I Need Blue
I turned around to see a masked man pointing a gun at me. It was just the beginning of a series of events, including robbery and abduction, which changed my life forever. I Need Blue, hosted by Jen Lee, is a podcast series featuring lived-experiences from survivors of life events. I NEED BLUE creates space for survivors of trauma to feel they BELONG, are LOVED, UNDERSTOOD and EMPOWERED! I called 9-1-1 and they provided me with life-saving directions to help my customer who was having a medical emergency. Law enforcement rescued us and caught the robber. Our first-responders face unique traumas every day. I NEED BLUE provides space for them too!
I Need Blue
Ashley: Tech Meets Trauma, Helping Domestic Violence Victims
One night on a dark New Orleans street, Ashley was held at gunpoint. But instead of panicking, she did something unexpected—she hugged the mugger. That moment of compassion wasn’t random; it was the result of a life shaped by trauma and healing. Ashley had learned that unhealed pain often repeats across generations, and she was determined to break that cycle—for herself and others.
With a Harvard background in data and AI, Ashley could have chosen a traditional path. Instead, she built Persephone AI—a discreet, encrypted app that helps domestic violence survivors safely document abuse, create escape plans, and stay in control of their stories. It’s a lifeline for those with nowhere else to turn. Now, Ashley is calling on all of us—advocates, technologists, and everyday allies—to stand with survivors and bring real safety into the digital age. Join the movement. Share the message. Be part of the change.
Learn more: https://persephone.ai
Connect with Jen:
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By sharing the hidden lines of our stories, we remind each other we are not alone — together, we step out of hiding and into healing.
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Memoir: Why I Survived, by Jennifer Lee on Amazon
I'm constantly reminded how powerful human connection can be. My guest today, ashley, is a shining example of what happens when people lead with compassion and purpose. Imagine being a 5'1 woman walking alone to your car at night, only to find yourself in the middle of an attempted mugging. That was Ashley. But instead of reacting with fear or anger, she responded with something unexpected kindness, and it changed everything. Ashley's story goes far deeper. From a childhood shaped by unhealed generational trauma, she learned early on that pain has a way of repeating itself unless we face it head on. She did just that, seeking therapy and breaking cycles that had lasted generations.
Speaker 1:A brilliant mind, ashley studied data analytics at Harvard and worked in AI development, helping build systems from the ground up. But even with all that success, something was missing a greater purpose. She found it by listening to the voices of women trapped in domestic violence, women who couldn't leave, who had no proof, no safety, no way out. In 2024, ashley launched Persephone AI, a discrete, encrypted app hidden within your phone. It allows survivors to safely document abuse, build a safety plan and choose when and with whom to share their story, whether it's uploading evidence, identifying safe contacts or exporting certified files for legal use. Persephone puts power back into the hands of those who feel powerless. One in four women will experience domestic violence. Ashley wants them to know you are not alone and there are tools to help you reclaim your voice. She's driven by empathy, fueled by innovation and guided by purpose. Ashley, your courage is lighting the way for so many others. Ashley, thank you for being my guest today and welcome to the I Need Blue podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jen. You said that so beautifully and I'm so delighted to be here. I almost can't do it justice. I wish you could introduce me everywhere I go.
Speaker 1:No worries, I like to travel. Why not? Well, I have had the pleasure of talking with you before today and getting to know a little bit more about you and your story. I know we wanted to talk about this mugging, but the reality for you is it is not only one time that you had somebody actually point a gun at you. It happened several times. But today we wanted to focus on the story back in 2012. Because when you told me, I was like oh my gosh, and I know that the audience is going to take away that same reaction. So, if it's okay, can we start with that story?
Speaker 2:if it's okay, can we start with that story? We can, absolutely so. As you mentioned, it was back in 2012. I was in my seventh year of living in New Orleans. I was a up-and-comer in my career and a woman in my 20s, and I'll admit I was out a little late and I had parked my car in a part of town. That wasn't that common for me, but I'd lived in New Orleans for almost seven years and I never really had an incident, though I'm aware that crime exists, can exist anywhere.
