Unstoppable Meets Ashley Owens: From Unimaginable Loss to Unbreakable Strength

*Viewer Discretion Advised*

*Part one of our 2 part podcast

In this deeply emotional episode of Unstoppable, Megan sits down with Ashley Owens, a woman whose life story is one of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and ultimately healing.

Ashley bravely shares her journey through childhood sexual abuse and the courage it took to speak up and survive. She opens up about the complex family dynamics that followed and the lasting impact trauma can leave behind.

Her story becomes even more heartbreaking as she recounts the devastating loss of her young child due to violence — a tragedy no parent should ever face. Through grief, trauma, and overwhelming life challenges, Ashley continued trying to hold her life together for her surviving daughter.

Ashley also speaks about navigating difficult relationships, learning to recognize unhealthy dynamics, and finding the strength to walk away when necessary — even when the circumstances were incredibly complicated and painful.

Through years of healing, self-reflection, and rebuilding her life, Ashley eventually found something she had never fully experienced before: a healthy, supportive love and a renewed sense of peace.

This episode is not just about trauma — it is about survival, resilience, healing, and the courage it takes to keep moving forward when life feels unbearable.

Ashley’s story is a powerful reminder that your past does not define your future, and that even after the darkest chapters, healing and hope are possible.

⚠️ Viewer discretion is advised as this episode discusses topics including childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, suicide, and the loss of a child.

If you or someone you know has experienced trauma, please remember that support and help are available.

Transcript

Recording Started

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another Unstoppable series. As you know, when we started Unstoppable, we interview the entrepreneur, people that have come through life, singers, songwriters, all types of people in all walks of life. Because we want to inspire you, living life because life can be hard sometimes. So we want to take our listeners to another level and just say, hey, look, these people have been through it. They came out on top. Keep pushing on. Like Dory says, keep swimming. It's all going to be okay. Today, so excited. I met this lady in my Bible study. We have a Bible study group called Bible Babes. Shout out to them in Murphy's Pearl. I met her a little maybe a year, six months ago, actually. I don't know. Um, and just hearing the little bit of her story, I went to her and I said, Girl, your story is gonna bless so many people if you care to share it, because it's deep, it's personal, it's probably one of my most deep-rooted podcast stories that we have. So if you're listening, you're gonna want to just clear your schedule, make it where you can sit here and listen and maybe send it to somebody else because we're gonna talk about everything. So this is just a sensitive type topic already. So if you're sensitive to things such as abuse, things like that, just know ahead of time this is your disclaimer, okay? So if there's trigger warning, it may trigger some people, but I hope it heals some people too. She's gonna be completely transparent, she's never shared her story before. So I say that before I introduce her so my listeners can know up front. This also is probably gonna go into a two-part series, okay? So we're gonna record one today, which we're gonna release Friday, and next week we're gonna be recording the next. So stick with us, it's gonna be worth it. Miss Ashley Owens is here in our studio today. Ashley, thank you so much for coming.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Oh, it's my absolute pleasure. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yes, and when I ask Ashley, hey, I think your story could help my listeners because I have a lot of listeners that have been through domestic abuse and have had hard times. Do you care to be transparent and share your story? You are like, absolutely. You didn't hesitate. You didn't hesitate. But what I love about you, Ashley, is that's part of your story. That's not who you are. You are a warrior, you're a survivor, and I just want to set the scene up front so people know how impactful this podcast is gonna be. I never usually do that, I usually just let people introduce themselves and we get into the story. But I want people to know from the start how impactful this podcast is gonna be. So, Ashley, thank you so much for agreeing to do your first interview with me ever on this. I appreciate the trust and confidence in that. And I want you just to kind of tell who you are because you are doing a lot of things. Not only are you a successful business owner, you're your husband, you have amazing children, you are just an amazing community worker in the community. You love to serve people, but I want people to know who Ashley Owens is before we dive into the deep stuff in the podcast. So go ahead, the floor is yours, Miss Ashley.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So I am kind of a doer of all things. My husband has owned TrueCon Construction in the Murfreesboro area for just a little over 10 years now. And I came on to the business after a 23-year career in the automotive industry. So very big change for me. And I've been just kind of, you know, running all of the office stuff. I get to talk to clients from time to time. I try to avoid it because I'm really good at spending other people's money. And I know absolutely nothing about interior design. But I started back doing mortgages in, I guess it was just over the summer. A very dear friend of mine had kind of begged me. She was like, please come back to the world of lending, like we'd need you. And of course, my little ADHD brain was like, sure, I've got time to do that. Let's that sounds fun. And so I just kind of like dove into it headfirst. And, you know, I I tell people all the time, they think it's a joke, that math is the only language that I speak fluently. And and so yeah, it's it's fun. I get to tinker with numbers and stuff all day long. And I I genuinely love to just help people accomplish things that they didn't think were otherwise possible for them. So you won't you won't see me doing a whole lot of advertising and things like that. It's just not really my gig. I kind of feel like if there's a client that I'm supposed to work with, that they're just going to be put in my path and they'll feel like this just magnetic energy towards me and and whatever magic happens happens. And it's just kind of my opportunity to give back my talents.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, absolutely. And that is something that that I that I love about you, like your energy when you walk into the room, like it just demands it is, you know, it demands it demands it in a good way. You know, like you're like how you just have such a positive lot about you, and I absolutely love that. Let's go, let's go back and let's introduce like the young Ashley. Okay. So did what was your hobbies? Did you play sports? Were you a tomboy? Like, what were you when you were growing up?

