Overcoming Personal Tragedy + Resiliency with Susan Snow (Part 1)

After Natalie discusses overcoming the daunting Manitou Incline, we found ourselves reflecting on the power of personal achievement, and the importance of balance in our demanding lives. Our conversation takes a profound turn as we welcome Susan Snow, an author and resilience coach, whose story of rising from the ashes of tragedy serves as a beacon of hope. Susan's father, a Los Angeles police detective, was killed in 1985, and her journey from that devastating loss to the resilient woman she is today is both moving and inspiring. Her experiences, detailed in her book "The Other Side of the Gun: My Journey from Trauma to Resilience," remind us of the human spirit's capacity to heal and grow.

We also delve into the vital topic of PTSD with insights from a trauma specialist, challenging the misconception that PTSD is limited to certain groups. Susan's personal narrative sheds light on the universal impact of trauma and the importance of support systems during tough times. The episode underscores the often-overlooked struggles of the past, particularly the lack of mental health resources in the 1980s, and emphasizes the healing power of lasting, supportive relationships. Join us as we explore the tools and techniques that can help manage PTSD and foster resilience, leaving you inspired to reignite your own path to recovery and strength.

About Susan Snow:
Susan Snow is an Author, Speaker and Resiliency Coach. Her book The Other Side of the gun/ My Journey from Trauma to Resiliency chronicles the trauma of losing her father, Los Angeles Police Detective Thomas C Williams, who was ambushed and killed October 31, 1985 when she was 17. Her book was born from the need to help others heal from Trauma and loss to find resiliency.

Http://www.susansnowspeaks.com

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Transcript

Pamela Cass 0:06

In the grand theater of life. We all seek a comeback, a resurgence, a rekindling of our inner fire. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience. This is not just another podcast. This is a journey, a venture into the heart of human spirit, the power of resilience and the art of reigniting our passions.

Natalie Davis 0:30

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I'm your co-host, natalie Davis, and I am so excited to be back with you all. Again, thank you for joining us and, of course, we have none other than Pam Kass. Pam, how are you?

Pamela Cass 0:44

I am fabulous and it's so funny because I get this video that you put on social media and for those of you from Colorado, you know exactly what we're talking about.

Natalie Davis 1:00

There's something called the Manitou Incline, which is how many steps like literally straight up 2,780. Something steps a 2,000 foot elevation gain and yes, it is basically straight up.

Pamela Cass 1:13

Yes, and in my mind I thought you did it today and I'm like how on earth is she showing up for this this afternoon? I might be doing this by myself, so I was grateful. When you came on, I was like how are you like walking or doing anything?

Natalie Davis 1:31

The question today is not how am I walking, the question is, how am I sitting? It's fine, I just need to do a little bit of stretching. There was a segment of my life that I did. Let me see, this was number five. For me, this is the fifth time I've conquered the Manitou incline, so the four other times were like consecutive years. I just I did it once, and then the next year I did it again, and then I did it again, and I just kept doing it on an annual basis. Then the pandemic hit and I stopped doing it. It was refreshing to do it. I'll do it again next year or, if there's anyone out there that hears this before the winter months roll through, I'm happy to do it again this year. It's just so rewarding.

Pamela Cass 2:09

I will do it with you Through the process. Oh, you should do it. I'll do it with you this year, because I've never done it. I lived in Colorado Springs through my childhood.

Natalie Davis 2:18

Oh, you got to do it. I think everyone's got to do it at least once. If you're able, you just get it done. It's the victory of getting to the top and the joy of running back down. I think that's it. That's it.

Natalie Davis 2:31

It might be carrying me back down in a bag, exactly, exactly, and if anyone is connected with me on social media, the video that Pam mentions. It's so funny because I'm at step like 2,600 or something like that, somewhere near the top, but it's still not near the top and I'm so out of breath. I'm like, okay, give me a minute, let me just catch my breath, I can do a video.

Pamela Cass 2:53

There were people that were jogging by you. Yes, like I can hear them, I'm like yes, there, I know for sure.

Natalie Davis 3:02

sure, there are a couple of superhuman folks out there that run it twice daily, every day, without missing a beat. And we had just missed one of the gentlemen that runs it every day, twice a day, up and down. I commend them. Good for him, good for him.

Susan Snow 3:23

So I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't mean to scare you. It didn't happen. It didn't happen today.

Natalie Davis 3:27

It did happen yesterday and we did record yesterday, so it happened yesterday.

Pamela Cass 3:30

Yes, it did so you were coming off of that.

