Episode 28-When Healing Feels Impossible: Finding Hope with Julie Ann Rose

Content Note: This episode contains discussions that some listeners may find difficult — if you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out at 988LifeLine.org

What happens when the person who should protect you most becomes the source of your deepest wounds? In this episode, Aliza sits down with Julie Ann Rose, who survived a childhood marked by unimaginable trauma and exploitation at the hands of her own father, experiences that followed her long after she escaped her home. Yet through faith, community, and remarkable resilience, she went on to become a licensed therapist and author of Sold, her true story of survival. Her life is living proof that the very wounds meant to destroy can become the foundation from which we help others heal. 

Resources: 

●     Sold: The True Story of a Young Girl Trafficked in A Small Montana Town by Julie Ann Rose 

●     Surprise Me, God by Julie Ann Rose

●     Restoring the Heart Ministries

●     JulieAnnRose.com 

●     In the Wildflowers Counseling Program

●     988LifeLine.org 

●     AMP Counseling

●     Follow Aliza on:

○     Facebook

○     Instagram

○     TikTok

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Hashtags:#TheAMPcast #AlizaProkop #ChristianRadio #Christian #Exploitation # Abandonment #Abuse #Trafficking #Abortion #Faith #Healing #Trauma #Therapy #Counseling #Podcast #Podcasting #PodcastCommunity #PFCAudioVideo 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Today's episode contains adult themes that are not suitable for young children's ears. If you have little ones near you, please listen with headphones or come back and listen when they're not around.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hello and welcome to the AmpCast, Dealing and Healing from Trauma. Here now is your host, Aliza Marie Prokop.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Welcome to the Amp Cast, and I'm your host, Aliza Prokop, coming again from the floor of the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Here's another person that I'm meeting that is absolutely amazing. Her name is Julianne Rose. She wrote books, she's writing curriculums, she's a survivor of trauma, and she's going to tell us all about it and how she got through it and how you can get through it too. And the book I'm holding here is called Sold, the true story of a young girl sex trafficked in a small Montana town. Julianne Rose, welcome to the Ampcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

It's great to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

It's so nice to meet you. You understand trauma, you've had physical and sexual abuse as a child. You've had a forced abortion. You've been sex trafficked. Tell us how you went from that, and I want to hear your history to what I see sitting before me, which is remarkable. Thank you. Beautiful. Tell us a little bit about your story, what you feel comfortable, what you want to tell us. The big thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Well, it's a l- it's a it's a big, beautiful story. Um so yes, I was sexually abused by my father in the mountains of Montana. Okay, and he was a very powerful man. Okay, and um literally owned the community, houses, a lake. Very powerful man um in this little mountain town called Libby, Montana. Okay. It was up on the Canadian-Idaho border. He was basically a monster.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

He uh he beat me up, he tore my earrings out of my ears, he wanted to control me and like own me. Okay. And he yes, he sexually abused me from a very young age. Okay. And then um when I got a little bit older, then he started selling me to men. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

So you had to endure that, and were you able to talk to anyone? Was there any avenue for you to be able to get any help at that point? There was none at that point.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Really, no. Um, my escape was actually my horse. I my horse named Chico, which is on the front of my book. I see that. And that's you with your dog, too. That that's pal. And pal actually, he would, when my father would come to hit me, pal would like bite his ankles. So I had this little doggy that protected me. And then Chico. Chico, um, Chico was my best friend. So I'd get up in the morning and go to feed the horses. And actually, my just gonna be honest, my father would be walking around the house naked. Okay. And so I would run outside um so he couldn't grab me. Right. And I'd be crying, and Chico would lick my salty tears off my cheeks and just loved on me, this horse.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Oh, and you're a therapist now, so now you can see where these animals were such a a comfort. They were your emotional support animals.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

They were, yes. Yeah. My dog, my horse, the beavers. I write about the beavers in my book. I had um, when I was getting beat up, I'd go to the the beaver pond. And there was Betty Beaver, Billy Beaver, and um the whole family. Brian and Billy Beaver, the whole family, and I'd be cheered them on, yay beavers, you build that beaver dam. So, yes, they were my emotional support in every single way.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

And you're a therapist now, we can't let that pass. We have to tell people. So, tell people because I have some questions I want to ask you, but I want to hear, tell them what you do today so we get a overall picture.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

So, first of all, um, just to lead up to me being a therapist in education. So, when I was in high school, you know, we took the ACT SAT tests, and um, but I was um I was so traumatized that I was now I know I was disassociated. Yes. Yes, and so I was disappearing. And so I took those tests and I tested out as mentally retarded.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