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Oh, I was a little ball of energetic ADHD chaos. We were a military family, so we moved a lot. I'm originally from the from the Pacific Northwest. I was born in Oregon, and most of my family is still out there, and I was the only daughter and the only granddaughter. And so nobody really knew what to do with me. We just kind of, you know, we moved around as a military family and lived all over the place. And, you know, I I was I was the little kid that was always just too much, and and I I couldn't ever shut up. I kind of tended to gravitate more towards adults. I was definitely a tomboy because my brother was in Boy Scouts and things like that. And so I just I kind of grew up hanging out with the boys, and it was it was totally weird. I don't think I really actually came into a more feminine reality, if you will, until gosh, until I was probably 40.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

I've always been, you know, I always thought I was one of the guys, and in reality, it's my my husband and I talk about it all the time. He's like, you're not one of the guys. Nobody actually thinks that you're one of the guys, like you're an attractive female, you're not one of the guys. It's just not possible. He's like, you're very masculine, you talk like a dude, but you're not, in fact, one of the guys. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Well, I think that women that are very, very confident and very driven, we tend to have more guy friends. And some women don't understand that because a lot of times you have pattiness when it comes to women. I've done a whole series on that before. It's just like some women come into events or scared to come to events because they've been hurt by other women, and women are just so patty and they talk about you. And I know everybody's been to some extent a mean girl. I know you can't say that you never have done something that you regret, you wish you would have handled better, but a lot of people grow out of that 100%. But there's still some adults, you know, that are still living in the high school years is what I call it, or the clickest phases and stuff like that. And that's fine to be friends with people you've been friends with forever. I've got friends I've been friends with forever. But love and care for people let's be adults and let's act like it. So that's why I think a lot of strong women that are driven tend to hang out with guys, and it's not like, oh, she's always got guys around her. They just they just feel like they're one of the guys, they feel more relatable to them. So I totally get that and understand that 100% what you're saying there. So definitely, yeah. So I the the sports, the Tom Boy stuff, you know, things like that. It leads you into opportunities. I think it's a good business skill when you get older. I think it's just a good negotiation skill and not being afraid to go in rooms and put yourself into things.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

So yeah, for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

I'll let you continue. I just wanted to stop on that because I feel like that's something that a lot of women can relate to, especially if you're like an entrepreneur or you have a driven spirit, you know, you find yourself with a lot more male friends than girlfriends. However, there is a great community, and we we know this for the Bible babes. If you find your people, like good, honest Christian women that want to support you and clap for you, hold on to those because you're out there. We just have to know.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

