Dana’s Story-Overcoming Childhood Abuse-Part 1

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Deb (6s):
Welcome to spirited straight talk the ultimate podcast for anyone who is ready to live a life with intention and help from spirit. I am your host, Deb shepherd, spiritual teacher, medium and author hoping you open up to the whole enchilada or like, we like to say this soul enchilada so you can truly make your soul rise. So let’s go! Welcome everybody to spirited straight talk. Once again, I’m here with my partner, Dana, and we talked about this in the very beginning that we wanted to have you share your story with our audience because you began sharing it in some of our workshops.

Deb (48s):
Just to kind of give people an understanding how things work as we’re teaching or especially our souls contracts classes. I know when Dana and I first met, she had come to see me because she brought her a staff of her employees from a business she’d owned and had followed me for a long time. I guess one of my students Josephine had given you my information after your grandma passed.

Dana (1m 15s):
Yeah. And I think that was about when you took a break because you were very overwhelmed and you were having seizures at the time. So I didn’t see you for a little while, but all of a sudden an event popped up and I thought, you think you have all these stalkers. I’m just kidding. But yeah, I just saw this event and pop up and thought, Oh, I recognized your name from your time on radio and from Josephine sharing about you. I thought that would be really fun. So I took a group of six girls to you at your little event.

Dana (1m 58s):
Yeah. And had a great time. And of course thought, Oh, that would be really cool to have you come and, and do a private event for us. And then also after that, we talked about you teaching them doing a little workshop about energy, which was really fun.

Deb (2m 21s):
I never do exchanges, but we exchange some of our work, which was enjoyable. I just kept getting so comfortable and attracted, which I didn’t realize to Dana’s soul and the rest is sort of history. I told her things for my own, my own desires, ajenda, that’s a great way to say it. As you get to know somebody, you start sharing your little history of your life and we would share, and Dana started sharing a few things with me, but didn’t really go deep. She was, I’m going to say kind of protected.

Dana (3m 1s):
Yeah, for sure.

Deb (3m 2s):
What are the questions I think is always important is why didn’t you share all of it then? I mean what happened in the past that you thought I can only share this amount?

Dana (3m 11s):
Well, first of all, this, this story is a bit crazy. If you’ve ever read the book, a child called it. When I read that book and, as an adult, I came across it one day in a target store and I picked it up and I started reading it. I, I bought the entire set, which is of three books. And I sat in the car. I was, you know, a sales rep at the time. So I was out and about, and I sat in the car and I read the book. In about an hour speed reading, of course the authors, Dave Pelzer.

Deb (3m 51s):
Yeah. I think he’s a speaker as well these days,

Dana (3m 54s):
But that book is a bit similar to my story. There are differences, but it’s, it was crazy. It was a tough, a tough childhood. Of course, when you have a tough childhood, it comes forward with you. And so there’s lots of things you have to work through. And I think one of the biggest reasons I didn’t share it all was because of judgment and experiences. When I would share it experiences that I had with people judging me and then using the story against me in a way in particular, my last relationship was one that was very hurtful.

Dana (4m 39s):
And I was told your parents didn’t even love you. So how can I love you? You know? So things like that, experiences like that really taught me throughout my life to shut it down and, and not talk about it. But in addition, I didn’t want my story to be my identity. Right. It was just my childhood. I didn’t want people to look at me and see that. I didn’t want them to see what happened to me versus who I am. It’s shame. Ton of shame. Yeah. I mean, there, there were things that not only I had to do to survive that brought shame, but also things that happened to me that brought shame.

Dana (5m 21s):
And I know lots of people go through this. This is not an unusual story in the sense that lots of people go through these experiences. But I, this was my story. And I decided to draw a line of not sharing it because it was just too hurtful. It’s like, it takes your power away it, yeah. And on the flip side, when I would share it, it was so emotional. I would immediately begin to shake because I couldn’t get it out. I could never, I could never express it just in tiny bits and pieces. I couldn’t sit, talk about my story because it was way too emotional.