Speaker 2:And as I'm walking to my car, all of a sudden I hear from behind me give me your money. And I freeze. I thought did I hear something? And then I hear it again. And so I turn around and I'm standing face to face with a man who's probably only six or eight inches taller than me and I look up at him and I go I'm sorry what? And he repeats it for the third time. And I went.
Speaker 2:I honestly, I kind of I fawned. I did a fawned response, which is not abnormal for people that are seasoned in trauma when they know they're entering a high stress situation, and I went full Southern belt. I was like gripping pearls going. Are you speaking to me, just, and he said yeah. And then I realized he had a gun in his hand and he was pointing it at me and he said, yes, you. And I looked around and there was no one else there and I thought this isn't good, because I didn't have much on me in the way of cash. But it was my cell phone, it was my car keys. I was a block away from getting inside my car keys. I was a block away from getting inside my car and if I truly gave him everything that I had on me, I was going to be on that street with no transportation and no way to call for help and no money in the short run, and it was dark but nonetheless, fawn kicked in and I handed him all my things and for some reason I just felt this strong urge to do something different. And I looked at him and I looked in his eyes and I saw that desperation, I saw his humanity and I said look, don't shoot me, but I'm going to hug you. And he froze and I grabbed him in the middle of the street and gave him a hug and he didn't move right away. But then he hugged me back and I said, while I was holding him in a long hug. I think you're having an even worse day than me. If you need the stuff, you need the stuff, but do you want to sit down and talk about it? And he's got tears in his eyes and he said, yeah, I'd really like that.
Speaker 2:So we sat on the curb of this dark road and we talked about it. His name was Alfonso. He said he'd been trying and trying to get a job and nothing was coming through for him, that he was working as a dishwasher but he had kids at home and he was desperate. And I said, well, look, I'll help you any way I can. I'll ask around for jobs, though we're not off to a great start. Let's work it from here. I'll give you the cash that's on me. It'd be great if you let me keep my car keys, you know. And he asked me for a ride, and so I gave him one to a place in New Orleans called Mid-City. But when he got into my Fiat 500 convertible in the middle of the night, I said, alfonso, you can't get in my car with a loaded gun, so let's solve for that. And that's when he pulled the slide back and a bullet flew out of the top and landed on my floorboard and I realized that gun was absolutely loaded, cocked and ready to go, because the next day I'd find that bullet under my floor mat.
Speaker 2:And I told this story first to my mother, who was just beside herself Like she was already terrified. Coming from a small town in Louisiana that I lived in New Orleans, and to hear your daughter in her 20s tell you this story, you just fear for her at all times. Most people think it's a great act of humanity. My therapist asked me if I was, if she should be concerned for my own well-being and sense of personal safety, because most people wouldn't jeopardize themselves for that.
Speaker 2:But again, for for me it was really. I just saw his humanity and thought what does it take? The things that flashed in my mind were what does it take in your life that a five foot tall woman walking down the street in the night becomes the way you solve your problems? What had to happen to you? Because I I do not believe. For the vast majority I don't believe people are bad people. I think life is hard, I think people are desperate, I think they're hurting, I think they're stressed, I think they're asked for things that are hard to deliver on, and I don't think we in a lot of ways, set up society to make that easier. Um, and and we live in this invisible caste system, and Alfonso and I are part of that.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know, even hearing the story again, it gives me chills every time, Like, obviously I'm glad that you're safe and it is remarkable that you gave a hug because somebody who literally was in the same situation, where behind me I heard give me all your money and turn around to a masked man pointing a gun at me. In that moment, for me it wasn't give a hug because I had several other people that my actions were going to determine the outcome of that situation. But to be able to see beyond the danger and to see the humanity is amazing and I think that can be applied to so many situations in our life. Like you said, you know we're in unprecedented times. It's like things just get harder and harder. So many distractions, so many pressures. The art of listening is like you said sometimes people just want somebody that will sit down and listen to them. Do you wonder where Alfonso is?