So well, yeah, you know, it's it's it's funny. I think that you know, my my tend to gravitate almost towards more of a of a male friendship, I think, in reality, kind of rooted from the very dysfunctional relationship that I had with with my with my father. Um you know, it's not something that I've really just talked about like on a broad scale, but I was sexually abused as a child. Uh really, I mean, up until the point that I was, gosh, probably 12 years old. And and it was, I mean, it was my father. And it's it's I have a huge rift even from that side of my family. We really don't talk because it's very like hush hush. They nobody wants to talk about it. They're like, oh, you know, we kind of we always thought that your mom planted these ideas in your head, you know, and when you're having those conversations in your mid-30s with adults that have known about this for over 20 years, and there's been information that has come out from other family members that some of their kids were also victims of my father's and and things like that. It's kind of like, you know, you you almost don't even want to talk about it with them. You're like, okay, I'll have a conversation with you as long as we don't even mention that person's name because you guys are just blinded by it. And it's it's funny because you know, we as you know, and we talked even yesterday in in our in our group about how so many people kind of shy away from Christianity and from believers and and end up missing out on a relationship with Jesus because of some of the things that people in the Christian community do or people that call themselves Christians do.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

They've been hurt by church, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah, they've been hurt by church, yeah, and by believers. And, you know, my my father's family was all very, they're all very, you know, they're they're all religious people. And so I I had a really hard time. I struggled with that for a long time, understanding how people that were supposed to be believers in Christ could shield a predator. And so yeah, that's that that was that was tough. And, you know, I look back on it and it's almost like I feel like there is a pattern, especially with young girls that go through some sort of some sort of abuse, especially by a father or an uncle or like some male family friend. They usually have very unhealthy relationships with men moving forward. And I always kind of looked for, I think I always was looking for like some solid male relationship. And I ended up with some amazing male friends out of it in the long run. I've got I've got lots of successful male, strictly platonic friends that I've had for, you know, decades at this point. But it also led to some really toxic romantic relationships. And, you know, it's it's it's a scary thing to be a to be a woman in general, especially if you if you are kind of more driven. And and then you add my my crazy on the spectrum ADHD element to it, where we're you know, we're constantly self-monitoring and questioning whether or not we're enough for things by simultaneously thinking that we're too much, it creates a really, really unhealthy dynamic. And we are often the most susceptible women to experiencing domestic violence and sexual assault and things like that because we were it's not a myself. I don't feel like I'm naive to those things. I'm I'm very self-aware of it, but I think a lot of us just choose to to kind of ignore it because there you your your brain just naturally tries to block that trauma. And so you don't recognize all the red flags when they're literally just right there in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Well, that and there's some type of familiarity and comfort in it, even at first, even though it's not healthy. Uh it's the devil you know. It's something it's what you know. And I've done a complete study and deep dive on this, uh, even with myself. I was never sexually abused, but I was, you know, in relationships, I shouldn't have been in verbal, physical altercations, you know, things like that in the past when I was younger. But you know, that that is something that I've found that women like the if their dad wasn't there growing up, or they suffered abuse from a parent, or if their dad just was, you know, dead, or in my case, my dad had a terrific brain injury injury and he couldn't be there during my crucial years of how a lady was supposed to be treated, you go after whatever you feel like your first definition of love is. And if it's not a good example, you tend to trick trickle that pattern. And and I'm not sitting there like doing this, like, oh, blame, you know, men, because I know women and men are young, and when you make mistakes and you're yelling, and you might, you know, whatever, you're trying to figure each other out, there's hormones raging. But I'm talking about sexual, physical, not appropriate. You would not