A Trauma Survivor Thriver’s Podcast Lorilee Binstock

Lorilee Binstock 00:01:57
Welcome. I’m Lorilee Binstock, and this is A Trauma Survivor Thriver’s Podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me live on Fire side chat where you can be a part of the conversation as my virtual audience. I am your host, Lorilee Binstock. Everyone has an opportunity to ask me or our guest questions by requesting the hop on stage,
but we do ask that everyone be respectful. I will try to get you as soon as possible.
Today’s guest is Michelle Wagner, children’s book author and advocate for families with special needs children, the main character in her book series Mickey on the move, Mickey,
is Michelle’s real life fourteen year old son who was born with hearing loss in both ears and Where cochlear
implants to aid him in his hearing journey.
Michelle has dedicated her life to making sure Mickey has the best medical care and resources, and she insists families
as they work together through the different approaches to facing a special needs child,
Michelle, thank you so much for joining me today.

Michelle M Wagner 00:03:16
Thank you for having me, Laurie.

Lorilee Binstock 00:03:19
Well, you know,
I think this is amazing. You know, you we we kind of compensated briefly...
Through email, but you know, you talked about, I didn’t realize it, but Mickey was adopted,
and you didn’t know at the time during the adoption
that
Mickey.
There was any hearing loss.
Could you talk a little bit about that process
of adoption.
And when you discovered,
he actually
had some hearing loss.

Michelle M Wagner 00:03:53
Sure.
He so we decided my husband
at time and I decided to adapt,
and I had had
cousin in Ohio had just adapted it to
very sweet
boys
from Russia, actually,
And
we decided to
do the same. We had enough resources, and I researched and met other parents
that went through a bay area here where we live
adoption agency,
and then also
connected
you know, with resources to help guide us through the entire process. It was long about a year and a half. And
when they finally
found Mikey for us and an orphan in Tomorrow,
who’s was about sixteen months old,
and we had to take three trips to Russia to visit him,
and he was so sweet and smiley,
and
instantly,
we made a connection with him.
And they had just mentioned that he had ear infections, and it was twenty below zero in cold.

Lorilee Binstock 00:05:03
Mhmm.

Michelle M Wagner 00:05:04
And
that might have been, you know, a significant factor, and he was also born premature.
And once we...
Once the adoption process
was finished, and we brought him back to California,
we shortly there thereafter realized
that he was not hearing,
and we took him to an ear nose and throat specialist.
And
then
to a special hospital Ucsf,
where an cardiologist
in a special team met with us, And they said he was
profoundly deaf in both ears.
So he had no hearing,
and they asked if we wanted a
hearing and speaking trials
or
assigning child, and then we would take the, you know, take it from there. And so we decided to give him every opportunity possible.
And
we he was able to get bilateral
cochlear
implants, so that was implant in both ears, and it was a very
intense operation and time in our lives, and we had a way
you know, to be approved, and then to get the operation and recovery was a couple months,
and
then he was implanted and
his processors were activated,
and he was
three years old at that time.
And now he is fourteen, and he has thriving,

Lorilee Binstock 00:06:31
Mhmm.

Michelle M Wagner 00:06:32
playing sports, and,
you know, we still do speech lessons every day, but the whole entire journey has been extremely rewarding.

Lorilee Binstock 00:06:42
Oh, that’s so amazing to hear.
You know, being being a parent
just
without having a child with special needs is is challenging.
Does it like for you through the the whole process and and and raising a child
now he’s fourteen with in thriving, which is incredible.
What would you how would you descri

Today’s guest is Michael JE Barry.  A successful musician and trauma survivor, Michael has been diagnosed with a rare disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder which is also known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Michael is also the Author of Rooftops, a fiction novel that is part fantasy, part magical reality.

Today’s guest is Geralyn Ritter. A recognized expert in healthcare policy, Geralyn  is executive vice president at Organon, a new Fortune 500 healthcare company dedicated to the health of women.  She is also the author of a memoir about her recovery from the 2015 Amtrak derailment, Bone by Bone: A Memoir of Trauma and Healing.

Lorilee Binstock 00:00:33
Welcome. I’m Lorilee Binstock, and this is a trauma survivor thriver’s podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me live on Fireside chat where you can be a part of the conversation
as my virtual audience. I am your host, Lorilee Binstock.
Everyone has an opportunity to ask me or ask guest questions by requesting to hop on stage or sending a message in the chat.
I will definitely try to get to your question, but I do ask everyone be respectful.
Today’s guest is Alexandra
Chevy.
Alexandra is the
author of. It really is simple, a holistic approach to self confidence.
She came to the Us from Bulgaria in two thousand after earning a bachelor’s degree in music from the National Academy of music and.
And she earned a doctor of musical arts and violin performance from Louisiana State University in two thousand and seven. She has been sing as a registered nurse since thousand eleven with a strong passion for educating patience on obtaining optimal health her mission is to help people overcome self imposed limitations that prevent many from realizing their goals, finding peace of mind and wiring prosperity.
Alexandra, Thank you so much for joining me today.

