about this. And I just want to give a disclaimer
00:12:37 --> 00:12:41 about the laughter that people are going to hear. Like, we're talking about heavy stuff.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:45 We're talking about heavy, hard, insanely traumatic stuff.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:50 And you and I have talked so much about this offline that you've said that openly
00:12:50 --> 00:12:55 that one of the biggest coping mechanisms that you have and some of your siblings have is like,
00:12:55 --> 00:12:59 if we couldn't laugh about the things that we've gone through because they're
00:12:59 --> 00:13:03 so awful, we would not be here anymore. Is that right? That's fair? Absolutely.
00:13:04 --> 00:13:08 Absolutely. And some of us, there's a few of us that go a little bit extreme
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 with our humor because it is so off the cuff.
00:13:10 --> 00:13:15 And some of our other siblings are like, dude, that's a little much.
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 And it's how we survive. It really is.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:22 There's no other way to get through what we have been through and not have a
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 little humor because if we didn't.
00:13:24 --> 00:13:28 We would be six feet under yeah no i get it to
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 commit suicide really like wow we're
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 all none of us are immune we are all susceptible
00:13:34 --> 00:13:38 to that multiple psychologists have
00:13:38 --> 00:13:42 told us like you guys all have to keep an eye on each other because even after
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 the third one we were they're like all right it's already proven this is a ripple
00:13:45 --> 00:13:51 effect and then we've had two more so to my knowledge there is no other family
00:13:51 --> 00:13:57 in this world that has lost five siblings in the same generation.
00:13:57 --> 00:14:01 I know Ernest Hemingway's family, but that's all spread over the course of four
00:14:01 --> 00:14:05 generations, not five within the same generation.
00:14:05 --> 00:14:09 Absolutely unheard of. I mean, that was one of the things that was the first
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 thing about you that I learned when I learned about you.
00:14:12 --> 00:14:16 And that in and of itself just completely floored me.
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 I had never encountered anything like that, not as a crisis counselor,
00:14:19 --> 00:14:24 not as an advocate, not as someone who is affiliated and attached to so many
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 of these mental health organizations and suicide prevention organizations.
00:14:28 --> 00:14:32 Like, I have never heard of anyone losing that many siblings.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:36 And for people who also may not know, I know you mentioned that you lived in
00:14:36 --> 00:14:42 a home where there were three mothers because of the polygamy background that you came from.
00:14:43 --> 00:14:48 You were one of 20. One of 20, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Susan had 11.
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 My mom had six, and then the third wife had three.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:56 And actually, that's a small family. Believe it or not, that's a small family.
00:14:56 --> 00:15:01 Most families that have three wives, they have 30 to 50 children.
00:15:02 --> 00:15:07 Yeah, I know more than I wish I knew about the FLDS.
00:15:08 --> 00:15:14 And I know just because I've always been just so fascinated by...
00:15:16 --> 00:15:22 How many different kinds of communities and lifestyles there are living among
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 us. I just, I find the whole thing fascinating.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:28 And then when you and I met and you mentioned how many siblings you had,
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 and I was like, well, how does that work?
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 And then, of course, you immediately told me about the FLDS.
00:15:33 --> 00:15:34 And I thought, oh my God, of course I know how it works now.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:44 So all of this is to say that you have survived more trauma than any human I
00:15:44 --> 00:15:48 personally have ever known. And I think that most people listening will have ever encountered.
00:15:48 --> 00:15:52 And you're sitting here. And it brings tears to my eyes that you're actually
00:15:52 --> 00:15:58 sitting here with me co-hosting a show about survival.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:03 And that right there tells me that you and I are exactly in the place,
00:16:04 --> 00:16:08 doing exactly the thing that we were meant to do.
00:16:08 --> 00:16:12 And I feel so amazingly grateful for that. And I just want to say,
00:16:12 --> 00:16:16 and I'm sure I'll say it a thousand times in the upcoming episodes and seasons,
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 I'm just so grateful you're here.
