THE BOY WHO REFUSED TO BREAK

The Boy Who Refused to Break | Season 4 Episode 23

Not all trauma is loud.

Some of it lives quietly beneath the surface, showing up as people-pleasing, the need to be needed, doing more than your share so no one questions your worth, and inherited beliefs about love we were never taught to question. These patterns often go unnamed, yet they shape how we love, how we trust, how we show up for others, and ultimately, what we pass on.

In this powerful Season 4 conversation of the Life's Deceit Podcast, Jen Simpson sits down with Seth Gehle to explore what happens when a child is exposed to harm from every direction at once—and what it takes to refuse to let that pain become your identity.

Together, they unpack childhood trauma, the cycle of abuse, resilience, healing, and the quiet decision to build a different life than the one you were handed.

In This Episode:

• The difference between surviving and truly living
• Childhood instability and what it teaches a child to normalize
• The pressure to share your story publicly versus healing privately
• Finding hope and proof that another life is possible
• What it costs to finally speak your truth
• Legacy as something you build through who you help, not who applauds you

This conversation lays the foundation for Season 4: Legacy by Choice — Chosen, Not Inherited.

Because legacy is not only about what we survive.

It is about what we choose to stop carrying forward.

🟢 Subscribe for weekly conversations on healing, identity, resilience, and intentional legacy.

🟢 Share this episode with someone who is quietly breaking cycles.

💬 Reflection Question:
What is one quiet cycle you are choosing to interrupt—not for recognition, but for legacy?

“This is not the year I inherited. This is the year I chose."

🎙 Subscribe to the Life's Deceit Podcast and turn on notifications so you never miss a conversation that matters. This is a space where truth has a voice, healing has a home, and silence no longer has the final word.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey Life's Deceits family! Welcome back to another episode of Life's Deceits Podcast. I'm your host, Jen Simpson. I hope you're having a beautiful morning, afternoon, or night wherever you are in the world. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Today we'll be diving into a powerful conversation. A conversation about resilience, healing, hope, and the courage to choose a different path for yourself. We have a very special guest today, and his name is Seth Gyle. Seth is a best-selling author of Strength Beyond the Shadows.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Those things are in the back of your mind, they're always gonna be there. And if you try to run away from them, if you try to pack them away, if you just try to box them up and leave them in the back and leave them in the attic and don't mess with them, they're just gonna weigh on you forever.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Overcoming a childhood of trauma, neglect, and sexual abuse. He is also a speaker, husband, father, and a survivor. After enduring years of abuse, neglect, and unimaginable adversity, Seth made a choice, a powerful choice, that would change his course of his life forever. He refused to allow his past to define his future and shape who he was going to become. So in today's episode, we talk about breaking generational cycles, protecting children, reporting abuse, knowing the signs, the power of self-belief, and what it truly means to create a legacy that is chosen by yourself and not inherited or forced onto you. This conversation will be raw, honest, and deeply inspiring. So please take a deep breath with me. And exhale. Brace yourself, lean in, and join us for this powerful conversation with Seth Guile. So please guys, help me welcome Seth to Life the Seats platform. Hello, Seth. Thank you so much for joining the Licensees platform with me today. And thank you for being obedient in your calling. And thank you for not allowing what happened to you to silence you, but to empower you and be not only a light but a roadmap for other people who have experienced similar situations just like you, just like me, and just like other survivors. It's an absolute honor and pleasure to be in your presence today. Not only that you are human, but you are a man and you're not afraid to share your voice and speak your truth and continue to walk in your purpose. Thank you so much. And I pray that our conversation will pierce through somebody's life today and cause some type of shift that they will need.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for having me. You know, it's always a you know, it's an honor. It's a pleasure of mine as well to get on here and speak and talk and answer any questions and try to provide guidance, you know, for people that have gone through really anything crazy in life, and they're trying to figure out, you know, how do you become something positive on the other side of all that. So that's what I try to do now. That's what I try to do with my book and traveling and speaking at different conferences and things. So I share my story, but not just to share my story, but to show people that there's another side of life. You know, if you go and get it, if you want it, then there's another side of life. You don't have to live in that victim state for your whole life, you know. So that's what I that's what I do this for. Thank you, Seth.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