Speaker 2:today, even to this day, I do. I know that that night had an impact on me that I will carry with me for many years and that I still think about him and I wonder if I had a similar imprint on him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If that was a pivotal moment in his life or if it helped at all, if it changed anything in him the way it changed something in me, I would leave New Orleans not long after that and, truthfully, if I'm back in the city I'm a lot more cautious. You know, I certainly don't think that you get two of those, but I do hope that I had a positive impact on his life by showing him an act of kindness while he was in an act of desperation.
Speaker 1:Yes, what did it change in you?
Speaker 2:get really solidified that it's okay to trust yourself in a moment of distress, and something that I will say about abuse and trauma is one of the cornerstones that it breaks down in a person is you stop trusting yourself and you start looking outward for someone else to tell you what to trust, and so a big part of recovery from that is learning to trust your own instincts, and so my instinct on Alfonso was that this was the right next thing to do, and that's what I did. But at the same time, it was a fawn response, and we have fight, flight, freeze and fawn, and I had had years of practice disarming volatile people. It's an effective skill, but it is absolutely a way to de-escalate someone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you dig a little deeper into that for the audience?
Speaker 2:in regards to de-escalating, yeah, I think when you've had experiences where you need to navigate abuse and you're living within it, you learn how to de-escalate the abusive person and that is the FON response. And that is the FON response and you can hone that over time. It can also extrapolate it across your personality. I would go on to therapy and learn this. I was not aware with Alfonso on the street that night. But people that you hear self-describe as a people pleaser, desperately fearful of judgment of others, that look for validation outside themselves, or so scared that they're going to upset someone that they might lose a person, those things are likely tied into. People pleasing is a strong component of I want to be liked by you, I want you to be happy with me.
Speaker 2:If you're a people pleaser, you're likely very good at the fawn response because you know how to make a difficult person de-escalate or otherwise feel pleased with your actions. Being a people pleaser can also mean that you don't want to lose people, and so you have an abandonment one. So if we look back in your past, did you have a parent that you became't want to lose people, and so you have an abandonment one? So if we look back in your past, did you have a parent that you became estranged from? Did you grow up without two active parents? Is there a reason that you're constantly seeking to not lose people in your life? And all of those things can come together into cultivating a fawn response, and I would go to hundreds of sessions trauma therapy to learn this about myself.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know, when you were telling us about the mugging you mentioned, you were an individual with seasoned trauma and that, because of what you had inside of you, it was kind of dictating your response, like you just said in that moment, and so I found that fascinating. And one of the things we're going to talk about also is the generational trauma. So what did your childhood look like? What experiences did you have? That, as you were going through all these therapy sessions, there are layers, right, and as you dig in the layers you were like, oh, didn't know, that was there. You know, can we explore that a little bit from from the childhood on, if you're comfortable?
Speaker 2:I didn't understand that I should go to therapy or that I even had a reason to do self-growth, until I became a mother myself, and in part it was because I realized that I was. My instinct was to reenact what I knew from my own childhood, which was likely their reenactment of what they knew from their own childhood. And if you go back a few generations in my family, my grandmother was a beautiful woman and it was a dark family secret, but her parents, both mother and father, committed suicide.
Speaker 2:Oh and mom when she was young, um, and dad when she was 18, and she was bounced, essentially, from family member to family member until someone stepped in and said we'll raise her as our own, and I don't think a family line just bounces back from that. That's going to require that someone heal the underlying causation of how those people came to that point of desperation. And something that I strongly live by as a mom of three little boys now is what you don't heal, your children will feel. That's very real for me in my life and I think for many other people, because we will reenact what we know to be true from when we were little and if something about that does not sit right with you or if that was hard for you when you were a child, it's really your responsibility as an adult to go deep and understand how you could alter that for little people in your care. That's how you begin to disintegrate the generational trauma that we see running through.
Speaker 1:That is powerful, the statement. What you don't heal, your children will feel Like. I feel that, as a mom myself, I wished I would have known that 20 years ago. You know, when I gave birth. I know I would have known that 20 years ago. You know, when I gave birth. I know I only look 29. But, yes, absolutely, and so I do, because you know even me. I look back I was like, wow, you know 49. I wished I would have known everything. I know now I would do it differently.