Dana (6m 1s):
So even now talking about it, I can feel my insights kind of shaky a little bit, but I’ve gotten stronger about being able to share it without, or being able to share it, knowing that I’m not going to have to deal with the judgment part of it.

Deb (6m 17s):
And we’re not gonna use it against you later. Right. And when Dana has shared pieces of her story at some of our workshops, everyone is so grateful for her being brave and being transparent and giving them the ability to feel like they can share without judgment and what I’ve. Well, I think I’m good at is holding that energy and space for people to share, without me judging, even the people that did it, you know, the accusers or the people that were the perpetrators, because that’s not my journey or my purpose. And so over time as Dana realized that she could trust this process and got the ability to say, don’t have pity for me or whatever word you’ve, you’ve created to be able to let people know how to respond.

Deb (7m 2s):
Because when someone hears a sad story, we want to do something to help you heal. And that’s not what you’re looking for.

Dana (7m 8s):
Mm. Yeah. That’s the last thing I want is somebody to look at me and have pity for me. Right. You know, I’m learning over time, over the last five years, I’m learning that there’s more power in my story than I thought. And I’m learning that by sharing and allowing people to see given them a glimpse into how I’ve handled it can help them. Correct. And that’s the only reason for sharing

Deb (7m 35s):
Things we start at is, well, when you were born parents, your biological parents, you want to share that. Yeah.

Dana (7m 41s):
So my biological parents were very, very young. They were 15 and 16. I know that my father was left alone a lot at the time. And he got into trouble and, and they had me, they chose to have me and my grandparents on my dad’s side. They were living with them at the time. And I think everything was fine for my first year. They, they just were figuring it out. My parents lived with my grandparents and I was very spoiled, very well taken care of.

Dana (8m 24s):
My mom was there at the time, but she ended up leaving and going on a hitchhiking journey with another man. This man happened to be my dad’s cousin. So she was kind of forced out and my grandparents wouldn’t let her take me on the road. Thank goodness. Right. Thank goodness. On, on lots of different levels.

Deb (8m 53s):
But what happened?

Dana (8m 55s):
My father of course, was very young and still in school and trying to get his life together. He allowed my grandparents, his mom and dad to have custody of me. I know there was a big battle about that, which grandparents were going to get custody of me. It came down to the judge was not going to move me out from one grandparent’s household to another. So he left me where I went and I was safe. Yeah. So my grandma and grandpa essentially became my mom and dad. They had me till I was four. My mom was gone from the picture. I think at that point, I don’t remember her ever.

Dana (9m 37s):
I do have memories of that time. I know that my father came to visit. Occasionally. I remember him teaching me how to crawl backwards downstairs. And you know, there’s a few little spotty memories I have, but it was all of my grandma grandpa. And of course my aunts and uncles were involved as well and present, but my father, Billy wasn’t and my mother wasn’t at all. So they had custody of me. Life was going on along great. He met a woman who was going to convinced him somehow that they needed custody of me, that he should be raising his own daughter. I was very spoiled.

Dana (10m 18s):
I was a brat, all of this stuff. They were there, their perception. They were convinced that they needed custody of me. And I was probably pretty bratty. I hear stories of when I was a child and I was a very strong-willed child. I was very bossy,

Deb (10m 40s):
Which kept you going though, that really was a good tool to have.

Dana (10m 43s):
I guess at the time, you know, my grandparents really didn’t shut that down at me. They allowed me to be strong-willed, which probably played into my, my strength to get through what was coming. So anyway, I was four years old, they went through a court battle. My grandparents and my aunts, aunts, and uncles fought to keep me where I was from what I understand. But the judge gave custody to Russell, my father now. And I remember the night they took me away. I was four years old and my grandma was crying.

Dana (11m 27s):
And I was like, why are you crying? And she said, well, you have a new mommy now. I think that there’s a few things that led up to them finally taking me, like they would take me on day excursions and stuff to build a relationship, I think was their purpose. So I remember those, but they came one night and my grandma was forcing my shoes on my feet and had to hand me over. I was screaming and crying and throwing the biggest fit. I remember this, I got in the car and we stopped at a store and I was used to going with them. So I don’t think that was unusual, but what was happening? I knew it was unusual.

