Beyond the Monsters

For our 100th episode and Suicide Prevention & Awareness Month, Chell shares one of the most difficult and personal stories she has ever told: losing her friend David to suicide. David was a successful businessman and...

LaRon shares his story of growing up in extreme poverty surrounded by addiction, violence, neglect, and abuse before entering the foster care system. After being placed in a foster home where he was starved, tortured...

Ariel shares her story of surviving childhood SA, addiction, and years of struggling with her mental health before reaching a point where she attempted to take her own life. After six months of sobriety from alcohol, a...

Rhiannon Thoreson was 19 years old and washing her car in broad daylight when a stranger came up behind her, held a knife to her throat, and kidnapped her. He drove her to a remote area, where she was held for hours...

Fausto Castellanos shares his story of surviving childhood SA, grooming, addiction, and years of shame that left him questioning himself and searching for acceptance in relationships, substances, and the people around...

Suzzette grew up in a family where addiction, mental illness, violence, and instability existed alongside a lot of love. Her father struggled with heroin addiction, her mother battled cancer and dissociative identity...

Shavon was just 11 years old when she woke up to find her mother and her mother’s ex-boyfriend dead after a murder-suicide that unfolded while she slept in the next room. She shares the trauma of discovering the scene...

Angela Harger Thompson moved to Los Angeles to pursue her acting dreams, but soon after arriving, she was drugged, SAed, and strangled by a Hollywood producer who had offered her a job. Although she immediately reported...

Brandi Morey-Pols shares the story of her six-year-old son, Rowan, who was murdered by his biological father just days before a custody hearing that she hoped would finally bring him to safety. She recounts years of...

Marta Barreto shares her story of surviving childhood sexual abuse, sex trafficking, addiction, incarceration, and years of being blamed, disbelieved, and left without the protection she needed. She opens up about being...

Greg Kelley was a standout high school football player with a full scholarship, dreams of playing in the NFL, and what appeared to be a bright future ahead of him. At just 18 years old, everything changed when he was...

Dasan "DJ" Jones was just 15 years old when he was murdered inside his own home by the man he had called dad for nearly a decade. His mother, Latrice, shares the devastating story of trying to escape an emotionally...

Former Avalon members Michael Passons and Melissa Greene alongside country music artist Ty Herndon share the story behind their powerful re-recording of Testify to Love and the deeply personal journey that led them back...

Dawn Simmons and her daughter Katie DeRouen share the unimaginable story of losing Dawn's three children, Lindy, Christopher, and Kamryn, in a head-on crash caused by a drunk driver going the wrong way on the interstate...

Chloe spent years carrying the trauma of a SA she never spoke about, burying the experience for nearly five years before PTSD, flashbacks, and overwhelming anxiety forced her to confront what happened. As she worked...