You probably don't even remember taking them.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

No, I don't remember any. I my it's it's so dark my childhood. But so anyway, so they labeled me as mentally retarded. So then I leave and we'll we'll talk about that. I leave this Libby, Montana, on a train, try to enter into the University of Minnesota. I wanted to really better myself. Yes. And at that point, I was I was not a Christian, but so I soon became a Christian. But anyway, I wanted to better myself. So I go to the um to the counseling office, the uh career counseling office at the University of Minnesota. And um the the career counselor was horrible. He said, Well, you know, you're labeled mentally retarded, you'll never make it through school. And um, you know, I see you have some waitress experience, just stay being a waitress. Really? And I withdrew my transcripts and then I got mad. I went home and I'm like, I'm mad. Who says I can't go to school? That's right. So I marched back into the counseling office and I said, I want a career counselor, and not him, and I pointed to the guy, and I said, Give me a different career counselor. And so I had to take two years to catch up to the freshman. Right. So then I be then I became a freshman, got a uh a bachelor's in eventually in Christian education, then went on to get a master's in mental health counseling, and also I received a certificate in theological studies from Bethel Seminary. So I am not mentally disabled.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

You are not you are not intellectually disabled whatsoever. So you you made a decision to leave at 18. Uh-huh. What was it like to get on that train and leave? It was all I knew.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

All I knew was those mountains.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

And it was the hardest thing I ever did. Before I left, my father had beat me up so bad that he he had a gun and he threatened to kill me.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

If you left or just because the control was leaving at that point, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yep. So um, so I had just gotten beat up really bad. And I I waited till I I can remember this like it was yesterday. So I waited till everyone went asleep, and I just hear could hear the talk click and I was gonna tick and I was gonna wait an hour before after everyone went to sleep. And then go. And then and then I crawled out my window. It was spring runoff time in the in the Rockies. Couldn't go get a coat or my boots, just crawled out my window, ran down the mountain, just with this vision of chasing me with a gun. Yes. And um, so I ran to a phone. Well, phone calls back then were a dime, but I didn't have any money. But so I I called my friend. The the operator put me through because she could tell how hysterical I was. So anyway, she put me through to this friend named Julie, and so she came and picked me up at that on that at that phone booth, and then I stayed with her, and her father hated my father. He literally sat and he he believed everything I said. Of course. He hated him. So he sat at a at the window with a gun to protect me. And so I was there for about a couple weeks, and then I graduated from high school, and I left their home. I didn't tell anybody that I was leaving, walked to the train station, which was like a couple miles with uh, you know, my my little girl diaries. And you went two pictures and the clothes on my back, and I got on an Amtrak train and never went back. And never went back.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

And you searched for love in all the wrong places.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

All the wrong places, yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

So you still carried trauma with you at that point?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yes, I'd so yeah, I left and I went to I actually went to Wisconsin to stay with my grandma. I didn't know where to go. Right. But she the family family trauma, as you know, runs in generations. It does. And and my my uncle started sexually abusing me. And then my my grandmother was really mean. So I left her house and then find found she actually kicked me out because I was working at a factory with a black man. And she was very racist, as was my parents. Okay. My father literally could have been with the KKK. So anyway, I was working with this black man at a factory, so so she kicked me out of her house. Because you were working with because I was working with a black man. Wow. And so she kicked me out of her house. All I had was, you know, a little suitcase, and so I didn't know where to go, so I I first went to my uncle's house. He sexually abused me. He was obsessed with me. Um, and then so I had to leave there, so I went and stayed at a like a rooming house, and with these elderly people that had a son, he raped me. So it just came up. You could not get any any break. You know. No, I could not get a break.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

And yeah, and it it looks like that came to a point when you decided you wanted to take your own life.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yes, so I um so yeah, I wanted to take my life. So I'm gonna speed up the story a little bit. I couldn't get a break. I um I was running from myself.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Right, because you still had that trauma. You it was not processed. It wasn't, you weren't, you didn't have any kind people to walk alongside you to help you get through this.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