Dana (12m 7s):
And I think we probably would stop prior to this and my dad would get candy or whatever. Here I am four years old and he went into a store and I asked my step-mom if he was going to get me candy and I’m still crying and she turned and she said, you don’t deserve anything. I sat back and I remember thinking, this is not, this is bad. You know, I was bad and this is bad. I remember thinking that at the time as a four year old, and that began my journey with what happened.

Deb (12m 42s):
That’s what I remember the first little while was okay.

Dana (12m 46s):
The first two years? Yeah, the first two years. I remember things that were tough. Like I think at four I’m. I remember kindness during those two years as well though. So I know there were some good times during those first two years, but then my sister was born and when she was born, I remember things dramatically changing. My dad worked nights and stepmother worked days. I remember that I would be there sometimes during the day. I would be taking care of my sister as a six year old. She was probably six months old at the time, from what I remember, I could barely pick her up is what I remember, but I would feed her and cause, cause my dad was sleeping.

Dana (13m 37s):
At some point in that time we moved to a new house and I believe my stepmother, she was working days and she was pregnant, I think again at the time. So they were looking for a new house, we got a new house and she had my brother and I was probably around the age of seven or eight at the time, close to eight. That’s when abuse began. She had her two kids and I was really, I became the stepchild and didn’t deserve anything. Around eight, like I said, the abuse began.

Dana (14m 18s):
I remember it starting with having to stand in the corner and having to do chores. If they were not done, quote unquote, right, I would not be able to join the family for meals. I wouldn’t get meals. It started that way. It started a little slowly but still wrong. I would have to stand in the corner for hours on end with my hands above my head sometimes or on my head almost like I was a criminal. It began almost like a breakdown of my spirit so that they would gain compliance I think.

Dana (15m 0s):
I was not an outspoken child at this point because I think they had already kind of broken me of that. Strong-willed outwardly strong-willed attitude that I had as, as a little girl. So I think it began innocently enough in the sense that nobody would know what was going on. It was very hidden. It was small, things like that.

Deb (15m 31s):
And even though you’re still really young, still in that time, people didn’t discuss what child abuse look like or neglect. Even teachers were not told what to look for.

Dana (15m 41s):
Well, teachers have no clue at the time. They had absolutely no clue what to look for, how to react to things. I, I think it became, it became more visible by the time I was 11. So it took probably three years to be like, Oh my God, what is going on? Yeah. And I think that there were certain things that happen. Some of the, some of the bigger things that I remember was first of all, the food deprivation and I stopped growing at the age of 11.

Dana (16m 21s):
So when, when I finally escaped, they did a bone scan and my bone stopped growing at 11. So I had been deprived of so much nutrition, nutrition that my body just paused. It like hit a pause button and it didn’t grow. So I was wearing like size six X clothes. I was not, I was probably 80 pounds. My sister later shared with me, her viewpoint. She said that I did look like I was a Holocaust survivor at the time because there’ll Holocaust victim because I was so tiny.

Deb (16m 59s):
And so just, you could see the bones.

Dana (17m 2s):
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this was a real, a real thing for them to deprive me of food. It gave them some sort of joy is all I can think of.

Deb (17m 16s):
Can you talk a little bit about where they made use sleep in your room a little bit?

Dana (17m 21s):
Well, so I think what, what ended up happening is I started to sneak out to get food. So I would sneak out of my room and, you know, could be in the middle of the night or whatever it was. I would go steal as they would say, a piece of bread or something like that. Anything that I could get away with with thinking that maybe they wouldn’t notice

Deb (17m 47s):
And sneaking out into the kitchen that meant.