Alexandra Dotcheva 00:02:09
Thank you so much for hearing the laura Such a pleasure to be your guest.

Lorilee Binstock 00:02:13
Oh my goodness. Well, you know, I I wanted to bring up your accolades as a
as a musician.
I I think that’s
incredible. And... But I... You know, I I think about that and, you know, in your book,
as someone who has performed at such a high level in a tentative,
you know, career in in orchestra.
You know, I’m assuming, you know, just like a olympic who perform at high levels in in front of crowds
that once it stops or once you’re done with that career path,
that
it can seem like,
like, nothing else is really
as exciting or enough.
I don’t know if that is what how your feeling, but I wanna know what what was the transition like from for you as a performer?

Alexandra Dotcheva 00:03:02
Oh, that’s a great question. Well, actually,
everything became much more exciting thinking in my life. One I decided to quit music

Lorilee Binstock 00:03:10
Mhmm.

Alexandra Dotcheva 00:03:11
morally because
I was not competitive enough to be a musician, but the problem was I gathered the courage to act on this understanding in my early thirties.
So I went through an early me crisis with the entire feeling of
zero accomplishment in life,
lighting in progress
compared to my... Because you always compare your yourself to others. Right? And he not that earned all these degrees the bachelor’s master’s doctor, and then

Lorilee Binstock 00:03:34
Mhmm

Alexandra Dotcheva 00:03:39
I was uploading an orchestra,
but I also saw the market started with crawling home musicians from two thousand six to two thousand eight, when the financial crisis happened,

Lorilee Binstock 00:03:48
Mhmm.

Alexandra Dotcheva 00:03:49
many orchestra bankrupt in the United States because the regional governmental support for culture like there is in the European countries.
For example, in Germany, the government supports many of their orchestra
because they thrive from culture, and they see us as very prestigious thing to support Steven and Orchestra
United States, that is not the case. So we relied on rich people,

Lorilee Binstock 00:04:09
Mhmm

Alexandra Dotcheva 00:04:11
basically, larger business owners,
other, like, music lovers to support us financially, and pay our salaries to the year management. Models changed the business models change, and that’s where things started getting really bad.
And the problem when you start playing music professionally because I was born into a family professional musicians

Lorilee Binstock 00:04:31
Mhmm

Alexandra Dotcheva 00:04:31
from very early childhood.
You don’t really review learn anything but music for the twelve years in school because I was in a specialized music school.
We lear

Welcome. I’m Lorilee Binstock, and this is A Trauma Survivor Thriver’s podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me live on Fireside chat where you can be a part of the converse station as my virtual audience. I am your host, Laura Vince.
Everyone has an opportunity to ask me our questions by requesting to hop on stage your sending a message in the chat box. I’ll try to get to those messages, but we do ask that everyone be respectful.
Today’s guest is Stephen Mills. Stephen is the author of chosen and memoir of a Boy stolen.
Which tells the story of his childhood sexual abuse by a summer camp director, the lifelong journey of recovering from trauma and his quest to stop a serial predator and find justice.
He is honored to serve as an ambassador of child Usa, the leading profit fighting for the civil rights of children.
Stephen, thank you so much for joining me today.

Stephen Mills 00:07:23
Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Lorilee.

Lorilee Binstock 00:07:25
Well,
you know, in the book, you discuss your
experienced with childhood sexual abuse and it took place at a camp.
Are you comfortable with sharing with our audience? Your story?

Stephen Mills 00:07:38
Yeah. Absolutely.
That’s what I do these days. I think it’s super important to
make people aware of
the risks to children and these settings and and how to make them safer.
So I went to this
sleep away camp
when I was
first ten years old, and then again, when I was eleven,
when I turned
thirteen,
right after my bar actually, I was raised Jewish. And this camp was run by a very trusted Jewish social service agency.
There was a new director that summer
and
he was
a
highly revered social worker
from the bronx
we were all from New York. Most of the kids were from the bronx in Brooklyn. I was from Long Island,
and he was just this incredibly
charismatic
street wise
charming guy who had
you know, really
one over
not just everyone in the agency, but all the parents and the families and kids loved him.
And
he about a couple weeks into that summer,
he began
showing me a lot of special attention.
You know, today, what we call grooming
in all the classic ways
he’s spent special sort of
one on one time with me, ask me lots of probing questions about
my self my family.
I had lost my father when I was four. He died of multiple sclerosis.
And
in retrospect, of course,
all of this
became clear to me as his
screening process. He targeted
eleven, twelve, thirteen year old boys and would was really funneling them to find the ones that were

Lorilee Binstock 00:09:33
Mhmm

Stephen Mills 00:09:35
sort of most promising if you will, as targets for
sexual assault, and
I fit the classic profile.
A kid who was
father less
who had some problems at home with his step family who was very needy
and
he took his time about it that lasted
most of that summer, and it wasn’t until that full when he called up my mother and
prevailed on her to let me go with him up to camp in the off season
supposedly to help him with some projects. And that’s where the sexual abuse actually began.
We were isolated,
you know, a hundred miles from home in the middle of the woods.
And
that was
the first...
The first time It would go on for two years after that till I was fifteen.