I did not, no. So I just kept running from man to man. I pretty much became a prostitute in those years because I needed to eat. I I needed to- that's all you knew. That's all I knew. I was running to love in all the wrong places. Yes. So I left Wisconsin. That that I left Rice Lake, Wisconsin, where my grandma lived, that I was getting raped. But I met a man that was a healthy man. Okay as far as he could be caring for you. His family did. Actually, his name was Mark, and uh that family so loved me. And I write about them in in my book. But so he had Mark had um seven sisters and a brother, and their names were the Letles, and the Letles took me in and just loved me. They actually um when they entered when we'd go to a restaurant, they'd introduced me as one of their daughters. Oh you felt like you belonged. I felt like I belonged and I was loved, and I had I had spent holidays all by myself, so I had my holidays there. They even rented me a cabin next to their beautiful house on a lake, on a on a lake. So they rented me this cabin and I just became one of the family. And you lived there for how long? I lived there for about four years.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

So when you're in all of this, tell me about your trauma and how you saw it manifest itself.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

How it manifested itself like everyday living for you. What was that like? It was um well, I I really pushed a lot of the trauma away just to survive. Kind of stuffed it down. Stuffed it down. I went into secretarial school because I wanted to get an education, met this young woman, her name was Becky. Becky and um Sue and I were best friends at this secretarial school. Becky was she was just an amazing person. And she would grab my face and we would we partied a lot. Becky partied harder than I do. She was shooting heroin. Yeah, she was really, she was really into drugs. I wasn't, but but Becky was. But she we we'd walk into a party and she'd say, We're looking for something. And I'm like, Yeah, we're looking for a guy, we're looking for another. What were you looking for? But anyway, so so anyway, so I just believed her, we're looking for something. Well, well, then, so I left Wisconsin. I I graduated from the Secretarial School, moved to Minneapolis because I wanted an education, and Mark was there, so I followed Mark to Minneapolis. He was set to go to law school. So, anyway, so I go to to Minneapolis. Mark at that point was at the University of Minnesota. I wasn't there yet, but I lived in a little rooming house where I like brought men in. I literally had this was on, I remember exactly, it was downtown St. Paul, and I had a little rooming house. Um, I got it was like $90 a month. I mean, it was so cheap. This little tiny rooming house with the Murphy bed and all of that. But I would put a red light in the window because I wanted a man to love me. You wanted love. I wanted love.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

And you utilized men thinking that it was how I equated love. That's how you equated love.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Because that's how my father gave me love. Right. He only told me he loved me when he sexually abused me. Right. So I mean, some of the guys, it's a miracle I lived through that. So I'm in this little rooming house, and um, and then in that time, Mark broke up with me. So that was he wanted to to date someone one that wasn't a mountain girl. He wanted somebody sophisticated. Oh. So he started dating some woman from Europe that was going to law school. So anyway, so I had no one. I mean, I didn't have his family anymore. And they didn't keep in touch with you, it doesn't seem like they did, they did, but they didn't they had this other. It was another abandonment. It was another abandonment, another trauma thing. I I was all alone. So I remember this one night in particular, um, it was Thanksgiving. Oh. And I didn't have any money, but I had I had enough money. I was working in a bar then. Yeah. And so I had enough money for a um uh oh this is by the way, back to Becky again. So Becky, um, my best friend, she was murdered. Your best friend was murdered? Murdered while I was living in this rooming house.

unknown 14:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

I get a call from, you know, one of those calls on the wall. Um, so I get a call from Sue, who was also our friend. She calls me up and said, Becky was murdered. Oh my. So another loss. Another loss. So I uh I was just devastated. I remember going downtown St. Paul, banging on the church church doors, and but the you know, the Catholic Church wouldn't open the doors, but anyways, because it was at night. So I had nowhere to go. I did not know where Becky went. Did she go to heaven? Did she go to hell? Um I went to her funeral, and we didn't know at that point who murdered her, so we didn't know if the people at that.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

So that's even talk about hypervigilance now.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yes, right, yes. Right? So I wanted to just be with Becky. So I thought the best way to be with Becky is to kill myself.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

And you ended up not doing that because you heard an audible voice.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

So yes, so here I am in the rooming house. I'm painting the picture for you. Okay. Um, so I'm in this little rooming house. I had but had a little bit of money to buy one of those Swanson's TV dinners. Turkey. The the disgusting rubber turkey. Yeah. And so I had this little, I pulled down my, I had the Murphy bed, I had the table that pulled down, and and um I'm put this little TV dinner in the in the oven. And you know, I'm sitting there, I lit a candle, I'm like, I'm gonna make this really special. So pull it out of the oven. I'm eating this dinner, and um, and I cut into the turkey and the disgusting gravy, and I looked down, there was half a worm. Ugh, in this turkey dinner. So awesome.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

You couldn't even have a turkey dinner.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