Dana (17m 50s):
Yeah. Walking Up the stairs from my room into the kitchen. So they would, they would notice missing food, I think is how, how this began. Well, they started locking me in my room and they started to, they secluded me away from the family with the punishment of not eating. But then, then when they noticed that I was maybe sneaking food on occasion, they started to lock me in my room. So they put a padlock on my door at that time I was in the basement in, in a room and I had, yeah, very little, I had a bed and I had a set of books that were given to me by my stepmother’s parents years before probably when I was about eight.

Dana (18m 38s):
And so I had that in my room and a dresser that had a few clothes in it. And that was it.

Deb (18m 44s):
If I remember correctly, didn’t it, one time they took the mattress and you would just have the box springs.

Dana (18m 50s):
I don’t know if It seems like they, at one point did something happened with the mattress, but I may or may not remember that correctly to tell you the truth. I remember a lot, but not all of my memories are a hundred percent clear. Yeah. I think you, you block things, but that’s kind of when the food stuff started was around the age of eight and it got progressively worse all the way throughout. By the time I was 11, I was regularly starved and I had to fight for every meal. And part of my chore was to take the trash out.

Dana (19m 30s):
And there are times that I had to dig in the trash to see if there was a crust of bread or anything that I could salvage to shove in a pocket.

Deb (19m 41s):
I remember you telling me this and it was so hard for you to share because of the shame that came with it. And to me, that was it. It hit my heart where you want to just survive so much that you wanted to still live here and to be able to have to survive like that and then to share it. I’m just so proud of you for having the courage.

Dana (20m 4s):
Thank you. Yeah, it’s tough. Yeah. One of the other big punishments that I would get as I would have to write, I remember taking food one time and I had to write, I will not steal 5,000 times and I could not have anything to eat until I finished that 5,000 times, which took me like three or four days. And so there were really bizarre things that they would do

Deb (20m 31s):
Well, obviously they’re mentally ill, but with that said, you’re the one that had to tolerate it.

Dana (20m 37s):
Yeah. And I think, you know, the, that part of it was probably the worst part. I would rather have gotten one of the beatings that they gave me versus being starved. I think the starvation was the really, really tough part to endure mentally.

Deb (20m 54s):
Right.

Dana (20m 55s):
Because you’re, you know, you can literally go mad from hunger. And I think that was poorly child. I think that, that was the part that was, that was tough. But so physical punishments, the physical punishments were bad and they were constant. It wasn’t, I didn’t go a day hardly without

Deb (21m 18s):
Primarily By your father, but demanded by your stepmother.

Dana (21m 22s):
Yeah. It, it would depend on what my supposedly crime was for the day, whatever the crime was, whether it was, I spoke to one of my siblings out of turn, you know, well, I, I wasn’t allowed to speak to them. I was called she or it, most of the time, not by my name. Just she. And I was not able to play games with them.

Deb (21m 50s):
If they were playing games, you were not allowed to,

Dana (21m 52s):
I was not allowed to be ne be near them. Talk to them. I was literally a prisoner in the room. I was isolated and they were told that I was bad and they were not to talk to me. And if I were to speak to them, they were supposed to report this. That’s how life was, it just was not allowed. So the infraction that I, you know, created could have been anywhere from speaking a word all the way up to not doing my chores correctly, or, you know, not having good enough grades, which at the time I was an honor student in, in several different honors classes,

Deb (22m 35s):
Even with all this going on.

Dana (22m 36s):
Well, you know, that’s the only entertainment I had. The entertainment I had was to read my textbooks because that’s what I had access to. So while I was locked in my room or whatever the case was shut in my room, I would read my school books because that’s, that’s all I had. That’s all I could do. So of course that’s what my focus was, but yeah, it was, it was crazy, you know, being isolated all the time. I remember the certain instances where my stepmother talked about stealing food and she held my hand to a burning hot stove.

Dana (23m 23s):
There was a red element and she, she put my hand on it and I fought her. Like I kept pulling my hand away, but she burned me. She put my hand on the stove and burned me and said that, you know, in the middle East they would cut my hand off for taking a piece of bread

Deb (23m 41s):
And this is supposed to be a mother.