want your daughter or son to go through that in relationships, and you tend to trigger that and mimic that. And what's so sad is is that these people don't get therapy, they keep on doing that. And even when they get something good, they sabotage it because they're always looking at an angle of protection of this is they're gonna hurt me, they're gonna hurt me because they've been hurt, or it's never going to get better. And that's why I think therapy and healing and like self-evaluation and prayer with Jesus, you know, with the Lord helps you kind of get back on the path of kind of fixing things and from from a traumatic experience, so you can go heal yourself, not sabotage the rest of your life, and you can help others. This is what you're doing today. So what so up until you were 12, did you move? Did you finally tell someone? And they just were like, we got to get you out of here at this point. What happened?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah, so we we actually we lived in San Diego, and I remember I think my dad was he was still on he was on the kitty hawk, he was in the navy, and we had some really, really good friends, and my mom was super close with them. And at that moment, like I I thought that there was like, and maybe it was just because I was 12 and I really just didn't understand like human relate in adult relationships and stuff, but I had like this striking fear that my mom was like too close to the husband of of their friends. And I was like, if he finds out, I don't think she knows what he's capable of. And so I did like I I walked into her bedroom, I remember it clear as day. I walked into her bedroom and I was like, mom, you know, like I think that you're too close. And and like if dad finds out, she's like, what on earth are you talking about? I was like, I don't think you know what he's capable of. And she kind of just paused and I just kind of broke down in tears and and told her like everything that had been happening for years, like that I could remember. And she was just flabbergasted. She she beat herself up for a really, really, really long time about it. Like, I think every parent, well, I let me rephrase that because there's a lot of parents, and I don't want to minimize that, there's a lot of parents that have been told, especially by their daughters, that they are being abused by dad or boyfriend or whatever the case may be, and doesn't believe them. And like that's the most horrific situation. God bless my mother. Like she didn't handle it perfectly, but she handled it the best way that she knew how. But she she called the ship because they were actually coming back to port and and told them what happened, and they kept him from getting off the ship. They would not physically let him come home.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Um God for that.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah, yeah. Um, so that was a huge relief. The, I mean, the next couple of years were absolute chaos. You know, in I'm I'll be 43 in June. So this was all like, you know, early 90s, you know, mid-90s. There wasn't really a whole lot of information, you know, before social media. Social media is such a devil, but it's such a blessing in disguise. We have so much more information available to us in support systems. But she was pretty much like at the mercy of the United States military. And they wanted to handle everything internally. I I was in my mid-30s before I even found out that we could have still pressed charges on a civil level with local government, and we didn't act, we weren't exclusively bound to letting the military deal with it. And so, yeah, we we went to court. My dad got a slap on the wrist and was sentenced to like 30 days in a military prison, so military brig. And I think he got awful good behavior.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Was it even on his record? I think his record that he's a child predator.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

So he was supposed to register as a child sex offender for like a really, really long time. I don't remember what the exact details of it were. I just I know that I was I was living in Memphis at the time. I had both of my kids, both of them were still alive. So I was probably late 20s and I got a phone call. I was running a 5K downtown, and I got a message from my stepsister, who coincidentally her name is also Ashley, super weird. And she had reached out to me to let me know that it had that she was also a victim of his abuse. So apparently he met her mom while still living in California. She, you know, like they were introduced. I think she knew about the accusations, didn't believe it. He eventually abused her daughter. She told her they, you know, like she left him and then went back to him. They ended up getting married. Well, they moved to Wisconsin, where he was not required to register. Huh.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