Lorilee Binstock 00:10:30
Wow. Did you did you tell anyone
about the experience

Stephen Mills 00:10:35
No. I didn’t tell a soul.

Lorilee Binstock 00:10:35
around that time?

Stephen Mills 00:10:37
And
I didn’t tell salt until eight years later, we could talk about that a little bit because it’s pretty dramatic and interesting what happened. But at the time,
you know, like most kids, I had absolutely no frame of reference
for

Lorilee Binstock 00:10:51
Mhmm.

Stephen Mills 00:10:52
what he was doing to me.
It certainly wasn’t, and I I really like to point this out In my mind, it wasn’t
sexual.
Meaning,
it was violence,
and
I experienced it as
a near death experience, which is
what it was. I mea

Lorilee Binstock 00:06:04
Thank you so much again, for joining us.
Sorry for the delay. We are on. This is A Trauma Survivor Thriver’s Podcast, and I’m Lorilee Binstock.
Thank you so much for joining me live on Fireside chat where you can be a part of the conversation as my virtual audience. I’m your host Lorilee Binstock.
Everyone has a chance to ask a question by requesting a hop on stage you’re sending a message in the chat box, I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can. But as I do ask that everyone be respectful.
Today’s guest is Lora DeVore. Lora is the author of darkness was my candle and memoir that traces her life as a survivor of child abuse, sex trafficking
illegal pharma drug research and institutional abuse.
Now she devote her self spreading the word of these atrocities with her personal documentation of her story with in advanced degree in clinical psychology and recognized as a national expert in Catalyst change. Her wisdom comes from the field of psychology,
trans personal development and spiritual psychology.
Laura, thank you so much for joining me today.

Lora DeVore 00:17:27
Thank you so much, Laura. I’m so sorry. It took me a while to to get on, but I’m glad to be here.

Lorilee Binstock 00:17:34
Well, thank you. You are not the first one. You won’t be the last one who because is she’s trying to get on this platform.

Lora DeVore 00:17:37
Okay. That’s good.

Lorilee Binstock 00:17:39
So don’t even worry about it.
I do wanna get into your story. I know I labeled this title
institutional abuse, but they you’ve
you’ve endured so much more than that. But I do want you to talk about your childhood and what led you

Lora DeVore 00:17:50
Yes.

Lorilee Binstock 00:17:55
to
become institutional.

Lora DeVore 00:17:58
Sure. I’d be happy too.
But the first thing I wanna say is
why I wrote the book and I wrote it as an act of love
because my story didn’t just happen to me. It has happened to thousands of others.
And it’s a part of our collective shadow,

Lorilee Binstock 00:18:12
Mhmm

Lora DeVore 00:18:15
and my story is not just about trauma. It’s about redemption.
And in all the darkness, there was always grace,
and that’s that’s why the the subtype subtitle of the book darkness was my candle is called an odyssey of survival and grace.
So I
grew up with a mom that had been very, very injured at age three
during the great depression. And she I I really believe that she’s stopped growing.
Psychologically.
She was parent by some siblings. Her mother was cat and her father had died in a blizzard

Lorilee Binstock 00:18:52
Mhmm.

Lora DeVore 00:18:52
in the middle of nowhere in Northern Wisconsin,
and they would have starved had the older sister not hyped into town to get a job, which left the care of my mother and her other siblings, and my mother was age three. There was a brand new baby, two other girls.
And then a couple of boys,
but my mother and the siblings would have starved, had my an not done that. But that left the care of
my grandmother and my

Lorilee Binstock 00:19:32
Laura, are you there?
Laura.
Hello, Laura.
We are dealing with a lot of technical issues this morning.
I’m
sure this was
we’ll try to figure this out, Laura. Can you hear me?

Lora DeVore 00:20:51
Or and found his body in the kitchen
and called halfway we up to steering well for my mom,
and there was no answer and she called the sheriff
and they came and removed his body and everyone was hurry because there was a pretty serious blizzard going on at the time to get home so nobody checked up the stairs because she had told the share she checked. So I was left and

Lorilee Binstock 00:21:11
Oh,
laura. I’m I’m so sorry to interrupt you. We you you you dropped for a minute and night you just came back.

Lora DeVore 00:21:20
Oh, okay. Okay.

Lorilee Binstock 00:21:21
I’m so sorry. Would you... I know that you you were speaking and
Would you mind starting over