Natalie Davis 3:33

Yes, oh yeah, well done Well done the world of being an entrepreneur for our entrepreneurial listeners. This is what we do, right. You juggle all the things. You fit a little bit of fun I've got family visiting. You fit some family time in and do some work.

Susan Snow 3:47

So all in a day's work, and play.

Natalie Davis 3:56

I love it. Beautiful, beautiful. Well, we have a special guest today that is joining us with an incredible story to share, a true story of resiliency? I believe so, pam. Why don't you share with our listeners who's joining us today, absolutely so.

Pamela Cass 4:07

Today we are honored to have Susan Snow. She is an author, speaker, resilience coach. Her book the Other Side of the Gun my Journey from Trauma to Resilience, chronicles the trauma of losing her father, a Los Angeles police detective, thomas C Williams, who was ambushed and killed October 31st 1985, when she was 17. Her book was born from the need to help others heal from trauma and loss, to find resiliency. We are so honored to have you here and I would like to just hand it over to you to just share your story of what what you have gone through in your life and what has brought you to where you are today.

Susan Snow 4:52

Well, first of all, I wanted to say thank you so much for having me, natalie and Pamela. I really appreciate your time and um. Okay, well, strap yourself in, ladies.

Natalie Davis 5:07

So ready I am so ready, all right.

Susan Snow 5:12

Well, as you said, I was 17 years old. I had a six-year-old brother. This was the mid-80s, 1985. Brother, this was the mid 80s, 1985.

Susan Snow 5:27

On Halloween of 1985, I, my dad, was getting ready to. He was a detective for LAPD and he was getting ready to go to court on a case that he was the lead detective on and the man that was on trial he was out on bail at the time. So that night I wanted to go to a Halloween party. I was a typical teenage girl, right, I had a boyfriend and I wanted to go to this party. And I was talking to my dad as he was getting ready to go to court, and he said no, and you know, being a dad and being a cop, you know he just. So, being a dad and being a cop, you know he just he had his rules and he's like it's a school night, there's no way you're not going. And I didn't take no very well back then and instead of arguing with him, I was concocting a plan, was concocting a plan, as most 17 year olds do, yeah.

Navigating Tragedy

Susan Snow 6:46

Okay, what am I gonna do to schmooze my dad? So the plan was that he would get off work and he'd go and pick up my little brother at school, and then my mom would be home with me and I, before everybody came home, I ran around the house and cleaned the house, cause I figured if I clean the house, my parents will say okay, you can go to this party. Of course a little manipulating, but that's okay, right? So so my mom came home first and she was off getting her costume off and I was putting mine on. I was Madonna that year, of course, and I know I'm totally dating myself but anyways, we're the same age, so we're good.

Susan Snow 7:40

Anywho, so yeah, the phone rang. Anywho, so yeah, the phone rang and I ran to it because I figured no one would be calling my parents, and picked up the phone and it wasn't for me. It was a lady from my brother's school and all she said was that there was a drive-by shooting and my dad was involved. By this time I had saw my mom and she was in the kitchen. She kind of rounded the corner a little bit and I handed her the phone immediately and as I was watching her and trying to listen to the conversation, I could see that her body language had totally changed and she started to kind of slump forward and I knew in my heart that it was bad. And she got off the phone, turned to me and said we're going to the school. So we drove there about less than 10 minutes away, not speaking a word to each other, and as I sat in the chair I just like had no idea what we were going up against at this point. We got to the school and the way that the school is set up there is a driveway or a parking lot in the middle of the school.

Susan Snow 9:00

At the end of the day the kids got let out on the backside of the school. So we parked and we headed towards there. I could see the sky lit up by all of the police cars that were there and there was an ambulance sitting still in the street. So we headed towards the street and in the corner of our eye we caught my dad's truck. So we started to run walk that way. As we got closer there were two officers coming towards us and they had tears in their eyes, but we just kept going and we saw. As we got closer we saw glass on the ground and rounded the corner and that's where we saw. As we got closer, we saw glass on the ground and rounded the corner and that's where we saw him and he was covered up. He was covered up and he just, you know, he fell. Where he fell.

Susan Snow 10:02

I watched my mom kind of collapse, fell. I watched my mom kind of collapse and I as a kid I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. So what I ended up doing is focusing on that ambulance and I kept saying why isn't anybody helping him? We had two officers escort us away pretty quickly and took us to an office and when I was sitting in the office my mom got pulled aside, probably from some detectives wanting to talk to her, and I sat there and I didn't know, like, where my brother was. I didn't know if he was hurt. I had no information whatsoever and I was reeling from what I just saw and couldn't comprehend that what I saw was real. It wasn't until I heard two ladies talking in the office and the one lady said to the other that my dad was deceased. And that is when my world cracked and I literally wanted to run out of there and just run as fast and as far away as I could, and I, but my my body wasn't letting me do that. I was absolutely frozen.

