Surviving Childhood Sexual Abuse: Seth Gehle’s Story

[Dana] (00:02)
Welcome friends. I’m Dana and you’ve got my podcast, Phoenix and Flame. We once again have an incredible guest. Have I said how many times, probably at least 50, how many times I love being a podcaster? Because we gain access to these amazing individuals worldwide and it’s just such a privilege and a blessing to hear their stories and to hear their transformation. I’ve talked about Phoenix in Flame being, you know, pushing through and transforming even when you feel like a pile of ash. Because isn’t that life? You know, if we haven’t already been there, we’re going to be there. If anybody says they don’t know what that feels like, they’re lying. So let’s just admit that. So we’re all kind of in that position. Our guest today is Seth Gehle. Now, Seth is a survivor of childhood trauma. After his father nearly killed his mother when Seth was two, he grew up with a single mother of three children. When Seth was about 10 years old, his mother became abusive and addicted to hard drugs. This would lead Seth down a path to being molested by a man for over five years. Wow, let me just stop right there and say, Seth, welcome to Phoenix in Flame, I’m glad you’re here.

[Seth] (01:31)
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the intro and thank you for letting me share my story and hopefully help other people heal and understand these things.

[Dana] (01:41)
You absolutely, I mean, I can’t wait to hear your story. And it’s just — we were sharing earlier, I was telling Seth that I’m a psychotherapist. And so I have the privilege of hearing a lot of people’s stories, you know, all the time, but there’s a lot — that’s why I created Phoenix in Flame, because I kept hearing people say, Dana, I feel like it’s just me. I feel like I’m all alone, that it’s just me.

[Seth] (01:46)
Yeah.

[Dana] (02:05)
And they felt so isolated and they didn’t know who they could talk to, because they felt like their story was just out there and they didn’t feel safe telling it. And so I wanted to create a platform where people could hear other people’s stories and, oh gosh, it’s not just me. What he is saying, what she is saying — that happened to me, or that’s happening to me right now. And so we could create that community and kind of build each other up. So you also said that you actually reported and were able to put your abuser away, but there’s so much to unpack here. So I want you to start wherever is comfortable for you, and I’m just going to kind of organically flow with you back and forth until we feel like we know you very well, Seth.

[Seth] (02:49)
Yeah, well first off I’ll say it is an incredibly deep and twisted, like, long story. It would probably take me somewhere between 8 to 10 hours to really discuss everything. So obviously this will be a very brief cover of the story. But yeah, it started when I was young. My mom had me and my two sisters back to back years, so we’re all really close together. I think she had all of us before she was 20 years old. So really quick. And my mom and my father get into a fight when I was about one or two, he ends up stabbing her behind the ear. He goes to prison for that. So I never knew my father growing up. And because of growing up with a single mother, three kids, we moved around a lot. There was a lot of instability. We couldn’t afford things and we had a lot of different babysitters. So I was actually molested the first time when I was five years old by one of my babysitter’s teenage sons.

[Seth] (03:49)
He would end up molesting me, and that was just him exposing himself, him touching me, me touching him, kind of thing. And that only happened a few times. And so that was the first incident. At the same time I was exposed to like pornographic material at home. My mom, since she was gone all the time, we kind of messed around in the house and we found — she had some porn in the house and we found it and we watched it. So at five years old, I was exposed to being molested and also a lot of sex. And you start to watch these things and kind of become obsessed with them. It’s kind of weird as a young kid to kind of see those things. And I don’t really remember a whole lot between like five, six, seven, eight years old. Unfortunately, when you grow up like I did, you forget a lot of things, and so that’s really hard to remember these things.

[Dana] (04:41)
Yes.

