A Contagious Smile Podcast

Send us Fan Mail A schizophrenia diagnosis can feel like your life has been rewritten without your consent, and the hardest part is often the unknown: Will I get better, will I ever feel like myself again, and who will still see me as me? We talk with Matthew Dixon, who answers those questions with uncommon honesty, detail, and calm. He shares what it was like to go from university life to suicida...

Send us Fan Mail A guy offers to help us move a table and chairs, and for a few minutes it feels like a normal neighborly moment. Then, out of nowhere, he mentions multiple felonies and casually claims he got caught trying to kill his wife. That single sentence flips the whole night on its head, and we walk through what happened, what safety steps we had in place, and why “he seems fine” is never...

Send us Fan Mail When trauma survivors stop seeking help, the system has failed. Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore share how retraumatization in healthcare and mental health settings can silence the very people who need support most—and what we learned about rebuilding trust in recovery. A raw conversation on surviving systems that don't listen, and finding providers who actually do. The fa...

Send us Fan Mail Domestic violence recovery and caregiver resilience aren't one-time breakthroughs; they're built day by day. This week, we sit down with actor Amir Arison to explore what it really takes to keep showing up through trauma, medical complexity, and the kind of responsibility that never clocks out. A conversation about miracles, work ethic, and the practical faith that susta...

Send us Fan Mail When doctors told Faith's family to "let her go," they chose courage instead. NBC journalist Cheryl Preheim sits down to discuss trauma recovery, special needs parenting, and how refusing limits transformed one family's pain into a lifelong mission to help other survivors. A story about caregiver resilience, medical trauma, and the power of choosing hope when t...

Send us Fan Mail The moment “help” makes you feel smaller, unheard, or more afraid, something in the system has already failed. We sit with the uncomfortable reality that mental health care and hospital care can retraumatise the very people they are meant to support, and that one bad experience can shut the door on treatment for years. If you’ve ever walked away from an appointment more confused t...

Send us Fan Mail Michael and Victoria reveal why A Contagious Smile stays unscripted on purpose, because trauma recovery and caregiver resilience stories can't be rehearsed. Discover how lived experience teaches what textbooks can't, why real conversations create healing, and what "anything goes" actually means for abuse survivors navigating domestic violence recovery. A show c...

Send us Fan Mail When special needs families fight healthcare systems, they're told they're doing everything wrong, while goalposts keep moving. Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore expose how institutions abandon caregivers, blame survivors, and fragment care into impossible bureaucratic labyrinths. This isn't a survival hack episode; it's an accountability conversation about w...

Send us Fan Mail Healing from trauma and abuse doesn't happen alone. In this episode, we explore how to build and access real mental health support networks designed for abuse survivors and caregivers. Discover practical resources, red flags in broken systems, and why resilience grows in community, not isolation. Your path to thriving starts with connection. Something big is happening behind...

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Send us Fan Mail One phone call. One prescription. One life split into before and after. Katie Rizzo, a former AP biology teacher, lost her firstborn son, Nicholas, to opioid addiction and overdose. In this raw conversation about grief, caregiver resilience, and trauma recovery, Katie shares how she rebuilt her identity when loss stopped being an event and became her permanent companion. One phone...

Send us Fan Mail JJ Holley spent seven years rebuilding his life. Now, in a historic farmhouse in Maine, he's building something bigger: Ripple Retreat, an alcohol-free wellness space designed to flip the script on tourism and trauma recovery. In this walking tour episode, JJ shows us how one veteran's journey from survival to thriving is creating measurable change for entire communities...

Send us Fan Mail The scariest part of a mental health crisis isn’t always the symptoms. It’s the moment you realise nobody is talking to each other and your loved one is getting treated like a problem instead of a person. We sit down with veteran attorney and caregiver advocate Michael Machnac to share a major new partnership bringing his care coordination work together with Victoria’s trauma-info...

Send us Fan Mail Surviving abuse feels impossible, but leaving without a plan can be even more dangerous. In this episode, our hosts dig into the real barriers that keep people trapped: isolation, financial control, custody fears, trauma bonds, and the escalating danger of exit attempts. If you've ever wondered, "Why don't they just leave?" we're here to tell the truth. “W...

Send us Fan Mail One phone call can flip your whole world. We start with real life and real laughs, then move into the kind of story that makes your stomach drop: what happens when a school says your child had a medical emergency, but the timeline and the paperwork don’t match what you know to be safe care. We talk about why families choose no contact, why the “but they’re your parents” line misse...

Send us Fan Mail Burnout does not always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like answering messages at midnight, working seven days a week, and telling yourself you will rest after the next task. We get honest about what happens when your life becomes one long to do list, why “just push through” stops working, and how switching things up can be the difference between staying steady and gi...

Send us Fan Mail When Michael's A1C hits 9, denial stops working. In this raw conversation, we explore how trauma survivors and caregivers navigate health crises, lifestyle change, and the hidden cost of managing a loved one's chronic illness. From trauma responses to GLP-1 medications, we talk about breaking old patterns—and why that's harder than it sounds. A blood test can be lou...

Send us Fan Mail Loneliness doesn’t always look like sadness. Sometimes it looks like a full contact list, nonstop group chats, and a Friday night with nobody to actually meet. We sit down with Gaborg, co-founder of Friending, to talk about why modern life is producing more isolation in spite of constant connectivity and what we can do about it before it gets worse. If you’ve felt burned out by so...

Send us Fan Mail A lot of people want the wild FBI stories. We wanted the part that lingers after the story ends, what the work does to your nervous system, your faith, your marriage, and your view of other people. Former FBI agent Eric Robinson joins us with zero script and a ton of honesty about how you stay human when your job is to stare at the worst of human behaviour all week.  Eric talks SW...

Send us Fan Mail A Broadway-directing Hollywood powerhouse drops in, tells Michael he’s flat-out wrong about being “bad at podcasting,” and then takes it further by reading Faith’s poem on air. That single moment cracks the whole night open. We talk about what authentic confidence sounds like, why a real voice beats a polished persona, and how the right encouragement can change the way you show up...

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Send us Fan Mail Some people don’t hate you because of what you did. They hate you because you healed, and now they can’t control you. Tonight we get honest about narcissistic parents, the scapegoat role, and that gut-punch realisation Victoria shares: “She doesn’t like me because I fixed what she broke.” We talk about how toxic family systems survive on leverage, blame, and silence and what chang...

Send us Fan Mail Somebody can be sitting in an urgent care exam room with bruises, fear, and an abuser answering every question and still have no clear way to say, “I’m not safe.” We go there, plainly and practically, with our guest Joshua Hess, a physician assistant and former teacher who now hosts the research-driven podcast. Oh that’s a fact. We talk about what medical teams can notice when a p...

Send us Fan Mail He’s supposed to be “Dad” and he’s supposed to be safe. Then one phone call turns into months of ambulance rides, doctor appointments, opioid red flags, and a home that slowly stops feeling like home. We share what happened when we took in Michael’s biological father after a death in the family, believing we were doing the right thing and trying to build a relationship that never...

Send us Fan Mail Responsibility sounds like a boring word until life makes it personal. We kick things off with a question we’ve all wrestled with: how do you actually teach responsibility, especially to teens, without turning your house into a battleground? From a blunt teen pregnancy “what if” to the very real chaos of a brand-new puppy, we talk about how responsibility isn’t a speech, it’s a pa...