Susan Snow 11:31

My mom came back to the room and she said I'm sending you with a neighbor, and I know that part of me. It was a very chaotic, very chaotic situation that we were in and I know that I wanted to run away as far as I could, but part of me wanted to be with my family unit. I needed to know that I had the support system. I needed to know where my brother was. I needed to be with my family and instead I got sent away, trying to comprehend and trying to really navigate all of the feelings that were going on. I had to do it by myself and I felt very badly for the neighbor because she had known my parents for a long time and she was trying to process everything that was going on. Our neighborhood turned upside down. There were police cars all over the block, the media, because it was such a huge story. Because it was such a huge story, the media were camped out. I mean, it was just something that you would not wish on anyone.

Susan Snow 12:59

And as I was at the neighbor's house, all I wanted was my boyfriend at the time. So I had her call him and he came home. He came back from work. He was older than a little couple of years older than me and he showed up at the door. She didn't tell him very much, so he showed up at the door and he was like all right, get your stuff, let's go. What hospital you know? Where is he at? Where's your mom, where's your brother? Like, let's go. And the words could not come out of my mouth. I just I couldn't say it and after a little while of him like prodding me to leave, I finally just blurted it out he's gone and he goes. What do you mean? He's gone. And I said he's gone. He's not at a hospital. He's not at a hospital. And I had only been dating this guy for three months. He was 19 years old and he dropped to his knees and here we were, two kids just trying to navigate everything that was going on. I was obviously in shock and just feeling really lost at the time and I was very grateful to have him there. Most boys his age would have hightailed it out of there. They would have been like this is too much, uh-uh, no way. But he stuck it out and I'm so grateful that he did. We're still together 39 years later, and so this has been both of our journey.

Susan Snow 15:47

Everything moving forward from there was a real struggle because back then, in the mid 80s, there was no talk about mental health. There was very little known about PTSD. In fact, back then it was called shell shock because it was mainly wrapped around war heroes mainly wrapped around war heroes, you know, people coming back from war. There definitely wasn't any kind of resources for kids and teenagers, so we were kind of left. You know, especially me. The media didn't even know he had a daughter for two days. So between the message of means being sent away to navigate all this stuff by myself and the media not acknowledging me for two days. I felt like I was not of significance in this scenario and that I was going to have to try to navigate these things all by myself because and I don't blame her, but my mom she has a narcissistic personality and so when this happened, it was kind of the focus was on her and my brother, and my brother for sure, because he watched his dad get murdered. My dad saved his life that night and so of course, the focus was going to be on him, but the focus was on her and him and I got kind of pushed to the side and so I didn't feel significant in it.

Susan Snow 17:36

I had 17 years with this man and he was my best friend. He was my hero. He was the type of man and the type of dad that was very present. He was the opposite of my mom. This man was very present and it didn't matter if he was at work or if he was at home with us, his kids. He was just. He would really focus on you and make you feel like you were the most important person around. He also was the type that gave you like a, a space where you felt safe with him. He was my safety net, you know, and my voice of reason. My mom and I's relationship wasn't fabulous at the time and so he was that voice of reason for me and you know, his thing was just giving people safe spaces, which is what I try to do for others. When I say I'm my father's daughter, I'm my father's daughter.

Susan Snow 18:49

But you know it was at the time I was dealing with things that I didn't understand and I could not verbalize. So the severe depression I was. I had suicidal ideation. I wanted to be with my dad. I didn't know how that would happen, but I wanted it really, really badly Because he was my safety net, because of the situation we were in, because it took them six days to find the men that were involved and there were multiple men. This was a planned out for months execution of a police officer. So it was a lot and I was just at the time. I just did and went in the direction people pushed me.

Susan Snow 19:45

I lived in a fog and if you've ever been in that boat where you've had loss and you just feel like you're walking through the world and it's just foggy and like brain fog, you know, kind of that thing. That's exactly how I felt Brain fog, you know, kind of that thing. That's exactly how I felt. So when my mom came to me and said that LAPD wanted to put us in therapy, all three of us At the time I was like a therapist, like crazy people go to therapy. Because I was a kid, I didn't know any better, and but she was very animate that I go to therapy not that she went to therapy, but that I go to therapy and my brother right. So she was doing that kind of thing and I was like, all right, I'll just go, I have no idea what to expect with this.