[Seth] (04:44)
which I think is a good thing about journaling, is that you do kind of sometimes bring out these stories, or even I’ve done it in podcasting. So anyways, about 10 years old, my mom — she had always smoked weed and she’d always drink, but about when I got to about 10 years old, things were getting worse, where she was drinking and smoking a lot more weed. And she started to get more abusive physically, emotionally, verbally, where she was closed-hand punching and grabbing faces, slamming heads against the walls, kind of those kind of things. And those were certainly painful and those things suck. But the worst part of that was the emotional response after, where there’s just no love. It was just like this hatred and no remorse. So she would beat the hell out of me with a board, for example. And the time she did that, I laid on her floor crying, and she said, you know, get the hell out of here, you know. And she used some other words, but — anyways, tells me to get out of the room and stop being a bitch, is like one of the things she would tell me when she would kind of beat me or even hit my sisters. I would cry and she’d tell me, like, why are you crying, you know? So that all started happening about 10 years old, and she had met this guy who got her addicted to crack and cocaine. And so then things obviously keep getting worse and worse. And we moved to this house and we were living in this house, and my bedroom had hardwood floors. The hardwood floors are cracked and split all the way across the floor because that’s what they do when they’re exposed to the weather, and they were exposed to weather because I had a hole in my bedroom ceiling that was about four feet wide and about two or three feet deep. And you could see straight into the attic from my bed, from my bedroom. You could look up and see into the attic above. And so the rain, the snow, the weather would come into my bedroom, the cold air. My room basically was unconditioned and I slept on like a little three, four inch mattress with a thin little blanket, wet the bed every night for years, and that’s pretty typical in these situations. And so at the same time, what’s crazy about my story is that these things were happening simultaneously. So I talk about my mom’s side, living at home Monday through Friday. Well, at the same time, at 10 years old, I ended up meeting this man through a friend of mine. So I had an older friend — for the sake of the story I’ll say his name is Jacob. I’m over at Jacob’s house one day, and Jacob is older than me, he’s about five years older, and he knows that I have a jacked-up life at home. And so he kind of takes me under his wing as like a little brother, basically, and starts letting me come over, eat food in his house and hang out with him, play video games, sleep over, protecting me. And one day I’m at Jacob’s house and this guy walks in the door. It’s this old — well, he looks like an old man to me, he’s actually like 30 years old, and he’s 6’5, 380 pounds.

[Seth] (07:36)
He walks in and he introduces himself, and we find some commonalities immediately. We both like football, we both like pizza, and we both like video games. So he’s like, well, hey, why don’t you come up to my house with me and Jacob and play video games with us? And so I said, okay, well, let me go ask my mom. So I go home, ask my mom, my mom says, as long as I’m going with Jacob, I’m okay.

[Seth] (08:35)
So I start going to his house, and the grooming process had begun pretty much immediately. I get to his house, there’s several TVs, computers, all kinds of video games. You don’t have to take turns, you can play video games all together. There’s pizza, there’s pop, there’s coffee, energy drinks. You can cuss, there’s no rules. It’s like this kid’s — I’m 10 years old, I was like, dude, this is awesome, man, like this is the best place to be. And I was like, it was so much fun. It really was, because we would stay up all night long and just eat pizza and breadsticks and drink pop. And it was just like this, oh man, this is awesome. Especially compared to that life at home, where at this point, like I said, the crack and cocaine was in my house, and so every single day, 10, 15, 20 people would come into my house throughout the course of the day, and they would spend hours in my bathroom getting high, to include my mom. And I mean, at 10 years old, 11 years old, I would see people in my living room passed out high.

[Dana] (09:08)
That’s it.

[Seth] (09:31)
And like convulsing — I’ve never done drugs so I don’t know what it does, but they would like — I had a pregnant family member one time who was on my couch and she was — her head was tilted back and she was just kind of subtly shaking, her eyes were closed, but she was like almost seizing, it was kind of weird. But I just remember seeing that because she was pregnant and I just was just like — my mind was blown, like oh my gosh, what is happening? So trying to process all of that Monday through Friday with mom is really hard, right? So every weekend I would just go to this guy’s house and have pizza and pop and have a good time. So three months into that is when he started to molest me. And the first time he touched me, I kind of describe it as like getting to the top of a roller coaster and you get that last click and you’re kind of like, oh shit, this is the ride we’re on. And I didn’t realize that I was completely naive,

[Dana] (10:26)
Yeah.