Dana (23m 46s):
Yeah. Yeah. I remember one instance. She threw a fork at, at me and it stuck in my leg, you know, and then,

Deb (23m 51s):
And I think you still have a scar from that.

Dana (23m 55s):
Yeah. I mean, it’s not laughable.

Deb (23m 57s):
But I think it, I think laughter I like, I would say it helps change shift the vibration. Right. If you think back to someone doing that and it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t one of your siblings doing that. No, but I do know some of your siblings kind of followed your parents.

Dana (24m 13s):
Yeah. I mean, that’s the example they were shown. One of my siblings, my sister, who is closest in age to me, she would actually shove whatever she could in her pockets, whether it was a pizza crust or just the crust off of her bread or anything that she, she thought she could sneak without getting caught into her pockets. And she would shove it under the door. And you know, I think there were times that probably kept me alive, especially in the summertime that probably kept me alive. She remembers now when, when we talk about it, I know she has a lot of guilt because she, she stopped doing that at one point because I think part of it was, she was afraid to get caught and it was so stressful for her.

Dana (25m 2s):
But some of the things she’s talked about with me as well as one time in particular, when my father was in the, in my bedroom and I don’t remember what I had done, but it was probably one of the times where he was being badgered by my stepmother to take action of some story with me. And he came into my room and began to beat me. And after about a half hour of this, my sisters said that he came out of the room. She said she was sitting on the couch the entire time hearing what was going on and thought that he was going to kill me this time.

Dana (25m 46s):
And so she was terrified and he came out, she said, and sat on the couch as if he had just ran a mile. I remember this, but she said after about five or so minutes, she heard me breathe in and cry. And that wasn’t the only time that happened. He was very severe with me. He would, he would beat me as if I was a grown man. So close fist punches.

Deb (26m 12s):
Didn’t He have some boots that were Steel toe boots

Dana (26m 15s):
that he would kick me with those. Yeah.

Deb (26m 17s):
Which we think they’ll affected your liver to this day.

Dana (26m 20s):
Yeah. I went through some Auyerveda healing and we talked about my overall health and things that had happened to me in my childhood. And this comes from a holistic perspective of healing, not just physical body, but mentally as well. And during that session with this, Auyerveda healer, we talked about and she said, she felt that my liver issues came from an injury in childhood, which I still, I will always have some things that I can’t fix because of it. Yeah. The malnutrition and

Deb (26m 57s):
even your joints

Dana (26m 58s):
and my joints fibromyalgia, you know, which that in itself is tons of management of, of that those symptoms. And it’s linked to childhood trauma that that’s where it comes from. So I remember some of these things and around that time too, I remember just, just little evil things that my stepmother would do just to create these ways that she could see me suffer. So one of ’em, I remember this humongous snowstorm. It was in the eighties.

Dana (27m 39s):
And I remember, I, I think the shovel was buried somewhere in the yard, but these drifts were like five foot drifts. This was crazy snowstorm in Colorado. Remember that? I had to go outside and dig for the shovel with no gloves. No. And I remember getting frostbite yeah. On probably the tips of my ears and my hands. And to this day I can’t handle cold. Like when my hands get cold, they burn very, very badly. And I’m sure it comes from that, but just little things like that, that would be, and once you’re out there for hours, Oh God, I was not allowed to come until I found it.

Dana (28m 20s):
I never found it. I don’t know what happened, where they actually let me live, but I never found the shovel. I remember that. And it just, it’s crazy to think about, but that brought up a memory about when this actually started. And I think I remember telling you this, but I remember not being able to, I was kind of a latchkey kid when we first moved into that new house and the beginning of the story, but I couldn’t get the door open one day. And my stepmother was at work. My father was at work. I couldn’t get the door open. And I had a certain amount of time to get home in a certain amount of time to get inside.

