I can’t believe that the seeds of my imagination have now bloomed into little sprouts! If it weren’t for Jonathan (my fiancé) and his support (technical, emotional), I wouldn’t have been able to produce what I have so far!
What I’m Working On
I recorded two episodes now, and I’m trying very hard not to overthink or overproduce it. There are so many things I’ve been nervous about:
- How do I make it clear that my resource is not a perfect replacement for therapy?
- What if I say something wrong, and accidentally harm someone as a result?
- What if I’m missing something?
- What if I don’t speak well enough, that I’m difficult to understand?
- How do I release this podcast without re-creating a rift in my family when the dynamic is the most peaceful that it has ever been?
- How do I release this podcast without making it seem like I’m seeking for attention, or pity?
- What if people start treating me like broken goods (ugh, gross)?
I listened to loads of podcasts…specifically podcasts about how to make successful podcasts, and other podcasts that exist about child sexual abuse. My goal is to create a high quality podcast that serves survivors of CSA as another resource to turn to.
Why I’m Doing All This
I think about the time a few years after my trauma, when scavenged the ends of the earth to research everything I could find about child sexual abuse. I was thirsty for information. I wanted to understand what happened to me and what I was going through in the aftermath.
I found only a handful of books at the library, an incredible online community of people through pandys.org, a friend who went through something similar through Tumblr. I searched through the article database that was available to me as a nursing student in my university while I studied for my Bachelor’s in Science in Nursing, and saved all of them. I visited the police department of the city where the trauma occurred to find the exact police records that were typed when my perpetrator was arrested, and saved them in a file. I was eager to remember the details of what happened, and to understand why certain situations in my life triggered a very primal response of fear.
I was so disheartened to find that there wasn’t much that existed when I first began my search in 2009-2010. We didn’t have a “me too” movement then, and while there were a large number of books that talked about what CSA was and its effects…there were very few that talked about what I REALLY wanted to know, in a way that was palatable for me. What I really wanted to know was Why the hell am I going through what I’m going through years after the trauma? And Will I ever get to live a “normal” life?
What I do know, ten years after the fact, is that while normal is possible, having an extraordinary life is possible too. And I don’t want that to come off in a snooty “I did it, so you should be able to do it too” sort of way. I mean it in the “If you dedicate time for the arduous work that it takes to heal, you can live a life better than you’ve ever known” sort of way.
It’s not easy. It’s difficult. Figuring it out myself was like taking the wrong way in the forest a gazillion friggen times in the dark, while still fighting for your survival, and then finally finding the pathway out of the woods. Has that happened to you? It’s terrifying. Don’t actually do it—the getting lost in the woods part.
My point is, that I want to create something that’s easy to digest, easy to access, and helps survivors like Joanna ten years ago, searching for answers, desperate to survive.
I have so much I want to do, but I’ve made my goals for the year, and one of them, is the Relentless Podcast. While there are so many things to consider, so many things I’m nervous about, this is something that means the world to me right now.
If I can’t save the world, I hope I can at least help one person that feels alone in this world because of the trauma they’ve experienced as a child.