81. Cassie Nicholas Returns: New Trauma Memories Lead to New Ways to Heal!
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
Release Date: 04/16/2024
175. Amy Watson & HASSL: What You Allow Is What Continues
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
There are some episodes of this show that don’t revolve around a single survivor story, but they still land just as hard—because they force us to look at ourselves. This is one of those conversations. It’s not about recounting trauma; it’s about what allows harm to keep happening in everyday spaces, and what it actually takes to interrupt that. This episode asks questions most people would rather avoid, and it does so in a way that’s direct, practical, and impossible to brush off. My conversation with Amy Watson was exactly that kind of dialogue. We talked about prevention,...
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174. Gemini: First the Assault. Then Saprea.
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
There’s a distinctive aspect to this show that makes it different from most podcasts in this genre, and I consider it a privilege and honor to recognize those of you who make it that way. Sexual Assault Survivor Stories is not built around celebrity guests, polished talking points, or rehearsed narratives. It exists because of something far more rare and far more meaningful—trust. Again and again, people who begin as listeners reach out, not to be heard for the sake of attention, but because they’re finally ready to speak their truth in a space that feels safe enough to hold it. What...
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173. Beth: When “Normal” was Actually Rape and Sexual Assault
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
Beth is a survivor who reached out to me after realizing that memories she once believed were long buried were anything but inconsequential. As she explains, those memories began resurfacing as she engaged in EMDR—Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing—with her therapist, opening the door to a deeper understanding of what she had endured. (It’s amazing what a good sexual assault/rape therapist can do for clients!) Beth shares her experience inside a coercive and controlling relationship that ultimately included rape, and how that environment systematically eroded her self-image,...
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172. Erica: When a Husband’s Power Became Sexual Violence
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
In this episode I sit down with Erica, a survivor whose experience exposes the devastating reality of coercive control, rape, and sexual assault within a marriage. Erica reached out to share not only what she endured, but the long and difficult process of recognizing abuse, breaking free from it, and beginning her healing journey. This conversation examines how power and control can operate quietly and persistently—how manipulation, exploitation, and sexual violence are often obscured by relationship roles, social expectations, and silence. Erica speaks candidly about what it took to escape...
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171. Dave Markel: When Showing Up Means Slowing Down
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
Today, this episode is a brief reflection from me, recorded as a pause in the regular rhythm of the show. Rather than a guest interview, I’m speaking directly to you, my listeners, about the weight of trauma-informed work, the importance of rest, and what it means to show up honestly when the work feels heavy. For survivors, professionals, and advocates alike, this episode is a reminder that healing is not linear, strength is not measured by endurance alone, and slowing down is sometimes the most responsible choice. Regular guest episodes of Sexual Assault Survivor Stories will resume next...
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170. What Stayed With Us: The Conversations From 2025 We Couldn’t Shake
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
As this year comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect, not with a countdown or a highlight reel, but with intention. This episode brings together a handful of powerful moments from conversations released in 2025 that truly captured what Sexual Assault Survivor Stories is about: survivor courage, hard truths, clarity around trauma, and the willingness to sit with conversations that don’t offer easy answers. The clips you’ll hear were chosen using a hybrid approach—listener engagement, impact, and significance. They include moments from conversations with Rachel...
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169. Shannon Porter: "What They Don’t Say" Is in The House...and The Social Media Reels People Can’t Ignore
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
I’m happy to announce that I’m joined once again by Shannon Porter, host and co-founder of the What They Don’t Say podcast. Shannon returns to talk about the evolution of her work, her growing presence on social media, and what’s driving her to speak more openly, and more frequently, about the realities of surviving rape and sexual assault. Our conversation centers on the reels and posts Shannon is producing to help shed light on what survivors face every day: how people respond when a survivor shares their story, the misunderstandings that follow trauma, and the emotional labor...
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168. Marina Lacerda: When Epstein Power, Money, and Rape Collided — and She Survived
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
For decades, Marina was known only as “Minor Victim-1” in legal documents — a label that stripped away her humanity while protecting those responsible. In this conversation, Marina reclaims what was taken from her: her voice, her story, and her identity. She speaks not just about what happened, but about what it costs to survive abuse at that scale — the trauma that lingers, the mistrust that settles in the body, and the long road back to agency and truth. This episode is not sensational, and it is not speculative. It is grounded in lived experience and courageous truth-telling....