[Seth] (10:30)
which is furthermore a little bit more crazy, because I was such a situationally aware kid because I grew up raising myself. So I knew how to take care of myself, but I was just completely naive to what was happening. And what he did was, his apartment was really cold all the time, and so he always sat in his big chair. I sat on the couch next to him and he would always say, well, I remember being cold and he would say, well, I got a blanket, you want to sit on my lap? And so I just started sitting on his lap and I was this tiny little kid.

[Dana] (10:36)
Mm-hmm.

[Seth] (10:58)
He’s a big guy, so I was just like, yeah, whatever. And it was warm, it was comfortable. And his left hand was on my left hip, it brushes, touches my butt, and he says, I’m sorry. I said, it’s okay, I think about it like you and me bump each other in the hallway, not a big deal. So he puts his hand back on my butt and he says, so this is okay. And that’s kind of where I hit that last click on the roller coaster, where I was like, oh my gosh, this is what’s happening to me right now. And I knew it, like I knew what was going to happen, you know, and I just froze up and I accepted it. From that point forward, every — I would go to his house every single weekend, like 45 to 50 weekends out of the year I was at his house. I met his mom, met his sisters, I would go to his holiday events for the next five and a half years, and it just progressively gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And about two years into all that, my mom — she would end up getting arrested for stabbing her boyfriend over some drugs, I believe, in the bathroom — that whole day alone would take me an hour to explain, but I was there. I remember seeing my mom come out of the house, there’s a fire in my front yard, I see her boyfriend come out of the house, he’s got blood on his shirt, my mom gets put in the back of this police car and I’m looking at her through the window and the window’s rolled up, I can’t talk to her, she can’t talk to me. I’m just hysterically screaming and crying. And boom, my mom is gone. I don’t have a father, my mom’s gone, I’m getting molested every weekend. At this point I’ve been suicidal for a year or two, just — I wanted to die all the time. And as a young kid you just don’t want to feel — for me, I didn’t want to feel the pain, so I didn’t want to stab myself, I didn’t want to shoot myself. I always thought about falling out of my window — if I fall just right, I’ll break my neck and I’ll die. But I was scared, because if I don’t die, this is going to hurt like hell. So that was like my logic behind not killing myself, you know. And I thought about many ways. But anyways, so once my mom was taken away, it’s a very, very long story, but I bounce around to a bunch of different houses for about four or five months, and my grandparents finally get a hold of me right before I turned 13. So I moved in with my grandparents’ house, and my grandparents asked to adopt me, I say yes. So they start the adoption process with me. My sisters were already there because I went a different route, my sisters went another place, I had not seen them for four or five months. And then when one of my grandparents picked me up, my sisters were there. So my grandparents asked to adopt us, I say yes, my sisters — they want to go back and live with my mom, so they go back and live with my mom. And I’m at my grandparents’ house alone, which is fine — my grandparents were very well off and had a warm house and food and security and all the good things, right? So I was okay. And they asked, on the weekend I asked to go hang out with this guy, his name was Mondo, the abuser, and they’re questioning it, but they — they just asked to meet him. So as long as they meet him, you know, they would just want to meet him first. And he comes to the house, he makes them smile, he makes them laugh, and boom, I’m right back in the saddle. So I start going to his house, and right around the time I turned 13, my adoption paperwork went through with my grandparents. And at the same time, right around that same time, was — I was raped for the first time. So, you know, this man finally reaches the apex, or whatever you want to call it, of molestation with children. And he rapes me, about — like I said, about 13 years old — and that certainly was one of the worst nights of my life. I remember being there and just — at all, I could tell you all the details about that. And I remember being on his — the thing I’ll say here is afterwards, when we were done, I remember going to his bathroom and sitting on the toilet and