I think, you know, now that we have social media, a lot of people question why now? Why did you choose to speak now? Why did it take you so long? And I think when you go through the experience, you understand that there is a season in your life when you do get that peace and that healing and you you speak about your story. It's more than just getting justice, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think that so whenever I do share my story, I always, you know, either start it or end it with, you know, just to be clear, like you don't have to share your story. You don't have to tell anybody, you don't have to be public about anything. I think there is an expectation now for some people that if they don't come out and share their story publicly, they feel like they're not strong enough or they haven't overcome it. Or, you know, some people feel a calling to go and share it publicly to help other people. And then I think some people feel not necessarily a calling, but a pressure to go and talk about their life on a platform. And it's not necessary for everybody. Uh, it's only if you want to go and do it, then go and do it. But with that comes a lot of questions, kind of like you're saying, like, why now? What prompted you to share it? Uh, why are you sharing it? Uh, you know, what happened to you? Why did that happen? It prompts a lot of questions. And truth be told, I think if you're not willing or ready to answer those questions, then you probably need to not share your story because people are going to have questions. If you talk about anything, especially on social media, they're going to have questions. And if that's not something that you're willing to answer or handle, then I think that it would be better for you to not share it because, like I said, people are going to ask. But for me personally, I always knew that I would share my story. I always knew that I'd write a book. I always knew that something like this would happen where I would either be speaking, writing a book, or you know, a movie documentary. And I still have those things in the future, I think it's going to happen, but maybe not a movie, but like a documentary. But, anyways, I always had this vision that I would share my story in some capacity because other people had shared their stories as well in my childhood. You know, I read the book A Child Called It. That was a big thing when I was a child. Uh reading that book, I knew that one day I'd write a book, and then I saw motivational speakers, and they had come from where I'd come from, and they got on the stages and they're sharing their story. So then I knew that one day I would be a speaker. And um, you know, that that was kind of what led me to wanting to share my story publicly. The final like catalyst of it all was Clark Fredericks. He is a man who's from New Jersey. He was on the YouTube channel Software Underbelly, and he was as a young man. He was 12 years old when that happened. And uh, long story short, about 30 years later, after that happened, he ran into that man again in his hometown and he murdered him. Clark went to prison. He got out of prison in like five years. He was facing a life sentence, got a five-year sentence, got out, shared his story on Software Underbelly. And Clark is, you know, he's doing well now. He actually just published his book. But he is a uh when I saw him share his story, he's a man. He's imposing. He doesn't look like broken or defeated or the shell of a man. He's, you know, he looks imposing and powerful and strong. And the way he's told his story is very raw and visceral and authentic. And when I saw him share his story, this was like two years ago, I was sitting in my car and I said, okay, like Seth, if if his story means that much to you, you need to go and share your story for other people because that's the impact that you could make. And so that's kind of what happened was I was so inspired by so many other people's stories that I finally was just pulled the trigger, ripped off the band-aid, and you know, bared my soul to the world essentially.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

I'm glad that you said that not everybody's called to share their story. Because I find that a lot of people are forced into publicly speaking out about what happened to them and they're not ready to. They're not comfortable. And healing doesn't mean that you have to publicly say what happened to you. Healing doesn't mean that you have to go out there and try to save everybody else or be that voice for them because maybe that's not your calling. Maybe your calling is doing work silently and not sharing that part of your life. And that's okay. So I'm really glad that you highlighted that because I do feel that people are forced into doing things that they're not emotionally or physically able to.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah, it's attractive, you know. When you see somebody, you know, I don't think I'm a famous person by any stretch of the imagination, but I've got videos that have millions of views on YouTube. And, you know, I've sold enough, I've I'm a best-selling author. And so when people see that, they see that, you know, fame or notoriety or attention, it's attractive. And so I think that's that's why people they message me all the time and they say, I want to write a book, I want to share my story, I want to do what you do. And they don't really want to do it. They just I think that they want the the things that I get in return, the notoriety, the all the messages of like, hey, that's incredible, you're incredible. I think they want like the support that I get when I do share my story. And it's not all sunshine and rainbows, you know. Uh I get plenty of comments and questions and things like that that are uh you know not supportive. I don't really care about those things, but most people do. And so to your point, like people see other people doing something and they get something positive out of it, whether it's money or notoriety or success or whatever, and they they they think that, oh, if I go and do that, I'll get the same things, and that's just not the case. So not the case for everybody. It could be, but there's a lot of circumstances to all that, and you know, I don't share my story just to share my story. I share my story. I I live the way the life that I live today intentionally, so that when people hear my story, they can know that there's another side of life. So yeah, I mean that's a that's a whole that's a whole yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