Dana (28m 60s):
And then I would get the phone call to make sure I was home so they could make sure sort of, sort of, yeah, well, I couldn’t get the door open. And that was the day that I can define that. I remember things changing. She had to quit her job because she said, I couldn’t be trusted to get back and forth from school. It’s at seven years old and that she had to be home. And I, I can define that. That’s really when things changed for the worst. And so that just brought up that memory

Deb (29m 38s):
Didn’t a neighbor hear you cry. Or something.

Dana (29m 39s):
A neighbor heard me crying and they called me over to just the neighbor behind and they called me over and they helped me. They brought me in, I didn’t have a phone number to call because I would get the call from the bank where she worked. She would call every day. So the neighbor took care of me and it created this humongous fight between them and that neighbor that helped. It’s almost like they just wanted to seclude and not have people have contact, you know? So it was really bizarre control thing.

Deb (30m 16s):
Absolutely. They didn’t want anyone to know their secrets, which reminds me of the story about, cause people have asked you that. Why didn’t, you know, why didn’t someone else intervene like a school teacher or social services? Because I remember you telling me about even having your shoes taped together because you didn’t, they didn’t give you anything, right. That was be, you know, a proper attire. And you want to share the story about the social services?

Dana (30m 40s):
Well, I was in the abuse had been going on for a little while, but I was in elementary schools still. I believe I remember social services coming in. So people had an idea of what was going on. It was communicated. I think my grandparents knew something wasn’t right. But they were, they were not allowed to see me. I was secluded from the entire family. And so they secluded themselves and all of us, all the children, including me, I believe probably because of me because of what was going on. They didn’t want anyone to see.

Dana (31m 22s):
I think I heard later it was my grandparents called my mother and my biological mother told her that there’s something wasn’t right. She called social services and social services came to see what was going on. And they went to the school and they made me strip. So they could see if there were bruises anywhere. I mean, it was just bizarre.

Deb (31m 43s):
You said that they would do things so that there would be no bruises or they couldn’t be found wasn’t it tiny.

Dana (31m 49s):
True. That was true. It was timing. Yeah. There were some, I mean, there were lots of times I would show up to school with big signs of abuse, but I was always told when asked that I should lie, they would give me the lie, the lie that I had to share. I ran into a doorknob one time when, when she got up and one day flew out of her room and just hit me with a belt buckle in the eye. She had a belt in her hand and the belt buckle hit my eye and gave me a huge, well, thank God. It didn’t rip my eye out, but I’m going to school the next day.

Dana (32m 29s):
The lie was that I ran into a doorknob. You know what I mean? Who would believe that nowadays? But back then, you know, 30 years ago. Yeah. And, and I remember one time, I can’t remember what it was for because it happens so often, but used a belt on me. And I had bruises from the top of my backside all the way down to the back of my knees, like humongous welts all the way down. And I had to wear pants all summer because of this. So I remember seeing people and them asking me, why are you wearing pants?

Dana (33m 12s):
It’s a hundred degrees out. And I couldn’t tell him, of course, but I was hiding these horrific welts and bruises. Yeah. And that they didn’t go away for probably at least a month.

Deb (33m 25s):
And yeah. And you bruise beautifully.

Dana (33m 29s):
I turn lots of colors.

Deb (33m 31s):
The first time that, cause they came twice. If I recall,

Dana (33m 34s):
Well, they, social services came to the school and then they started an investigation. And I think at the time I must have been right around that 11 to 12 year old. I told them about the lock on my door mistakenly because I suffered for it. But I somehow, I think I shared that and social services and I’m trying to remember the timeline. It’s tough. So I think it was twice, I think, yeah, there was one time they came when I was younger and they didn’t find anything. And then there’s one time when I ran away and I, I told social services at the time more about what was going on.

Dana (34m 21s):
And I told them about the lock on the door and they got involved again. And the only thing I remember social services taking action on was making them remove the lock from the door. And that was probably when I was about 11. I think the other one was when I was a little bit younger, maybe a year or two younger. Yeah. So there were a couple of times, but social services dropped the ball tremendously on, on my story in my case,

Deb (34m 47s):
I agree. One of the stories you’ve shared with me and we’ve talked about is the time that your brother, he was a lot younger than you obviously came into your room, jumping on the bed. And what happened with, with that?