[Seth] (14:52)
getting everything out of my body, and I just was like, this is it, my life is over, like I got to kill myself, why is this happening to me? You know, am I gay? Do I have HIV? Do I have AIDS? Do I have any kind of disease? How do I tell anybody anything, because they’re gonna make fun of me, they’re gonna judge me, they’re gonna not believe me because this guy was funny, he was charismatic, like why would he do this, you know? So you’re just in a really bad head space, obviously, when that happens. So that would continue for another couple of years — about a month away from being 16 years old, I was up at his house with a younger friend of mine who knew the guy basically as long as I did, but I could start to see that my younger friend was getting groomed, and I picked up on it, and I was like, oh, he’s about to start doing this to him. And I just decided — I was like, I can’t let this happen to somebody else. And so

[Seth] (15:52)
crazy to think that if my friend wasn’t there, I don’t know if I would have ever said anything, because I could handle the pain, but I didn’t want to see my friend go through it. And I don’t even talk to this kid today, but I just — I knew what I went through and I didn’t want him to suffer like I did. So I go home that weekend, I report him, and my friend Jacob, who introduced me to the guy, you know, almost six years prior, I call him to my house to help me talk, because he was the first person that I told.

[Seth] (16:22)
And he says, well, he did it to me too. And the same guy that molested and raped me for almost six years had done it to Jacob for about the same amount of time prior. And so we report him, he gets 11 counts of sexual misconduct, because we could not prove — we couldn’t prove that he had raped us before we were 14 years old. Even though that had happened, we couldn’t prove that. And in Ohio, where I’m from, if they’re 13, you can call it rape. If they’re 14, it’s just sexual misconduct. It doesn’t matter what happens. So he got a lesser sentence, essentially. He got a 10 year sentence, and that was in 2011, so he’d be free today to walk and do whatever he wants to do. And just real quick, what’s crazy about that is he ran a haunted house in his hometown out of his mom’s front porch. So every Halloween, like two, three, four thousand kids would come through, and he was always the one handing candy to every kid at the end of the line. And you just think about that, you know, like the potential impact that he would have had on the world. And I don’t know how many people he molested before me and Jacob, but I know that I put an end to it. And that was the end of his era, and that was the end of my childhood abuse era. From that point forward I kind of just moved on. The immediate impact was no plans for the weekend.

[Seth] (17:49)
And I never had any therapy or anything.

[Dana] (17:49)
Well, I’m going to pause you for just a minute and give you a chance to breathe, because you have really given us so much information and I appreciate your honesty. So just a few questions before we move on to the next chapter of your life. I’m kind of wondering — I’m imagining questions that the listeners might have as well. So did you have any…

[Seth] (17:53)
Yeah. Ha ha.

[Dana] (18:14)
Let me just toss out two questions. One of them is, did you have any feelings about Jacob when you found out that it had happened to him and he didn’t say anything to you about it and asked you to come over there? Did you have any kind of feelings towards him about that? And then also, when you reported it, what happened? Because I know I’ve talked to people that when they reported, there’s like this ripple effect in the community. Like you kind of mentioned it yourself, kind of a fear that if you say something, people are going to think this or that. There’s that fear — if I say something, people are going to think I’m this or that, or they’re going to call me a liar or whatever. So number one, what was your feeling about Jacob when you found out that it happened to him before it had happened to you and he invited you over? And number two, what were the ramifications after you reported, whether to you, impact to you, or an impact to the molester?