Speaker 1:But the thing is we can't go back right, we can't have a do-over. But what we can do now is for other parents listening who are hearing this and who are feeling this like I am, is talk about it. Children are adults now. Talk about it. Now you have an opportunity of hey, let's rethink this. Talk about it. Children are adults now. Talk about it. Now you have an opportunity of, hey, let's rethink this. Let's talk about a different way that maybe, if your kids do this, that we could handle it differently. Let your children have a voice. You know I grew up in the year to be seen and not heard. We had tape put over our mouths if we talked back Like you weren't given that opportunity, and nowadays, with everything our children face, they need that space. Right, we talk about creating space for each other survivors, adults, whatever it is but we forget about the little people, that they need space too.
Speaker 2:So what you just said is so powerful thank you, thank you, and you know I want to make sure I cover the other side of the spectrum, which is I equally have found you cannot be, at least in my experience. We each get our own um an adequate if your entire parenting modality is to over-please, placate and accommodate your children. So you were. I feel like I was wasn't as simple as saying well, I never want to hit my children or spank my children or yell at my children. Therefore I'm just going to be so accommodating, I want them spoiled, I want them happy all the time. If they're not happy, I've failed as a mother. You can't go that extreme either.
Speaker 2:If you are people pleasing towards your children, they grow in entitlement. They can't meet tasks. They grow in entitlement. They can't meet tasks. They cannot acclimate correctly into society because they believe that they are special above that, not required to do those things. If you have a desire to overcompensate in your parenting, then look inside yourself, for what need is that filling? Do you have a problem with distress tolerance? Are you capable of watching them struggle a little bit, because our goal is really to raise them to be able to go out on their own and live a healthy, functioning life that they can feel good in. I'd like to say that building companies and raising babies is not all that different. If I do my job well enough, you won't need me to do it anymore. That's the goal, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, going back to what you saw in Alfonso's eyes, it's humanity. You know, finding that balance in parenting to end up with, you know, a child that is full of humanity and understanding. So, yes, thank you so much for sharing that as well. Parenting is not easy. It's like this I don't know circle, you know thing and it's. There's no manual. There's no manual on people, because we're all different, been through different things, so I love what you shared. This episode is actually going to come out September 29th and, as we know, october is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so I love that we're having this conversation now. You determined that there was a need for women who are in situations they could not get out. Can you tell us what led up to your discovering this software now to you're discovering this software now that is going to make a huge difference in women's lives and men as well, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Persephone AI was really born out of my own personal need and talking with others that I knew had navigated complex situations and needed a similar packaged piece of technology. What most folks said to me early on, when I was constructing how it could all work together, is, they said, doesn't that already exist? I feel like someone's already done that. Are you sure there isn't anyone else that's done that?
Speaker 2:And what I would eventually find is, yes, the Australian government did it and it did seem like there was a police officer in America that did a similar version for police, but, truthfully, as far as just everyday folks and I need this and I need it simply no one had done it, and it seemed really important to me that, at the intersection of my skills with my knowledge of what it can feel like inside of those situations and what you may need to do to protect yourself and your family, coupled with my academic studies around artificial intelligence and innovation and designing systems and data, that I felt almost obligated to give this to people so that if someone needed it next, they would have it. What Persephone is is pretty. It is an app available to you in google play or on ios that you can download and on ios easily hide on your phone.
Speaker 2:But even if you cannot hide it, once you open it it does not look like what it is. Once you are into the login area, you can make static real-time notes, you can upload audio and video recordings, you can upload files, you can transcribe your audio and video and you can do language translation on everything. You can add safe people that you could SOS your file to, or you can download your body of evidence to use now or later if you were to need it, and so it is a culmination of a safe place. Think of it like a vault where you can get information off of your devices, out of a journal and onto our servers so that we can house it for you for the time when you may be prepared to take some type of step forward. And in essence, it is the beginning steps of what they will tell you in therapy.