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167. Erin Williamson: Love146 — Pulling Children Back from the Darkness
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
Erin Williamson joins me for an incredibly important conversation about her work with Love146, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children from human trafficking and walking alongside young survivors on their path to healing. Erin shares what this work truly looks like — not the headlines, but the day-to-day reality of survivor care, long-term recovery, and prevention education — and how essential it is to understand trafficking as a real issue affecting real children in communities across the country. We discuss the profound impact trafficking has on children’s brains,...
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166. Jason Patrick Berry: Secrets Beneath a Perfect Childhood
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS
This week on Sexual Assault Survivor Stories, I sit down with Jason Patrick Berry, author of the brave and unflinchingly honest memoir Secrets Beneath. Jason’s story is one that quietly breaks your heart and then slowly helps rebuild it. On the outside, his childhood looked perfectly normal, even picturesque. But behind closed doors lived a painful reality of abuse, secrecy, and survival that no child should ever have to experience. In Secrets Beneath, Jason pulls back that veil and walks us through the lasting impact of trauma, including post trauma stress, anxiety, and emotional...
info_outlineRecording this episode was a fantastic experience...I was fortunate to have my guest, Cassie Nicholas, join me in the studio! It’s not often that this occurs, as most of my guests are long distances from St. George, UT. But Cassie is staying in a nearby city and was willing to drive into town to record this episode. It was a real delight that we got to see each other in the sense that it was awesome to get caught up on our almost year-long friendship; a friendship that started when Cassie emailed me in June of 2023, asking to be a part of this podcast. (Listening to her previous episode (Episode 36) isn’t a prerequisite to listening to this week’s episode, but it would help put some of Cassie’s dark, painful history into perspective.) It was kind of Cassie to agree to do a follow-up episode with me this week, but the truly powerful aspect of getting together with Cassie, was to meet her in person and experience first-hand her remarkable personality, wit, humor, and deep, deep caring that she has toward all she encounters. See, Cassie is a people person. And I knew that from talking with her last year, but to be in her presence is to feel that powerful energy and love.
Cassie’s childhood was nothing short of horrific. For as far back as she could remember, her father trafficked her to area doctors, business owners, and land barons in and around the small Apalachin town where she grew up in West Virginia. She has no specific memories of the actual rapes, only faces, back rooms, locked doors, pain, and secrets. And to exacerbate the situation, Cassie was constantly physically and emotionally assaulted by her father. He punished her for things he did to her. Further, she had to endure the knowledge that he was doing the same things to Cassie’s older sister who was totally physically and mentally disabled. Cassie carried that grief while doing her best to take care of her sister’s physical and emotional needs, loving her dearly, while agonizing in the physical, emotional, and mental knowledge of the sexual assaults of herself and her sister. Cassie’s mother was a loving and caring mom but she knew nothing of the sexual assaults and rapes that her husband was facilitating on her daughters. Until, one day, she found out, and as a result Cassie’s father eventually poisoned her to death so he could continue doing what he wanted to do with his daughters.
It was hard to hard hear how Cassie had, over the last year, developed new memories of her childhood sexual assault experiences. One was of being hunted in the woods by men who had paid her father for that horrific happening so that they could catch her and violently rape her. And then, when she made her way home, her father punished her for being with men out in the woods.
But Cassie also told me of the many ways that she has developed coping mechanisms and self-therapy techniques that are helping to heal her from her traumatic experiences. The pain and trauma memories continue, but so does the healing. And Cassie is happy. And she doesn’t suffer from depression, or from the suicide attempts and ideation like she did in the not-too-distant past. It is fascinating intriguing to listen to Cassie; and I could go on and on telling you of Cassie’s successes, but I’d rather you listen to this episode, and hear all about it from Cassie herself. Then, when you’ve finished listening, tell others to listen. We need to have more participation in the telling and listening of stories like Cassie’s. We need to normalize these conversations in order to help reduce the prevalence of child and adult sexual assault and rape.
I would greatly appreciate you taking the time to rate this episode and subscribe to Sexual Assault Survivor Stories. I would also appreciate your comments, both in the episode comments, and if you’d like, by emailing me and telling me your thoughts about the show…how it has impacted your life or the life of someone you know. And, as you’ll hear in the episode, Cassie would love to hear from you, too. She’s distancing herself from social media at this time, but if you’d like to communicate with her, you can write to me, and I’ll make sure she gets you message.
Thank you for being part of my efforts, and for your loyalty in listening to the show. Please share this podcast with everyone you know. And remember to do your part to bring justice to victims and survivors of rape and sexual assault…together we can make a difference if we all Start By Believing; because we all know someone whose life has been affected by rape or sexual assault.