[Seth] (19:07)
So initially when Jacob says that, I was just heartbroken for him. Like I didn’t have any bad feelings towards him at all. I was just torn apart. As a matter of fact, I cried even harder. Like I just could not believe it, because Jacob was like a father figure to me. He was like this big brother, he was in college now, and he was this guy that I wanted to be like, he was super cool. So I couldn’t believe that it happened to him. I think if you imagine your father or your big brother getting raped or molested, it’s like — that doesn’t happen to my dad, it doesn’t happen to my big brother, like my big brother is tough, you know, it doesn’t happen to him. So when he said that, it tore me up really bad. I didn’t have any, and I still don’t to this day have any feelings towards him, because I understand the impact and what it does to you. So that’s that answer. And then as far as reporting him goes — I actually, I’m doing my best, I don’t know how to do this, but I’m doing my best to give the officer some sort of recognition for it, for the state of Ohio. I don’t know where to go with this, but the report never made it anywhere, it never got out. I went to the hospital, and so I was raped and molested that weekend, and at 15 years old I knew that I had to keep my clothes on and I knew to not take a shower because I was like, I’ve got to nail this guy. And so we get to the hospital, and the only reason I remember these details is because I remember the nurses being so proud of me, because they were like, well, when did it last happen? And I said, it just happened this weekend, like he raped me and molested me this weekend. And they’re like, okay, do you have dirty clothes, do you have laundry, did you take a shower? And I was like, no, I didn’t take a shower and I have not changed my clothes. So that whole day of Sunday I’ve stayed in like his filth because I knew that I had to catch him. And I get there and the nurses were like, holy — they’re like, okay, take everything off, let’s test you. And they find his DNA in my underwear and on my body and different places, and I tell them to

[Seth] (21:05)
about the Vaseline and this towel that’s next to his bed, and I’m telling all this to the cop, and I’m telling the cop all of these other horrific stories that are — a lot of them are in my book that I’m writing, but yeah, so I tell the cop all these details and the cop goes up there — the guy willingly goes down to the police station, I’m also working on getting the footage for the interrogation that’s being mailed to me right now, so — but the guy goes down there willingly, gets interrogated, he’s not in custody yet, but then they get him to admit out of custody that he had me perform oral sex on him once or twice. That was all he says at that point. But then a month later or so he pleads guilty to the other 11 counts of whatever they hit him with. So but yeah, nothing ever got out, nobody ever heard anything, nobody knew anything. My story never made the — like, it didn’t go to the news because I was a minor. And yeah, I don’t know, I got very lucky, because if anybody would have found out, I certainly probably would have killed myself, because the shame — I could not live with, you know, that it happened to me. I was fine, but as long as I could keep it a secret, it wasn’t a big deal. And I kept it a secret.

[Dana] (22:15)
Well, I just think that says so much about you, because when you kept your head about you to keep all the clothing and everything that had his DNA on it, when you reported him, you did not know that this story wasn’t going to get out. And so even though you knew there was a possibility of that, that shame spiral could suck you under, even though you didn’t know what was going to happen, but you turned him in anyway. And I just want to take a moment and kind of hover over that, because there’s a lot of people out there, men and women alike, that have been molested, and the compulsion to keep it quiet is so strong for the reasons that you’re talking about, because of the shame. And you didn’t even — if I’m hearing you right, when you turned him in, when you went through that whole process, that was before you knew that it was going to be kept quiet. You did it anyway.

[Seth] (22:59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can’t say that I knew it was going to be kept quiet or that I knew that it was going to be exposed. You know, I definitely didn’t think it was going to be exposed, I don’t think so. Anyways, maybe I’m not sure, I can’t really recall those feelings, but I have not thought about it like that, where — it very well could have. You know, what’s funny about this too, is maybe not funny, I don’t know, but we get to the hospital, my grandpa is deaf in one ear and half deaf in the other, and so he goes to the front desk and he’s like, hey, we got to do a rape kit or something. And the lady behind the desk says something, she’s like, what’d you say? And so he yells it in this hospital, like — you know how older people are, they’re on the phone, they yell and they scream. And so I’m in the hospital, I’m just like, my grandpa, like, come on man, you know? So yeah, but that whole day of reporting is —

[Dana] (23:53)
Yes. Wow.

[Seth] (24:05)
I could talk to you about that for two, three hours. That whole day, there were so many crazy things that happened that day. So it’s very intense.