00:16:19 --> 00:16:25 I'm so grateful that you had whatever kind of strength is inside you to keep
00:16:25 --> 00:16:30 going forward and that you have the ability to be vulnerable and to share.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 Because what you're doing here, what you and I are doing,
00:16:33 --> 00:16:40 but what you're doing here is helping someone who may be in some of the same
00:16:40 --> 00:16:46 kinds of situations that you were in find the strength or find the permission to get help.
00:16:47 --> 00:16:51 Looking for mental health resources that actually suit your unique needs and
00:16:51 --> 00:16:52 the community you come from?
00:16:53 --> 00:16:57 Then you need to check out the Help Hub, the most inclusive free online platform
00:16:57 --> 00:17:01 filled with the mental health resources, tools, treatment options,
00:17:01 --> 00:17:05 and trauma-informed content to help you navigate whatever mental health challenge
00:17:05 --> 00:17:06 you're facing in the moment.
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 Whether you're managing stress, anxiety and depression,
00:17:10 --> 00:17:15 abuse, grief, suicide loss, or surviving trauma, the Help Hub gives you a place
00:17:15 --> 00:17:21 to land, explore, and find exactly the help you need when you need it most without
00:17:21 --> 00:17:22 having to start from scratch.
00:17:23 --> 00:17:27 Visit thehelphub.co where the help you need is just a click away.
00:17:33 --> 00:17:39 What you're doing is so unbelievably powerful, and I feel so grateful that I get to do it with you.
00:17:40 --> 00:17:44 Thank you. I really appreciate that, and I feel incredibly honored and blessed.
00:17:44 --> 00:17:48 And again, it just goes back to things we're just meant to be,
00:17:48 --> 00:17:52 and I have to be so grateful to Joe to introducing us.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:56 And I mean, right after, I think it was after we recorded, I recorded my episode
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 with him, which he just barely dropped on YouTube.
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 And he's like you've got to meet this this lady lisa
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 that i've gotten to know she's absolutely amazing and
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 so i just i'm so grateful that i
00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 just wasn't sure where to go with all of this and what
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 actually got me started and i didn't even think of myself as a
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 mental health advocate until you said it recently and
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 i well i guess i am so just a quick
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 overview so my first brother to commit suicide
00:18:23 --> 00:18:27 was was clean that was in 2002 and
00:18:27 --> 00:18:32 then there was david in 2005 and we weren't 100 sure that he was a suicide because
00:18:32 --> 00:18:38 it was a heart failure secondary to overdose but looking back and having conversations
00:18:38 --> 00:18:42 with other siblings that were incredibly close with him we believe it was a
00:18:42 --> 00:18:46 suicide obviously with the family history now and then there was Corey.
00:18:46 --> 00:18:48 So we had a nice 18-year gap there.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:54 And then all of a sudden, November of 2022, our youngest brother,
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 Corey, and that floored us all.
00:18:56 --> 00:19:02 I mean, talk about just getting the rug pulled out from under you. It floored us all.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:08 And then six weeks later, my maternal grandfather passed away of old age, 97.
00:19:08 --> 00:19:12 It's a totally different story when somebody passes away They have old age in their own way.
00:19:13 --> 00:19:16 And then two weeks later, my dad died of cancer.
00:19:17 --> 00:19:22 And then I think it was about 10 weeks later, the fourth one,
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 Brandon, committed suicide.
00:19:24 --> 00:19:30 And four of the five that have committed suicide have all been with self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:37 We actually didn't even get to see Brandon at all, which I think made it harder
00:19:37 --> 00:19:43 for a lot of us, especially me, to grieve his loss, because we didn't get to see the body.
00:19:43 --> 00:19:48 Because when your brain sees the body, it makes that connection that they're gone.
00:19:48 --> 00:19:52 It's incredibly, incredibly important. And so I think for me,
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 Brandon's was the hardest because I didn't get to make that connection.
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 And also having four deaths
00:19:58 --> 00:20:02 in five months was just unbearable literally
00:20:02 --> 00:20:09 your brain has to just shut down it does it absolutely does and it's it was
00:20:09 --> 00:20:13 just more than i could bear and i didn't know what else to do and so i got on
00:20:13 --> 00:20:20 tiktok and i posted this what i felt at the time was a super gross crying video
00:20:20 --> 00:20:21 because I didn't know what else to do.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:28 I posted it, went about my day, and I got on the next day because I was going to delete it.