What a coincidence.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yeah. So lived in Wisconsin for years and years and years. And I I had I had a long conversation with her that night about, you know, some of the things that um that he had done over the years. And I was, I was so just like fueled with rage. I was like, the the thoughts that were running through my mind in that moment as I sat in a parking lot on Mud Island. I was like, okay, where can I go buy a gun? Do I have enough money in my bank account to drive to Wisconsin and just put a bullet in his head? You know, like those were the thoughts. It was it was one thing for me when I just thought that it was me, because I was like, I can handle this. You know, like I've I've I've maybe haven't always done the best job of navigating through life after experiencing this, but you know, like let me just go handle it. Like nobody else has has taken care of this problem that exists. I'm just gonna take one for the team. I'll get off on temporary insanity, you know, like even though at that point I'm totally planning like premeditated murder. Like, who does this? And uh and yeah, like it's it, I I struggled with it for years and years and years. Like I I tried to, I tried to like rebuild some sort of relationship with him at a very extreme distance. Had spoken to him several times and was just like, you know, I'm I'm gonna forgive because I have to in order to move on with my life. And I keep him at an extreme distance from me. He doesn't have actual access to me. So this is safe, but I felt like I needed to have a relationship with my father. And and honestly, it wasn't. I don't, I don't looking back at it, I don't think that I finally just cut ties with him completely until my son died. And I think it just triggered something in me. Like I was like, absolutely like now something has happened to my child. And it's just rage at the same time. Yeah, it was. I was I was overcome with rage. So did you experience did your mom get you into therapy at when you were 12? Did she Megan? Let me tell you something. I I learned at a very young age that I was just that I was that I was not like other people.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

I didn't realize until much later in life the the reasoning why I felt the way that I did. I hated therapy as a kid. I remember because I was I was abused when I was like a toddler from a babysitter's boyfriend. I don't really remember any of it, but I remember being in therapy for it and looking back on it. I'm like, maybe that was my dad too, and I just didn't know how to process that, but I digress. I was put in a lot of group therapy for other kids that were victims of sexual abuse by a parent or family member. And I I felt horrible. Like my empathetic response was what I went through wasn't as bad as what these kids went through. It mortified me hearing the stories as everybody kind of shared in group of what they went through. And I couldn't take it. Like it was it was. healing to me. More of like an individual probably would have been better. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I had individual therapy. We we left California right before I turned 14. My mom has worked for the worked for the military in some way, shape, form, or fashion for the majority of my life. And we moved to Memphis just to get as far away from the West Coast as possible. And I had a really, really wonderful counselor in Bartlett as a, as a teenager. She was just amazing and never like tried to make me feel bad for anything, right? Like I had so many people that tried to diagnose me as bipolar or depressed and anxiety and this, that, and the third. And I don't think it till and I don't think it was until I was probably 30 when I was going through the motions of trying to get back on some sort of ADHD medication that I actually had a psychiatrist stop me when I was telling her all of the, you know, the quote unquote diagnoses that had been passed on to me. She was like, let me just apologize. She's like, you're none of those things. She said, you have like your classic case of complex PTSD. She's like your entire life is trauma. And I'm so sorry that nobody ever actually noticed that. I just want to slap a label on you. Yeah. I was like, oh my gosh, that makes total sense. You know, and then you fall down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out what that means and you're like, yeah, that's that's exactly what it was. These these things that I was experiencing and exhibiting were all classic complex PTSD. And we don't think about that as people that are not involved in in in military work and and police work and things like that. We think of PTSD as something that you know combat veterans have. And we don't think about the survivors of any sort of abuse and the types of post-traumatic stress that they deal with because it's not talked about.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah. So I I think that that's I think you hit it on that the nail on the head there when you said that because if you're listening and you have unprocessed trauma from a younger abuse or if you're going through it or if you're God forbid a young listener out here that have found a hold of this podcast and you're experiencing it or you don't know how to get help, you know, always don't be afraid to find that trusting person whether it's a teacher or a pastor or whatever. Like you know in your gut who you can talk to like trust that instinct but it's so sad like you said there's been so many people that thought that they had a trust an adult they could go to and the system failed them. The people that are supposed to protect them and love them failed them and it infuriates me. Like I don't think I could ever work in DHS because I think I would probably end up catching a charge for beating the crap out of somebody that is abusing a child especially your own child. Like what is what is going on in somebody's head to do that? Yeah. The thing is I mean I understand people say it's a sickness and stuff like that but that's the problem of the system failing these kids and these women of domestic abuse and even men you know especially children that are being abused is that they don't want to come forward because they're just going to put them back in the home or they're not going to and then it's going to be worse for them. Or they you know there's people out there that are just great parents and they're under the needle and microscope of everything. But the people that are abusing their kids and it's blatantly obvious they live in feel that's just nastiness these people are just giving children and given chances over and over again like our system is so broken Ashley and it breaks my freaking heart. It breaks my heart and I get so fired up talking about this it just it infuriates me. But especially working with unstoppable women and I talk to a lot of women that have been domestic you know survived domestic abuse or sexual abuse and things like that at the hand of family members or people that love them, husbands and stuff and it just infuriates me that they just don't get help because one they think it's bad but they'll never get to that level until they get to that level you know the the until they until it happens and you think well they're they're a little crazy or they're a little on edge but it's just because I push them too hard. And then you start making excuses for them and and then they go to get help and they realize that it's not going to do any good and they're not going to be protected and then they get back into it and it's worse. Our system is broken and we've got to fix it. We keep screaming it we've got to fix it and I don't know how to fix it. It's just obviously by prayer God wins in the end Jesus is king he wins in the end you know Christ is king to say he wins in the end and we know that and we hold tight to that but in the meantime these babies these innocent babies you know God protect them you know it's all that I know to do and it breaks my heart that you went through this but what a survivor that you're telling the story that you have the courage to tell the story. Maybe somebody that's listening that's going through it or haven't got help they know. But if you're if you need help I if you're listening and you can hear my voice please research who you're going to because the first step is admitting that what was wrong what happened to you is wrong and it's not your fault. Because you gotta go through that with PTSD right yep and then going and researching who you talk to are they faith based or how faith based are they? Are they one that just wants to put you on a bunch of medication and not fix the problem because a lot of this can be fixed yeah through trauma therapy.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