I couldn't even, so, and I'm it I'm imagining my parents back home, you know, with all the relatives that I love, eating all this big turkey dinner, and I'm like, why did I leave? Why did I leave? And so then I'm looking at that, you know, disgusting turkey turkey with the worm in it, threw it away, burst out crying, and it's like I can't do this anymore. I just have to I I want to die. Now I had had part of my book is I had two uncles commit suicide.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Yes, I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

And I had I saw the after.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

You saw the effects of it, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Well, I saw everything on my aunts. I'm not gonna even say what I saw, but you have an imagination. Um, because they put a gun in their mouth. So I'm like, I'm just I'm just gonna die. But I don't know how to die. Right. But I had I had tried to commit suicide a couple times before, and I do a write about that in my book. Yes. Um the first time I drank a bottle of fingernail polish remover. Oh my goodness. And my boyfriend at the time, his parents thank thankfully took me to the hospital. They pumped my stomach, and of course, they call my parents and ask them for to come get me, and of course they're gonna just show that they're good parents. They take me out to the truck and they say, next time you want to die, just let us know and we'll help you.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

And this night when you said you were gonna do it, were you thinking of that at the time?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Oh, yeah, yeah. I tried it before, I'm gonna try it again. So I had a bottle of pills in the medicine cabinet just for this special night when I was gonna die. And this is where everything was. And what happened, tell us where it came up. So I'm I'm I have this bottle of pills, and I cry out to God, and I'm just weeping and weeping. And I I take this bottle of pills and I say, God help me. Just help me. And um it's okay. Take your time. So I throw the the pills in the waste paper basket and um crying out to God. Yes, and I cry myself to sleep, and in the middle of the night I hear a voice. And this voice was pure love. Yes, and it said, Julie, I love you. But Julie, I love you. And I had this hot rush of love just run through my body, and it woke me, it woke me up, that voice. And in you know, in the middle of the night, I woke up and I knew I wasn't schizophrenic. I heard I knew that voice. That voice was stronger than the chair I'm sitting on right now. Wow. And I heard the voice and it said, Julie, I love you. Did you finally believe it? I didn't know what it was, but I knew I was gonna find out who in the world could love me. At that point, I felt like the worst of sinners. I was at that point, I had had two abortions. I was working for Planned Parenthood, I was their spokesperson in college campuses telling women to get an abortion. And so I was the worst of sinners. I had slept with uh hundreds of men. Yeah. But I knew that someone loved me. Genuinely loved me. Genuinely loved me. So I started searching for where that voice was.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

And you found it in a church or did you find it?

SPEAKER_01 19:50

I found it. I was working at um, I was working at a place in Minneapolis called Annie's Parlor. And Annie's Parlor was where the college students hung out. By the way, that's where I met, which is also in my book, Wayne Peterson, who was the um the what is it, station manager at Moody Radio. Oh, okay. And also KTIS Radio in Minneapolis. Yes. Um, so and used to be also head of NRB. So anyway, I met this man, Wayne Peterson, and and his wife Norma, and they would sit in my section at Annie's parlor Friday night, they'd come in with their two girls. And I was mesmerized by their family this family. Wayne didn't yell at his daughters, and they prayed before they ate. And I'm like, what is this? I want to have a family like that. It's foreign. It was a foreign language to me. Sure. So they started loving on me and asking me to come to um, you know, Easter dinner, and but I was very shy. But you went. But I went, I I went the first time, but then so I'm I'm working at Annie's parlor, and then I just happened to turn on, and at that point, um at that point I was I turned on the radio and and I listened to this voice, and it was Wayne Peterson. And I'm like, that's Wayne. The same person, the same person, but he never told me. And you found out he just loved on me, and so I never and so anyway, so I'm listening to the radio. Yeah, this is why I love radio. So he did night sounds. Okay, and so he led me through the Bible, but I was so shy with men that I would not have met with him in person, but he did night sounds, and so he led me through the Bible. And that's how you changed the city. That's how I began to change and want to become a Christian like Wayne's family. Like Wayne's family.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

And you took that to where you are today, I'm assuming. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