00:20:28 --> 00:20:34 I just felt so gross about it, and I could not believe the comments that rolled in.
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 They were so kind and so supportive, but the one that stood out the most to
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 me was a young girl on there.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:46 She said, I've been thinking about it for months, but after seeing this video, I don't know now.
00:20:47 --> 00:20:51 Meaning about taking her own life? Okay. Yeah, absolutely.
00:20:51 --> 00:20:55 And so after reading that, I was like, okay, I can do this.
00:20:55 --> 00:21:00 If all I can do is save this one girl's life, that's enough for me. Yeah.
00:21:00 --> 00:21:03 And so I continued to get on there and post as I could.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:09 It was raw. It was emotional. One video I got on there and talked about how
00:21:09 --> 00:21:15 I hadn't showered or brush my teeth in five days because I was so deep in grief,
00:21:15 --> 00:21:20 and now the thoughts of ending my own life were starting to creep back in because
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 I was so deep in grief, I just didn't know what to do.
00:21:24 --> 00:21:27 And that's the reality. That's the reality of it.
00:21:27 --> 00:21:31 And that's the reality of it when anyone loses anyone, let alone when one person
00:21:31 --> 00:21:38 or one family loses that many people in your family in such quick succession.
00:21:38 --> 00:21:42 I mean, that just would put anybody into a complete tailspin.
00:21:43 --> 00:21:50 Yeah. I actually wanted to get into like a grief group and I met with,
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 got in touch with the lady. She's the founder. It's huge.
00:21:54 --> 00:21:58 In Utah, where I was living at the time. And as I was speaking to her,
00:21:58 --> 00:22:02 it was about two months after Brandon died. And she's like, and you're up and functioning?
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 And I'm like, yeah, I mean, what else is there to do?
00:22:05 --> 00:22:12 And she said, most people that lose one person don't actively function in life for at least a year.
00:22:12 --> 00:22:16 So the fact that you've just buried four immediate family members and you're
00:22:16 --> 00:22:19 up and functioning says a lot about you.
00:22:19 --> 00:22:23 It's the weirdest thing. When you grow up with just trauma and in survival mode
00:22:23 --> 00:22:30 there's just no other way of you just do it and you just learn to well that's
00:22:30 --> 00:22:35 life just truck along well that trauma response would i imagine would become
00:22:35 --> 00:22:38 your baseline the way that you function that's your baseline.
00:22:39 --> 00:22:45 So, look, you know, I can't wait until next week's episode to really just unpack
00:22:45 --> 00:22:49 all of this in a much more organized way.
00:22:49 --> 00:22:55 But what I really hope that everyone who's listening understands before we close
00:22:55 --> 00:23:00 this episode is that we are not doing polished trauma over here.
00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 We're not sugarcoating anything.
00:23:03 --> 00:23:07 We're not packaging it up to look pretty so that it's easy to digest.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:12 We're talking about sexual abuse. We're going to be talking about domestic abuse.
00:23:12 --> 00:23:16 We're going to be talking about suicide loss and attempts and trauma,
00:23:16 --> 00:23:22 religious trauma, cults, surviving all of this traumatic experience.
00:23:22 --> 00:23:26 And we're doing it by telling the whole truth.
00:23:26 --> 00:23:30 That is what I know I'm committed to doing that.
00:23:30 --> 00:23:34 I know, Natasha, you and I have talked a lot about this. We share the same commitment
00:23:34 --> 00:23:42 about doing this in a way that people can understand, people can connect with, and that's what we want.
00:23:42 --> 00:23:46 It's for people to find a point of connection, some part of your story or some
00:23:46 --> 00:23:50 part of my story or something that we've said or done that's helped us move
00:23:50 --> 00:23:54 forward and keep surviving. That's the whole point.
00:23:54 --> 00:24:01 So as we wrap up what will be the first of, I hope, many, many,
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 many conversations like this.
00:24:03 --> 00:24:08 I hope people will take from this first episode together a few things.