Susan Snow 20:45

And I went and I saw this man and in hindsight now, what I realized is that back then, you know, therapists weren't exactly trauma competent not just informed, but competent. And I don't think that he was. I think that he was intimidated a little bit about the enormity of the trauma that he didn't want to dive, and so every one of my sessions was only about my relationship with my mother, my brother, my boyfriend and school. Not once in the entire year did he ask me how that night affected me. If he had asked me that question, it would have opened up so much for me because I didn't know how to verbalize all the things, all the psychological things I was dealing with. I didn't know names for him, I didn't know, you know, I didn't know how to say what I needed to say and I was afraid, like I felt scared, to say I want to be with my dad, I don't care how that happens, right? So I saw him for an entire year and every session before the session I was like oh, today's the day, today he's going to make me feel better. Today it's going to happen. And I'd walk out every time and be disappointed. And after a year he looked at me and said you're a well-rounded young lady and I don't need to see you anymore. You're going to be fine for the rest of your life. Yeah, so at that point I just thought okay, I've cracked, I'm crazy and not even a professional can help me and I'm going to have to do this myself. I'm going to have to figure this out myself. And I did.

Susan Snow 22:48

You know, it wasn't healthy. I learned to wear my emotional mask very well and I talk about emotional masks all the time. Mine was anytime. Someone told me oh, you're so strong, you're. You know, I just wore that. I was like, oh, I'm so strong, nothing's going to affect me. I could be triggered I hate that word, but I could be triggered all the time and that's what I would put out to the people who saw me. And it was not a healthy thing because I was in fight or flight all the time.

Susan Snow 23:35

My nervous system was off the charts. I had panic attacks there was a lot of, and so be it. My dad was killed at night. I had a lot of paranoia around nighttime. At night I had a lot of paranoia around nighttime and it wasn't until, you know, we moved here to Colorado in 97. I married that boyfriend and we had two kids now and we moved here to raise our children and also because I needed to separate myself from Southern California where everybody knew me. I know I'm like putting myself all over the place right now, but at the time I was not ready for that. I was not ready to own my story.

Susan Snow 24:54

So we came out here and a Greenwood Village which is close to Littleton, and I had taken a break, went into the back room and popped on the TV and there was all the coverage, all the coverage, and I literally had a visceral reaction to what I was seeing. I saw the ambulance, I saw the police cars, I saw the kids that are around my same age. But remember, I was told I was going to be fine for the rest of my life, so I could not understand the flashbacks that were happening to me. I went into a panic attack. I turned bright white and my coworker was standing next to me, totally confused because I wasn't old enough to have children to go there. I didn't live there and they knew that. So they were just dumbfounded as to why I was having this reaction and I, honestly, I just told my coworker. I said I have no idea what's going on, but I did what I was really good at and I put that mask back on. I went and I finished my day.

Understanding PTSD

Susan Snow 26:17

Everybody around me was so upset but I stayed completely stoic and the minute I walked out the door I spiraled. All of the same things came flooding back and I was like I had this suicidal ideation. But I had this fight in my head because part of me wanted to stop this pain. The other part of me is like, no, I can't leave my children. So it was just a real struggle and for me I felt stuck. But my husband, being who he is, stopped me at the door one day and he said you have two choices you either get help or I'm putting you in a hospital today. So I was like, okay, I'll get help, I'll get help. And I went to a regular physician and he put me on antidepressants, because that's what they do. And then he handed me a card and he said I want you to talk to this therapist. And I laughed in his face literally because I was like you know, I did this 14 years ago. It didn't work for me. Like I'm past that, like I'm just so damaged that I and he looked me in the face. He said do you have no choice? And I said okay. So I made this appointment with this woman and I am so grateful that I did because it changed my life.

Susan Snow 28:14

This woman specialized in PTSD and severe trauma. She was trauma competent and within the first three minutes of meeting her, I told her what I went through at 17. I told her what I went through at 17. I told her what I was currently dealing with and she looked at me and she said Susan, everything you have gone through since you were 17 years old is normal because you have PTSD, and I was really confused. I was like I don't understand, like I didn't go to war, I'm not in the military, I'm not a first responder Like what are you talking about? And she explained to me that anyone who has gone through trauma can experience PTSD. What I needed to know, though, is that PTSD is not something that goes away. It's something you learn to manage.

Natalie Davis 29:19

We hope that you have enjoyed part one of our two-part interview. Please make sure that you come back and join us for part two, where we will continue to dive into the stories, the tools, the modalities and the techniques that you can use to continue to ignite the fire within. We'll see you all soon.