[Dana] (24:14)
Well, and I do want to give you some kudos and appreciation as well, because I’m sure I have many listeners out there that wish they could be here with you to talk to you, because there’s a lot of men who have been sexually molested, and there’s not nearly as many men reporting. It’s hard enough for anybody, but it’s hard for women to report things, and so many times they don’t, but we hear, unfortunately, we hear that more of the women reporting being abused, to the point where sometimes I feel like on some level we become somewhat habituated to it, which is unfortunate, but it’s just the truth. But you don’t hear the stories from men. And so there’s this — I think this feeling maybe that it’s not happening to the men, and if you’re a guy, then that’s happened to you, it’s like, who do I know that has been through this, who do I know that has gone through this journey that I can talk to, that I can relate to, that can relate to me, that would give me some kind of model to follow, that I know that I’m not alone. So I wanted to make sure that I honor you for that and call that out, being a man that has gone through this. It’s kind of hard to underestimate the impact of that.

[Seth] (25:32)
Yeah, that’s — that’s why I’m writing a book. That’s why I do my speaking. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing now, because I’ve almost lost my entire life multiple times because of everything I’ve gone through, you know, or like I said, the suicide. And then even as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten married and have children. I’ve tried to divorce my wife multiple times because I just — well, we’ve almost separated multiple times, but it’s all because of me, because I kept everything a secret. And I didn’t want to heal, I didn’t want to talk about these things and admit that there’s this demon down inside of me that needs to get out. And yeah, it’s hard. And as a man, I think there’s a lot of things going on with men right now in the world. And unfortunately, with what I have seen in me telling my story, there are very few men, but now I’m connected to a ton of women who have gone through it. And unfortunately the message that is out there is that men are bad, men — masculinity is toxic and there’s a lot of hate towards men in general. So it’s hard, it’s hard to go out there and talk about these things, it’s like you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t, you know, if I’m

[Seth] (26:55)
too vulnerable then I’m this weak person, but if I’m too tough then I’m just this toxic masculine man, you know. So there’s a lot that’s going on in the world, and I don’t want my message to ever be like that. I’m not — I don’t hate men because I was raped by a man. I don’t have this — I’m not — I don’t hate Hispanic men because my abuser was Hispanic. I don’t hate women because my mom abused me. My message is to heal. I want people to feel better and to heal. I don’t

[Seth] (27:25)
— so I think so many people in this space are seeking so much justice, and that’s good, but if you don’t heal, if you put the [abusive] person away for the rest of their life, but you don’t heal and you don’t do better than you’ve done, it for nothing. Like you have to take care of yourself and focus on the healing portion. I think so many people that are in my space and this community are attacking everybody. They’re either attacking men, they’re attacking women, or they’re attacking this community or that community, versus like, let’s just sit back, address our problems, and then see what we can do to be better, instead of just dragging everybody down like crabs in a bucket. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. So to your point, yeah, with the men thing.

[Dana] (28:09)
That’s an excellent — you’re spot on with that. And I think really, if you stop and think about it, for the individuals, at least the people that I’ve been privileged to speak with and interact with and talk with, it’s kind of like when we’re so focused on being mad at other people, guess what we don’t have to feel?

[Seth] (28:29)
Yeah, that’s — yeah. Yep.

[Dana] (28:31)
We don’t have to feel our own stuff. And so I think sometimes that’s people’s — that’s their defense mechanism, because maybe they’re not ready to face their own feelings and it’s easier for them to be mad at someone else than to sit and actually let their own feelings come to the surface, because that’s scary as hell. So we just have a few more minutes left, but I want you to — because you went into the armed services, you’re a combat veteran, so tell us a little bit about the rest of that. And you have a memoir that’s coming out and — a lot of good stuff, I mean, really wonderful.