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 We like to always leave people with a few thoughts.
00:24:12 --> 00:24:19 Number one is that you do not have to be fully healed from whatever trauma you're
00:24:19 --> 00:24:22 dealing with to start talking. Would you agree?
00:24:22 --> 00:24:27 I always used to think that healing was, I'm going to be healed and then I'll be okay.
00:24:27 --> 00:24:33 But as I so clearly learned as the fifth brother took his life in March of 2025,
00:24:34 --> 00:24:38 right back to the beginning, life just continues to life and you think you're
00:24:38 --> 00:24:41 healed and you're doing great. And then it's like, bam. Yep. Nope.
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 Yep. Because grief is cyclical. It just keeps going around.
00:24:45 --> 00:24:49 You can have a grief attack after your person has been gone five months,
00:24:49 --> 00:24:52 five weeks, five days, five years. It doesn't make a difference.
00:24:52 --> 00:24:55 It's always kind of circling around us.
00:24:56 --> 00:24:59 Mm-hmm. So the second thing is that.
00:25:00 --> 00:25:05 Your story, I don't mean yours, I don't mean mine, I mean anyone's story of
00:25:05 --> 00:25:10 trauma is not too big for this space right here.
00:25:10 --> 00:25:15 And it's not too big in general. Whatever it is that someone is dealing with,
00:25:15 --> 00:25:21 if it's big to you, if it's keeping you paralyzed, if it's affecting your mental
00:25:21 --> 00:25:24 health, we want you to share it.
00:25:24 --> 00:25:28 We want you to reach out to us. We want to know what it is that you're struggling
00:25:28 --> 00:25:30 with so that maybe if it's something that we've struggled with,
00:25:30 --> 00:25:35 too, we can help because that's the point we're trying to build a community here.
00:25:36 --> 00:25:41 And the last thing is, or at least the last thing that I would want to take
00:25:41 --> 00:25:44 away, is that sometimes, and
00:25:44 --> 00:25:49 this is sometimes, survival starts the second somebody says, I see you.
00:25:49 --> 00:25:53 As soon as someone says, I see you, I see you're struggling,
00:25:54 --> 00:25:59 I see this is hard, I see that you're affected by this, I see that this is painful for you,
00:25:59 --> 00:26:06 that's oftentimes where so many people start that journey of healing because
00:26:06 --> 00:26:10 now all of a sudden what they're feeling is valid. is valid.
00:26:11 --> 00:26:19 So, Natasha, next week, we're going to start with your story in whatever way
00:26:19 --> 00:26:21 you feel like you want to share it.
00:26:21 --> 00:26:25 And to everybody who's listening, get ready. Be prepared.
00:26:25 --> 00:26:30 It's coming straight from the heart. It's very raw, and it's real, and it matters.
00:26:31 --> 00:26:36 And until then, keep surviving, friends. We'll see you next week. Have a beautiful day.
00:26:39 --> 00:26:42 Thanks so much for listening and for being part of the Survivors community.
00:26:43 --> 00:26:47 No matter where you are in your story, you're not alone and you're definitely not broken.
00:26:48 --> 00:26:52 Healing takes time and it looks different for everyone. The fact that you're
00:26:52 --> 00:26:56 still here and still trying means you're already doing the hard work.
00:26:56 --> 00:27:00 If something in today's conversation resonated with you, please share it with
00:27:00 --> 00:27:02 someone who might need to hear it too.
00:27:02 --> 00:27:07 That's how we keep these conversations going and remind each other that there's always hope.
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10 And if you or someone you know is struggling, please remember,
00:27:11 --> 00:27:12 help is always out there.
00:27:12 --> 00:27:17 You can call or text 988 anytime to reach a trained crisis counselor like me.
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 And for more mental health resources, tools, treatment options,
00:27:20 --> 00:27:24 and content to support your mental health, visit thehelphub.co.
00:27:24 --> 00:27:28 We're so grateful you're part of the Survivors family, and we'll be back next
00:27:28 --> 00:27:32 week with another honest conversation about life after the hardest things.
00:27:32 --> 00:27:38 Until then, take care of yourself and your people and keep surviving. Bye.