It was just a so then I'm at the University of Minnesota. I meet this girl walking on campus, and I was at that time, like I said before, going from class to class, exha exhausted. And walking two jobs, trying to pay my way through college. And I meet this girl named Michelle, and she was really shiny. And it's like, wow, this girl is different. But she's she uh I'd met Christians before. I did not like Christians. This was a nice Christian. This was a non-judgmental. Yeah, there's a difference. The other ones would would look at me and I'd start to share my story, and they just their eyes would glaze over and they'd walk away. But so she said, I said, Yeah, who are you? She said, Michelle, and I said, My name's Julie, and and she invited me to a Bible study. And that night I went to a Bible study with a halter top and a tight pair of jeans, but I walked in there and they loved me. And you loved them back. Well, I didn't know. I didn't know how. But anyway, so I but they were safe. I mean, these men and women, young men and women in this Bible study were hugging each each other, but it wasn't it wasn't sexual.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

You are able to relate to people for people who've lost someone. You're able to relate to people who've been trafficked, you're able to relate to people who have extreme depression. What are you doing? How did this translate into today? I could talk to you for two hours. I wish I had to.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

So Michelle led me, so Michelle in this Bible study led me to Christ. Yeah. And um, and this group of Christians, they just started, they just started loving me and they became my family. Wow. And um, and I started living with Michelle. She invited me to live with her at this beautiful condo. I paid very little rent. Wow. So she just she taught she too taught me how to meet read the Bible. I went to a I had a Bible study in our house. I met a young uh brilliant woman named Bonnie. Um Bonnie became my good friend. In fact, Bonnie, Bonnie has a PhD in historical theology. So describing the Bible. She would always have to bring the cookies down to the next level.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Let us know what this means. So you could ask her anything.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

So then she so she invited me to her f into her family, and the Goldings became my family. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Now okay, I'm gonna fast forward just because of time. Yep. Uh-huh. My listeners are all mostly people who have interest in trauma, and my goodness, you survived and you you thrived.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

What would you say to someone who's listening who has trauma and feels like no one's gonna want to help me? Or maybe they're in a situation right now where they don't have that safe space to talk about it or get help, or they feel it's hopeless. What would you want them to know?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

I'd want them to know that they're not alone, even though they may feel alone, that there are people that want to help you. So there and and God is right there, and He's He's the greatest trauma therapist in the world. He's the one, he's literally the one that healed me. You're not alone. You're you have a God in heaven that loves you even stronger in the midst of your suffering. It is the sufferings of Christ. It is in our sufferings where Christ resides. My deepest worship is always in my tears. And yes, I've had three brain surgeries, I had a nasty case of cancer, but you know what? Christ was there in all of it.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

For all of us, and your your message holds true and rings louder because of what you've been through, I think.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

So, how can people get in touch with you or read about you, find you, get these books?

SPEAKER_01 25:32

So I have two websites right now. Okay. Um, Restoring the Heart Ministries.com, okay, and then Julianne Rose.com. And yes, I have worked with uh hundreds of women that have been traumatized through my program in the wildflowers. Yes. Um, and that's on my ministry website. Okay. And now I'm producing another program for um for men and women that have been traumatized. It's a video curriculum. It's all written. Um, it should be running in in the fall. Okay. And then also, of course, there's my life story. Yes. I just also wrote a devotional, a 365-day devotional called Surprise Me God. It's based on the prayer that I've said for like 20 years. Surprise me God with people who need your love. And I started collecting stories of people that surprise. So I wrote that, it's published. Well, it'll be published in March. And they can find these things through your website. Through my website, and yes, hopefully in the next year. I did write my own screenplay. And hopefully in the next year, um Aaron Miller, my producer, will be making my life story.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Okay, I want to see that when it comes out for certain.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Thank you for being here. And I know that's a lot to talk about in a short period of time, but you want to learn more about this, people. You really do. Uh it's it's something that we're all touched by, I'm sure. You know someone who's had this sort of difficulty and this sort of trauma. This is an episode you're going to want them to listen to, so be sure to share it. It would be nice if you'd like it. It would be even nicer if you'd give it a nice rating. And we're on Spotify, we're on Apple Podcasts, we're on everything, iHeart. Uh, but thank you very much for being here. It's an honor, and I appreciate you coming.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Absolutely. It was a joy meeting with you and talking about my beautiful love story. Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

And that's that's it for us at the Ampcast. Go to www.ampcounseling.com. Have a good week.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

You've been listening to the Amp Cast with Elisa Marie ProCop. To find out more, go to Ampcounseling.com. You can discover more information about all our services that we offer. Be sure to follow our social media platforms using the icons at the bottom of the page. Don't forget to check out our show notes for today's episode, where we will have links and contact info for today's guests. Well, that's all the time we have for this episode. Thanks for joining us, and we will see you next time for another edition of the Amp Cast with Elisa Marie Pro Cop Dealing and Healing from Trauma.