Speaker 2:If you are trying to design a safety plan to exit an escalating dangerous situation, they'll tell you to identify people in your community one or two people and make them aware of what's happening in your private life. They'll tell you to start documenting privately what is happening to you and, if you feel comfortable, obviously share those experiences with someone you trust and all is that people are in a dangerous situation. They know that they're being abused. It's harder with emotional abuse, it's a little easier with physical abuse, but in either situation an abuser is not abusive every single day. They are abusive and then kind, and it's confusing and you believe they will change and you likely are a loving, caring person and maybe even in some ways, if you have things that you haven't quite gone deep enough on, you're contributing and it becomes kind of back and forth and you're both a little toxic and it can be messy, right, but you do normally have a primary aggressor that is creating the cycle and then you may be reacting to the abuse. So these situations, I've found, get incredibly complicated.
Speaker 2:And what I always encourage someone to do is document anyway, and if you want to do that discreetly, you can do it at Persephone, because the writing down, the act of writing it somewhere, the act of taking it out of yourself and putting it in a location, is the first tiny act of rebellion. It also might help you see that this is repeating for you that this is ongoing and prevalent and if you ever are ready to exit, you also have a documentation history. There's a lot of power in that. Personally, I think people legitimately so can be scared to document no-transcript, but that is your future cloak of protection. It is hard to navigate a crisis and keep a clear mind and know what to do next or to think ahead to. How is this affecting me? How is this affecting my children?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I typically encourage people to document. Use Persephone or use something, but start writing down your lived experiences.
Speaker 1:Number one great tool. Like I said, the stats are one in four women, so there's a lot of us.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you're so right, though, about the whole. When you write something down, it hits you a little bit differently versus just talking about it, like you and I, because you read it and you're like, oh, you know, somebody might find almost in like keeping a diary right as a kid. When you go back and read it you might realize, oh, that's not normal. Yeah, or oh, he said this like five times in a week to me. You might see a pattern that, now that you've gotten it out of your head and you've put in it, you might recognize the signs and that might help you get out sooner, potentially right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Yeah, but it is a very scary situation and it is. It can be very dangerous and very scary to get out.
Speaker 2:So for you to have this tool for them exactly, and you know, I think, things that are housed locally just on your cell phone. I've had plenty of people tell me I had evidence and they took my phone and broke it. I had and they took my phone and broke it.
Speaker 2:I had evidence and they took my phone and made me delete it in front of them. So we know that there's power in moving it to a secondary location. We know that there's a lot of value in having it secure. Think of it like a bank lockbox, how we used to. Maybe they can still do that. I just know my grandparents did that many years ago. It's a secret vault where you can put these things in in case you ever do need them, and I find that people should have the security of that, the peace of mind of that.
Speaker 2:When I was working to get this live last year, google Play accepted the app immediately and allowed it to publish to their app store. Ios would take three more months and more developers to get it live. They actually initially wrote me 12 pages of objections about letting this app live on their app store, and one of the big reasons was well, you aren't explaining what it really is and you need to let people click from within the app and immediately delete their account. And I was like absolutely not. I'm going to have to argue with you, apple, I don't want to do that, because it's not that I don't want people to have the authority over their own data. Absolutely, I care about that and if it is legitimately the person that Persephone is protecting, then we can delete your data.
Speaker 2:But what I don't want is to make it too easy from within the app if it were to be found to say, push the button and delete your file. So we compromised at a hold where there would be a brief hold before we would permanently delete anything so that someone could come back around and say you know what? Actually I think I'll keep that, but it's meant to be thoughtful with these fail safes in mind of real-world scenarios. What happens if they find it on the phone? What happens if they tell you to delete it?
Speaker 2:And our job, once you are a user of Persephone, is to do everything want to release your file to them. We can also package it and give it to police if you need us to do that. Really, just you control where it goes in. That I think we will likely do in the next iteration is hard to talk about, but some version of what they call a dead man switch, which would be at the user's discretion if I'm not logged in after this amount of time, release my file, because the presumption is, something may have happened and we don't want it to go unknown that you are storing evidence.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that would be an optional feature to our users that I have been thinking about implementing, as people have brought it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just going to ask you what's next and so, interestingly enough, you shared that. So you have a background in data analytics, ai and whatnot, in data analytics, ai and whatnot. So how did that influence outside of?