You have somebody that's trauma therapy you know relating that has a degree yes that has a degree yeah I don't think a lot of people realize that there are you know I I went to college for a very short period of time while I was while my kids were very very young and I wanted to be I wanted to be a a forensic psychologist. Psychology has always fascinated me because of the failures that I saw while I was going through that system myself. I don't think that people realize that there are therapists like there's a difference between a therapist and a counselor and a psychologist and a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists like to you know prescribe medication usually based on the recommendation of a psychologist or a therapist or social worker or something of that nature. And therapy is supposed to get to the root of the problem and give you tools in order to navigate these things. But there are specialists that deal in trauma therapy. It is it's incredibly difficult work to do. I I actually have a I have a friend that I met through our business who is actually a trauma therapist. She has her own practice and she's always telling me she's like if you ever want to do it she's like I would love to get inside of that head of yours and I'm like ooh I don't know if you want to get inside of this head. Yeah. But you know I think the most important thing is you know like there's there's this underlying fear and it's because we hear about the stories all the time right oh well I did tell somebody and they hurt me more because of it or I did tell somebody and they didn't believe me. If if anybody takes anything away from this entire conversation is if you tell somebody they don't believe you go tell somebody else. And if they don't believe go tell somebody else you keep telling somebody until somebody believes you and says enough is enough and and that person protects you. And I realize that like even in saying that that it's it's so easy to hear that and be like yeah well I don't have the resources to get somebody like there are we we hear the word mandatory reporters right you know like people in human resources like teachers pastors anybody in sports and things like those are mandatory reporters. If you tell one of those people and they don't tell somebody what you told them then like there are major legal consequences for those people for not reporting it. So it's like I I just encourage anybody like whether you're a a you know a young person hearing this or a parent or you know just a single female that's going through anything like tell somebody who's required to report it. Like there's I mean even even your network like there's people that are there that are just like chomping at the bit for the opportunity to save somebody's life in any way that they can and it's so important that people know that.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