[Seth] (29:04)
Yeah, so right out of high school, I joined the Army. I served for eight years in the infantry. I was in the 82nd Airborne Division, went all over the world, did a combat tour in 2019, got out in 2021. And then I joined — I got into the construction industry as a project manager right out of the Army. Started going to college, graduated college last September, but in the last few years I’ve gone on to win, like, national — I was recognized at the International Builder’s Show from the National Association of Home Builders, so I got to get up on the stage in Las Vegas and thank these people for giving me this award. I was the number one construction manager for this home-building company, Pulte Group — big company, the third largest in the country — and I was the number one construction manager for like 18 months in a row, just crushing it with really no experience, just working hard. The reason why I talk about those things is because those are the things that made me realize like, okay, there is a place in this world, because when I walked into those offices, I’m looking at people that probably did not have both parents, they probably had a happy life, they can smile, they can be who they are because there’s no shame behind them, right, and I was — I just had all the shame. So the reason why I talk about my successes is because it’s important to know that, because you’ve gone through some hard things in life, you can still do amazing, incredible things. And doing all of that, I started writing my book, and so I started writing my book about a year and a half ago now, and that’s been a hell of a journey, and just a quick thing on that is, like, I wrote out my entire book twice and I deleted it twice because I thought to myself, like, nobody cares about my story, it’s not that bad, and I just had this internal battle. And then the third time I said, you know what, I’m going to do this for everybody, it’s not about me — there’s 8 billion people in the world, statistically speaking at least half of them have endured some sort of pain and suffering like I have. How many of these people can I save? And in doing that, I started writing my book, and then just recently I founded the Impact Project, which is — it’s in its new stages right now, but that is going to cover the six principles that I live by in my life, to be the person that I am today, to make an impact on this world — people, communities, organizations — and that’ll all be in my book as well. And my book is — it’s tentatively titled Strength Beyond the Shadows, and that’ll be out later this year, I think, we should be able to finish it this year. So I should have some marketing graphics and things like that in a few months, but so I’m doing the book, the Impact Project, and then public speaking, motivational speaking. So I’m just traveling, telling my story and being vulnerable to let other people hear my story and let them heal through my story the way that I have through others.

[Dana] (32:03)
That is fantastic, Seth. I love the way you describe all of that, and I really love the way you bring up the fact that everybody’s story is relative, because, you know, to my ears, what you went through was pretty heinous, right? But you’re thinking, well, someone else might have it worse. But there’s a lot of people that think their story isn’t as bad as your story. The thing of it is, we all have — because I have my own story too — we all have stories, but you hit the nail on the head that sometimes we are resistant to tell our story because we’re thinking, who’s going to care about this, because there’s so many people that had it worse than I did, then I’m just going to stay silent. The point of it is, everyone — and listeners, no matter what your story is, no matter if you feel like someone has it worse, someone has it better — it doesn’t matter. We all have a right to our own story, and we have that responsibility and that right to step into that space. And that makes a difference. It creates that platform that, Seth, I hear you talking about, of just that emotional vulnerability, willing to be honest about something. I think that can create healing that I hear — that’s a theme coming from you as well, wanting healing to take place.

[Seth] (33:22)
It absolutely is. And I just started talking about my sexual trauma about three months ago. So I kept it under wraps for 13, 14 years or so. And after listening to podcasts for several months and hearing other stories that were completely unrelated to mine, have nothing to do with me — people that grew up with both parents, had a happy life, and then something traumatic happens to them, whether it’s war or losing their family — when I would hear them talk about their stories, the way I think about it is like we’re all on this road, we’re on this highway, and everybody takes an exit eventually. You get on this exit where it’s addiction or abuse or you lose a family member, and then you end up in these little small towns around the highway that come with like depression, anxiety, other problems, alcoholism, right — these are all symptoms of this trauma. And the only way that everybody gets back on this road — every single person that I’ve heard, they all have the same healing situations. They start talking about their problems, they start going to therapy, and then we get back on this road together and we end up on the same road at the end of the day. We all start on the same road as these innocent little babies. Some bad things happen, we take our detours, and you can either park your car in that bad neighborhood or you can keep driving and find your way out. But the only way to find your way out is to seek that healing, is to, whether it’s therapy or speaking or telling your story or hearing other stories — there’s a way out of that. And when I heard other people’s stories, I realized, like, okay, my story is going to make a difference. And it certainly has, I’ve had incredible feedback, so many messages, and I’ve spoken in public now several times. And I just spoke at a women’s rehab center Sunday night, last Sunday night, and there was 25 women in this house, and when I got done speaking, like, four or five or six of them immediately came up to me, were like, I was also molested and raped, and all these women are addicted, you know, they’re recovering addicts. And so it’s like, you know, think about — had they just been able to heal, they wouldn’t have succumb to that, where they’re at now, unfortunately, you know, and that was only six of them that said something, so they’re very well could have been many more that had endured the same pain that I did. And by going there and telling my story, they were able to get something out of it.