Dana (35m 2s):
I remember this pretty distinctly, because this was a big deal. I was really, really sick at the time. And I believe I had laryngitis. I couldn’t actually speak out loud

Deb (35m 15s):
And they couldn’t take you to the, they wouldn’t take you to the doctor.

Dana (35m 17s):
They didn’t take me out. They didn’t take me to medical care. Yeah. And so I was in my room where I always was, and my brother had just gotten out of the bath and he might’ve been eight or nine, probably eight at the time. So he was just little, but I was in my room and he barged in and he had a towel and started jumping on my bed and whipping his towel around, above his head. And I went to one side of the room and I stood against the wall and I kept saying, or whispering, you’ve got to get out. You’ve got to get out. I’m going to get in trouble. You’ve got to get out. And, and he was doing, you know, just jumping and laughing and well, his mother caught him in my room.

Dana (36m 4s):
And even though I was standing up against the wall and completely across the other side of the room, he in order to not get in trouble, told her that I had pulled him into my room. And she turned it into this thing that I was trying to pull him into my room to abuse him. Somehow I told him, and this happened frequently with my brother. Actually, he created situations to get me into trouble. Quite often. I remember another time that he spit on me and he got caught, spitting on me and I was wiping it off of my arm.

Dana (36m 54s):
And I gave him a dirty look and she caught me giving him a dirty look. And she asked me, she asked me what was going on. So I said, he spit on me. And he said, well, she spit on me first, which is not true, which wasn’t true. But this is one of the rare instances I was actually in the car with them. They would take me to soccer games and make me sit in the hot car while they were out doing their soccer, I guess, to stop me from stealing food. I don’t know crazy nutcases, but they that’s what happened. And I, I got, I didn’t even get out of the car and I got a beating so bad.

Dana (37m 36s):
I was bleeding. I remember bleeding. And I remember him looking at me saying, I’m so sorry. And you know, but that happened quite frequently. It wasn’t.

Deb (37m 44s):
And especially like in, in the bedroom situation, didn’t they, they continually accused you of,

Dana (37m 50s):
Oh yeah. Even as an adult, when I confronted my father, he said this to me and I completely cut off communication at that point, even though he was trying to reconnect with me at that point, I said, I’m done, I’m not doing this. Not doing it, not, not having a relationship. So yeah.

Deb (38m 8s):
This is just a little bit of Dana’s story. This is the first few years. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to do another podcast to continue. How did Dana party too?

Dana (38m 22s):
I did get away of course.

Deb (38m 22s):
She did get away but we want to talk about that. How you’ve healed, even how family members still want you to forgive and those things to, to really teach other people and share what we say about these kinds of journeys and how to heal from them. Because I think that’s the important part is, okay, this tragic situation happened. You’re here today to talk about it. But what did it take for you to be able to share this with the world basically? Yeah. Well, I’m so proud of you. As I’m sitting here listening to it and remembering these sayings, you know, I have tears in my eyes and my, my heart is so heavy because I love you so much.

Deb (39m 4s):
And knowing that another human being can do that. And like you said, this isn’t just you, this happens. It does. And this is all still happens. And it’s, you’re telling the few stories, not every single one that is occurred to you, but I’m, I’m really proud of you. You keep telling me, I have to write a book. I do, but I’m proud of you. We’re going to do part two. So make sure that you listened to the second podcast of Dana’s courage to be here.

Dana (39m 33s):
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Love you. Thank you for joining us for this episode of spirited. Straight talk. If you enjoy the show, make sure you subscribe so that you get notified of new shows. We’d also love it. If you’d leave us a review and let’s connect, visit Deb sheppard.com for more insights support workshops, and to book a session with Deb, plus enter to get a free reading with Deb. All you have to do is sign up for the email list and you’ll automatically be entered. Just go to Debsheppard.com. That’s Deb S H E P P a R d.com.