Defiance of Silence - A Sacred Witness

Healing gets strange when the chaos finally stops and you start missing it. That’s where Valerie and Suzette go in this conversation, tracing recovery beyond “not drinking” and into the deeper work of emotional sobriety, shame, and the patterns that keep us braced for impact even when life is calm. Suzette is a U.S. Army Veteran, transformational leader, and Director of Development at Save A Warri...

The hardest part of trauma is not always what happened. Sometimes it's what it taught you to believe about yourself. In this episode, Valerie sits down with Breanna —a Navy veteran, suicide prevention specialist, and moral injury specialist with Volunteers of America—for a conversation about the wounds too many veterans carry in silence and the paths that can lead them home to themselves. We...

In this solo reflection, Valerie looks back on the conversations that shaped Season 2 and the themes that kept surfacing beneath the stories: grief, survival, caregiving, moral injury, nervous system healing, and the quiet weight so many people carry while appearing strong on the outside. Together, we explore the losses we were taught to outrun—safety, identity, relationships, expectations, and th...

People trained to save everyone else rarely get asked a simple question: Where do you put your own pain? In this season finale, Valerie sits down with Kim —known to many as Captain Kim—a U.S. Army Veteran, former combat medic and emergency room nurse, and founder of the Reveille & Retreat Project. Kim’s path to leadership wasn’t linear. It was shaped by childhood adversity, military service, y...

Four months for an appointment can feel like a door slamming the moment you finally admit you need help. In this episode, we sit down with Lisa—a licensed clinical social worker, Army veteran, and trauma survivor—to talk about what breaks in the mental health system, and what it could look like if care actually met people where they are. If you’ve ever been told you don’t have the right insurance,...

The phone rings at 6:30am. You don’t recognize the number. Minutes later, everything changes. In this episode Traci takes us inside the day her 19-year-old son Trent suffered sudden cardiac arrest during a Navy fitness assessment—and the decade that followed. What began as shock became a long, unrelenting journey through ICU decisions, anoxic brain injury rehabilitation, and the invisible labor of...

What if healing doesn’t come the way you expected—but reaches you anyway? In this episode, Valerie sits down with Melissa —a Navy veteran, mother of three, and a fierce advocate with a servant’s heart—for a conversation that is as honest as it is human. Melissa brings humor, warmth, and just the right amount of spice as she shares her journey through trauma, healing, and learning to trust her body...

Defiance of Silence is a place for real stories of trauma and healing - where lived experience matters more than advice.  What holds a team steady when the stakes rise and the room goes quiet? In this episode, Valerie sits down with Dr. Jason Piefer—orthopedic trauma surgeon, OR leader, and host of Slice of Piefer —for a grounded and honest conversation about what it takes to stay human in high-pr...

Defiance of Silence is a place for real stories of trauma and healing—where lived experience matters more than advice. Start with a breath. Then meet Ayana—a Navy veteran, therapist, author, caregiver, and peer support leader whose story moves from Brooklyn to the nuclear pipeline, through MST and grief, and into a life devoted to witnessing others with care. In this conversation, we explore the d...

What happens when the story you’ve carried for years— I should have known, I should have stopped it —meets the truth your body has been holding all along? In this episode, Valerie sits with Lauren—a mother, veteran, and grassroots community advocate committed to building authentic connection and resilient communities. Lauren served two tours in Iraq as a logistician, later worked as an IT project...

Ready for a gentler way to face hard memories without getting stuck retelling the same story? In this episode of Defiance of Silence , we sit down with Victoria Garcia, a warm, down-to-earth therapist with over ten years in the mental health field, trained in EMDR and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Passionate about helping people untangle the past and build lives that truly work for them, Victoria...

Silence can protect us for a while—but eventually, it costs everything. In this powerful episode, Valerie sits down with Nicole, a decorated veteran, detective, and survivor whose 26-year career in law enforcement and the military was defined by service, strength, and relentless achievement. Rising to the role of Special Agent in Charge and Sergeant in the MA Army National Guard, Nicole Ferry also...