[Dana] (35:44)
That’s amazing, because you created an atmosphere for truth telling, because we have to be able to tell our truth. And so, and I’ll share this and we’ll kind of end up wrapping up. I know one of the things that I talk about with my patients sometimes is realizing that what happened to us is a part of us, but it is not the whole of who we are. And when we can recognize that it is a part, then sometimes that gives us strength to come forward, that it is not the entirety of who we are. We’re lots of different parts and that’s one part, it’s not the whole. And so when we know that, then we’re like, okay, that’s true, actually I can get behind that, that is a horrible part, that part of me, but it’s not the whole of who I am. And so that — cause you have to ask yourself, why are people — why do they not want to tell the truth? And what you said earlier, sometimes people are not in a safe space, if they tell their truth they might be abused more, or obviously people have to be able to take care of themselves and keep themselves safe. So Seth, thank you so much, this has been such a wonderful conversation, and I know what you mean about needing more time, I’ve been through the same thing when I’ve guested on other people’s podcasts and they get so intensely interested in my story, but it’s like, there’s so much that you’re not telling, and I want to put that out too, is that — we, people, people never know the whole story. We give just a little microcosm, a little fraction of what we actually went through, because there’s just not enough time to explain it all. So that’s why you do things like memoirs and books and stuff, so you actually take that time to explain it all out, and that is amazing. So how do my listeners, if they want, oh my gosh, I’ve got to get more of Seth, I want to get in touch with him more, I want to connect with him more, where do they go?

[Seth] (37:19)
Yeah. Yeah. So they can — I have a website, which is SethGehle.com, my last name is G E H L E, but if you look me up, you can Google me, you’ll find me. I have a SethGehle.com, YouTube and Instagram are Seth Gehle or Go Beyond the Shadows. Go Beyond the Shadows is just a play on the title of my book, which is Strength Beyond the Shadows. So yeah, if you look me up on Instagram, that’s really the best way to probably contact me, that or through my website, if you email me. But Instagram is certainly the best way, and I encourage people to reach out, follow, and just get along for the journey. And if there’s anything I can do to support, speak, or help anybody, just reach out and let me know. And if it’s got anything to do with helping people heal and helping children especially, I’ll drive across the country if I get an opportunity to help some kids and things like that. So, yeah, thank you.

[Dana] (38:33)
That is awesome. So let me ask you, when do you think your memoir is going to be out? Because my launching schedule is a couple months out from now, so do you have any idea when it might be?

[Seth] (38:44)
At least by the end of the year, I’m hoping for like September, October. That’s kind of what I’m pitching for, hopefully. So.

[Dana] (38:49)
Okay. Okay, so this will be launched before then, but if I can get my listeners to go to your social media platforms, they’ll know — you’ll have a big announcement when your memoir comes out. Okay.

[Seth] (39:02)
Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I’ll be marketing it all. As soon as I get the marketing graphics, I’ll start pushing all that.

[Dana] (39:09)
Fabulous. Seth, I want to thank you. I know you’ve had a busy morning and I know it’s hard to tell these stories and you’ve done it over and over, and thank you for your willingness to do it. Thank you for the emotional energy that it takes from you to do this and for your time. Thank you very, very much.

[Seth] (39:27)
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you letting me share my story.

[Dana] (39:31)
All right, listeners, I know that you have heard something today, multiple somethings, that you’re thinking, I know the exact person that needs to hear this story. I have got a best friend, I’ve got a coworker, I have got a relative that absolutely needs to hear Seth’s story. So take this episode, copy and paste the link and text and email, put it on your favorite social media sites. We need to grow our Phoenix and Flame community so that we know that we are all connected and we are not alone. I hope you’ve had a wonderful day. I hope the rest of your day goes fantastically. I’m Dana on Phoenix in Flame.