I think that is so true. And that's why why we offer free coaching to the women that have come out of you know TV relationships or have had abuse in their childhood they never got help for and you know we're not we're not licensed therapists. You know and that's another rabbit hole that you've got to be a good psychologist and there's also some that can really mess some people up you know you can dive down that rabbit hole if you want to but but what I'm saying is too is that we I specialize in trauma therapy. I went through it myself with NLP which is something that Greg Pease offers. Shout out to Greg. He has helped me tremendously I got my certification in it timeline therapy as well so I can help these women I just needed some kind of guidance where I can talk to these women and not just give my opinion but to try to actually help them or to get to get them to somebody else that could get them help right so let me be a resource for additional resources. Yes I and I I will tell them I'm not a therapist I'm not here to heal you I'm here to kind of open up space a free space to talk and I've had this guideline that I can go for it's not just Megan giving her opinion I can tell you and keep you on track and I can get you the help that you need and maybe we can get over some things because a lot of unprocessed trauma is back here in the back of your mind and you you file it. So you finally can keep it followed because all this unopen trauma that's why your body's always like be careful be careful it's trying to protect you but sometimes it hurts you because you you're you're being protected from something that's not really trying to hurt you you know so you got to process that trauma and file and I know you know that but you know listeners if you don't it's a true thing a trauma unhealed trauma is a true thing. So you know check out reach out to me Ashley on that okay let's let's keep going in in the timeline and thank you again I know it's a hard subject and we're gonna hit some more harder subjects in your life your life has been you are I always say I'm a queen of getting back up growth talking to you you are the queen of getting back up this is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