What if grief isn’t only about death, but about every quiet loss we were taught to outrun? We open Season Two with a grounded, powerful conversation with Brad Gallup — veteran, transformational coach, and equine-guided educator. Together, we explore unmourned grief, moral injury, and the hidden cost of caring in a world that both hurts and heals. Brad shares his journey from Desert Storm to a near...

What if the most healing thing we can offer isn’t advice, but presence? We close our first season by honoring the stories that found a home here and the witnesses who listened with care. From sexual trauma to the quiet, everyday work of surviving, this conversation threads together what we learned, what surprised us, and why the body keeps holding truth long after the recording stops. We revisit t...

Start with a breath, stay for the truth. Valerie sits down with Lauren, a licensed professional counselor and former child life specialist, to unpack what it really means to be a sacred witness—how to show up for survivors without losing yourself to vicarious trauma. From emergency rooms and SANE exams to therapy rooms and courtrooms, we trace how the body stores stress, why memories fragment unde...

Some stories crack the shell and let the light in. Valerie sits with Becca—a tattoo artist, mom, and survivor—who turns the old script of silence on its head and shows how radical self-forgiveness can rebuild a life. We move through early violations and the ache of not being believed, into the adult patterns that followed: people pleasing, numbing with alcohol, and mistaking compliance for consent...

What does it take to love someone through trauma without losing yourself? We sit down with Rachel—forensic nurse, educator, and secondary survivor—to unpack the messy, courageous work of building safety, voice, and trust when PTSD lives in the home. From a brave early disclosure on a blind date to a life-saving inpatient stay and a parking-lot pregnancy reveal, her story is equal parts raw and dee...

Silence can isolate — but it can also safeguard a story until it’s ready to be spoken. In this episode, we sit with Jeanine McNeill, CPS —an Army Veteran, Women Veterans Program Certified Peer Specialist, and Women’s Health Liaison at the Sheridan VA. With more than 40 years of lived experience, Jeanine has transformed her own journey through Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and Intimate Partner Viole...

When the US Army stamps your discharge Chapter 8 and strips your benefits, it’s easy to believe your service didn’t count. Lucy wouldn’t accept that ending. She walks us through growing up in chaos, surviving assault in uniform, and carrying a story so heavy it nearly pushed her over the edge—until a clinician named PTSD and a fellow vet’s challenge rekindled her fire. We trace the moments that ch...

What holds a caregiver together when the work starts to pull them apart? We sit down with Halie—trauma nurse, survivor, and seeker—to explore the quiet, practical ways she rebuilt herself after moral injury, burnout, and years of outrunning her own story. She brings the ER and ICU into focus with unflinching honesty, then shows how small rituals and community transformed adrenaline into presence. ...

A two‑piece swimsuit turned see‑through. A cabin in the woods. Years of silence that felt safer than the truth. Susan joins us to trace a line from early humiliation and assault to a life rebuilt on wise vulnerability, safe witnessing, and a stubborn kind of joy that doesn’t vanish when life gets loud. We talk about how shame sneaks in when adults laugh instead of protect, how silence becomes a ha...

What happens when your very survival depends on disconnecting from your own body? For Paralympic champion and Army veteran Lia Coryell, this wasn't a philosophical question—it was her childhood reality. Born into extreme poverty in northern Wisconsin with a father in prison and an illiterate mother, Lia learned early that the world could be unimaginably cruel. By age nine, she had developed a...

In this first episode Valerie shares her personal story of surviving sexual trauma, breaking the silence and discovering the power of being witnessed. Hear how being witnessed led to a spiritual awakening that ultimately led to the birth of Defiance of Silence - A Sacred Witness Podcast.  For decades, I carried the weight of childhood sexual abuse and military sexual trauma without telling a soul....

"The body keeps the score." This phrase has become commonplace in trauma-informed circles, but what does it actually mean when your physical symptoms have emotional roots? How do we become truly present in bodies that have stored years of unprocessed experiences? In this profound conversation with Air Force veteran, former firefighter, and bodyworker Amber Miskovich, we explore the sacre...