Speaker 2:experience. How did that influence? Like man, I gotta do something. I think it was a huge influencer. I actually initially studied risk management and insurance in undergrad, and I went on to learn how to build insurance companies. I have always worked in understanding the dynamics of risk pooling, data capture, how to design systems to capture the right data so that you can later better understand what you're doing and how it's affecting people and how to price those things, and so I wanted to go back to school mid-career and receive a more formal training in the data analytics space, and that's what I did, which exposed me to just an entire world of case study, learnings, innovation, how some of the big household names that you know designed their companies and made them innovative and forward-thinking, and it was there that Persephone first started to come to life for me, so I actually vetted it for multiple years inside of academic arenas, long before it ever reached the public. I think what really matters is that we're always thoughtful about what we do with the information we hold, and so Persephone is specifically designed so that no one reads your entries and no one should.
Speaker 2:One problem that I personally had with the way things are set up is, especially if you have children. If you disclose that in therapy and the children are impacted in some way, there is an obligation to report you to CPS. Now I'm not going to take any strong stance on if that's good or bad. I'm merely going to say that when we tell abused women that if they talk they might now have CPS wanting to get involved or in relationship to their children, and those same people may or may not have access to money to change their circumstances overnight We've essentially trapped you there. We've said it's not safe to tell people there's no money to get you out. Get you out. And so, from my own learned experiences, I thought if it's this hard and I have a career, what are other people going through? There's got to be a better way. And so Persephone big picture is an entire suite of products, and the ones that I'm the most excited I think and build include relationship insurance. So insurance is my background and there are ways to price it so that if you needed a certain starter capital to exit, you could make a claim for that and then it could reset your life so that you would not be held in a situation due to the financial implications of leaving. I've also in that same modality as sexual assault insurance for people to buy for their families and protect. Let's say you have a child going off to college. Let's say that in general, you just know the risks of moving through this world and that the incident rates are high. These are products that should exist and I would love to see them come to life.
Speaker 2:Then the final one is body cam telematics jewelry. You're allowed first-party record in 38 states, which means as long as you're aware of it, it's likely legal to do that without notifying the other person. It's likely legal to do that without notifying the other person, and I've met with engineers here in Houston on what it would take to prototype this type of technology, because it is far and far long and the concept would be that we could embed this in jewelry. It would be discrete and it would live stream to Persephone servers. Then when you're on your app, you can say reject the footage it was no big deal or keep the footage.
Speaker 2:I've just caught something really important on the record, and so I just think all of these things allow innovation and tech to start working for us. And when you think about these numbers one in four women in their lifetime will experience abuse. There is no reason let's elevate beyond a poster inside a bathroom stall. There is a lot more we could be doing with tech to lessen the impact of those numbers, and I would love to be a part of bringing that to life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Like everything you said. It's just kind of going through my head. I'm thinking about the different insurances. That's fascinating. Never would have thought of that. There are people who don't believe in life insurance to begin with. You know what I'm saying. So how do you get them to recognize? Here's what the statistics say and here's why I'm not saying that it's going to happen to you. But what if it does? Like at least you're a little bit prepared, or prepared in a certain way?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, exactly, and we insure against many things at this time, but at the same time, folks will tell you that the biggest decision you'll ever make is who your partner is. So how do we recognize that prenups aren't for everyone, but you still need to be thoughtful about protecting your future, and that this would be a way to normalize that and equalize among people as they choose a relationship?
Speaker 1:Interesting. It'll be really interesting to see how that's going to evolve and manifest itself, so definitely got to keep me posted on how all of that progresses.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Is there a website where they can learn more?
Speaker 2:There is. It is P-E-R-S-E-T-H-O-N-E, dot A-I.
Speaker 1:All right, ashley, thank you for your heart, thank you for your humanity, thank you for being willing to come and share, thank you for addressing a need and creating something for others, so I truly appreciate you. I'm so excited to be able to share this again. This is going to be great, but anyway, thank you so much for being here and being my guest on the I Need Blue podcast.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate the opportunity to come on and talk about my own life and what I've done with Persephone AI. Thank you for the support.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're so welcome.