I hope I'm done being knocked down I'm you know like it's I I can I can almost laugh about it now which is a a testament to God's grace really yeah that that I have that much peace given the the life events that you know and yeah I think we talked about it even yesterday like I I kind of laugh now I'm like really like like devil like that's all you've got like were you absent on this day and that day and that day you know like do you do you forget where my faith lies because I'm just I try to just live a very unbothered existence now. Like I just I'm just not bothered. I get bothered by the dumbest things but you know the things that should trigger me and should really bother me just really don't they they feel more like minor inconveniences because I know I know who's got me. Yeah and I didn't for a long time my my mom tried to get me involved in church and stuff when we moved to Memphis. I mean I'd been to church when I was younger but she was very involved in a church and I I had like this distaste in my mouth for the church just because you know it was late 90s early 2000s and it was when the short skirts and you know being a little bit more scandalous looking was totally acceptable in in church for teenage girls and I found it very inappropriate and didn't really want anything to do with it. But I you know I I dropped out of high school my what would have been the summer before my fifth year senior year. I skipped school a lot I was a horrible teenager I really was my mom's a saint for for actually successfully raising me I I I bucked the system a lot I was I was looking for love in all the wrong places and I you know I I ended up I I didn't I didn't have any like real serious relationships. I I moved away and did this that and the other and tried to kind of like forge my own path more or less in rebellion from everything. And I got married I met my first husband I think I was like 23 and we met you were car salesman too right you got into the car business at that yeah so I was I got into the car business fresh out of high school I I had quit and I quit school went to work at the Mazda dealership in Memphis uh because my mom had bought a car there my the my last year in high school and I remembered everybody and I called down there I was like hey I need a job and they're like I think we're looking for a receptionist I was like cool and I had a job like later on that day. See I I I quit high school while I was in summer school like two weeks into it and went and took my G D on like a Saturday I I think I drove to like Dyersburg at five o'clock in the morning to be there on a Saturday at seven o'clock in the morning and yeah I finished and scored in like the 98th percentile for the state they're like why did you quit school? Because I was bored and I started in the car business and I was a receptionist for a while. I sold cars for a little while I did warranty work and things like that for pretty big store in Memphis for years. And then I I got an opportunity I guess I was right before I turned 30, I had the opportunity to learn finance and and that's really what kind of launched my career trajectory in a totally different direction. But I yeah I I met my I met my first husband the father of my kids when I was like 23 and looking back on it I'm like what an idiot you know again it's you're you're looking for the absolute wrong qualities in people because you just don't deal with the situations from the past. And I I ended up with a guy who was fun but useless and we had some beautiful kids together but I mean he cheated on me the entire time that we were together and I was pretty sure I knew about it. And it wasn't until I guess my son was like two almost and I finally I was like I can't do this anymore. Like I'm I'm miserable and I I was always the kind of person that was like no like I'll stay with somebody regardless like I want my kids to have both parents in their life and I woke up one day and I realized that my misery was affecting the happiness of my kids because I'm not enjoying my time with them as much because I'm just quite frankly you're just pissed off all the time. Yeah yeah so it it started a a a very long divorce process not really because it was just hard to like get a divorce it was just because we were both broke and it was like we're we're totally okay with it like we're separated we're both living our own lives and you know let's just be done with it it was you know you're I think I was I don't know maybe 28 I think when I finally got divorced I wasn't even 30 maybe I don't even remember it's you know the timelines get kind of messy after a while but yeah I spent the better part of of two years separated and and driving my kids two hours one way to be able to spend a weekend with their dad because he didn't have a car or a driver's license and and decided to move back to Mississippi and and I just wanted them to be able to have a relationship with their dad because I didn't and looking back I think I realized that he was always like one of those out of sight out of mind parents he had kids from a previous marriage and I'm actually really good friends with with his first wife and and his older kids that are like yeah that's my other mom and we've never even physically met like they've just been a huge part of our lives forever. But yeah I I I went through the motions trying to make sure that they had an intact relationship with their father and two days yeah two days after our divorce was final I I got a phone call at like 930 at night just laying in bed I'm like who on earth is calling me like everybody knows don't call me past like nine o'clock I'm in bed I'm you know I've I've always been like an old lady and I look down and it's my ex-husband calling and I answer the phone and he's frantic I'm like what like what what is happening? What do you want? And he's like the ambulance is on the way to the house there Asher is like having seizures we don't know what's going on but I just I wanted to let you know he's like I'm on my way home from work right now I'll keep you updated and and then just gets off the phone. I'm like I'm sorry what and my first instinct I remember it I I went out I went out and I asked our roommates I was living with the guy I'd been dating for like eight months or whatever and I went and asked his cousin for a cigarette. I had quit smoking because in May of that year my grandfather died and I was like I'm gonna quit smoking like I got to do something better. And I went out there and I asked him for a cigarette and I went outside and I'm smoking. I'm getting sick from it and my phone rings again and he's like okay the ambulance is here they're giving him medicine to stop the seizures or taking him to the hospital you know I'll I'll keep you posted and he's like I I think they're saying that they might have to life light him to Laboner in Memphis it's fine like I'm that's where I'm at and and that that conversation started the probably the worst three days of my life moving forward it was it's a lot to unpack which I guess is part of the reason why we kind of preface this by saying that there was likely going to be a part two we already kind of knew that but yeah yeah yeah we this part two is coming because this is gonna I wanted to take a deep dive into this because there's a lot to what happened to your son and and why he's not here anymore.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

And I don't want this to be rushed and we we have to we have to wrap it up for today but if you guys are listening we're gonna drop this podcast on uh Friday which is tomorrow and we're gonna we're gonna film part two on this because we we want to really take time to explain what Ashley had had to go through as a grieving parent and the situation that caused it and also how she overcame and we're gonna tie this into a beautiful story at the end. I know it's hard to see beauty when there's abuse and child death and all the things but that's a bit how of a big God we serve isn't that right Ashley like we said that is a hundred percent correct we serve a big God and he can take tragedy and anything the enemy means for bad and turn to good. So there's so many parents that have that have lost children and that is a parents worse nightmare and God hold them and be with them. But I I want you to speak to those parents that are struggling when we come back for part two. Absolutely and I I really think this podcast is going to just flus so many people so thank you so much for being transparent. Guys we're gonna follow back up if you know anybody that this is going to help or anybody that's been through abuse sexual abuse domestic abuse child abuse whatever we're gonna touch on all of that. So and we already have touched on some so it's important that you send this to somebody that you think can bless pray for the ones that are still going through it and we will catch you guys on the next episode.