So and you know, I when I started this, I started an Instagram page. I was just writing quotes. I had no idea about comments. I thought I had like a broad back. I can handle anything. But I think people don't realize on the other side of it, you're telling your story, it takes a lot, it's like a heavy cross to bear because there are comments. There are people that are pulling at your story, there are people that are there that are gonna say things to try to break you. So it's not for everyone. Everybody has their own assignment and calling. And I think it's important that people discover what that looks like for them and not try to replicate just because you see what it looks like on the outer than what we're going through on the inside, right? We wake up every day. We may not wake up every day happy and smiling. We're sharing our story. That doesn't mean that on the inside we're completely content. Just like I was sharing with you about the story, the little four-year-old girl that her father killed her. It did something to me. I was emotional this morning. Almost numbing, like I'm tired of it. We're doing the work, and yes, people are saying all these nice things, but it's it's more than just doing the work. Sometimes we don't feel well while doing the work, right? But we continue. So with your story, I wanted to ask you three questions before we begin. What do you represent and what do you hope that your purpose will leave behind when you leave this earth? Like what do you hope that your purpose will represent and people rem will remember you as?

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, so I would say what I represent, you know, hope, resiliency, you know. I'm just proof that you can not only survive, but like live a positive, valuable life, a worthy life, you know, a life that you can be proud of. There's so many people like me that go through what I've gone through. And statistically speaking, you know, they're usually homeless addicts, you know, alcoholics, violent abusers or criminals, whatever. They almost never come out on the other end like me. And especially where I've never been addicted, I've never been an alcoholic, I've never, you know, been to prison or anything. I've never really taken a bad path in life. So that's just very rare. And what I want is to be that that proof that this can happen. You know, we hear this all the time when we're kids that you can be whatever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do. But for somebody that grows up in a place like I did, that's just not true. Or at least it seems that way. It is true, but it it seems that the world is against you, the world is going to hold you back. There's no way you can make it out of this life. Like you're gonna have to turn to whatever it is that you got to to survive. And my story, if heard by the right people, can present that level of proof, that piece of hope, where it's like, no, okay, this guy comes from exactly where I come from. He made it out, he did what he had to do to survive, and he's in the position he's in now. I can do the same thing. So that's really what I represent is hope and resilience. As far as like my you know, legacy, like what do I want to leave behind? What do I want people to think about when they think about me as somebody who cared, cared enough to try to help other people? That's really what I do it for, you know. When I was younger, even just two, three years ago, I was messaging people and telling them, like, hey, like your story means a lot to me. Thank you for sharing it. You know, you don't know how much you mean to me. You don't know how much your story has helped me. I was that person messaging people, and now I'm that person receiving messages like that. And I mean, I just dropped off a book at the post office, a signed copy of my book for somebody who wrote a letter to me. And they'll tell me all the time, you don't know what your story means to me. And for me, I do know because I was in those shoes at one point telling somebody else the same thing. And so that legacy that I want to leave behind is somebody is, you know, when they think of Seth, it's he was he was strong, he was powerful, he was caring, you know, he wanted to basically save the world, uh, one person at a time, you know. That's that's what I want to leave behind. Yeah. And you're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

You're already leaving those yeah, you're already leaving those marks, those trails are showing up, and it's a beautiful thing just to be able to see it because sometimes most people don't get to see that legacy until after they're gone. But you're seeing it, you're building it, you're creating it, it's there. And you're getting those letters, those are memories. You can't forget them, it can't be wiped out, it's there. And I'm really, really, really proud is not even a word that I can use or describe just to say what you're doing is uh tremendous. It's not for your own glory, it's to help other people, and it's genuine. So truly thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, thank you for it.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Before Seth now, author, survivor, and a powerhouse of a man. Tell us a little bit about your story, where you were raised, what was your childhood like, your family dynamic, siblings, parents?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Basically, I was born and raised by a single mother. So when I was my mom had all my my sisters and I back-to-back years, so I think it was like 17, 18, 19, or 18, 19, 20. She had all three of us back to back to back. And we're all very close in age. So my older sister and I are 11 months apart, my younger sister and I are 13 months apart. And around the time I was probably two or three years old, my mom and my dad got into a fight, and my dad attempted to murder my mom basically. He took a knife, she she had pulled a knife out, he took it from her, he picked her up, slammed her on the counter, proceeded to stab her multiple times in the head, tried to kill her. And she she was able to get away. He ran away. Police were called, they came and arrested my father. He went to prison. So I didn't have any memories of my father growing up as a child. My my earliest memory is meeting him in prison when I was around seven or eight years old, probably. And my mom one day was like, Hey, do you want to go see your dad? He's in prison. And we went to the prison, and that was my first time ever meeting him. So was talking to him through a plexiglass window with a phone. So prior to that, though, you know, my mom was raising three kids by herself. And due to the circumstances, she we were we were home alone alone a lot. We were either home alone a lot or we were in different babysitters' homes a lot, depending on you know the week or whatever. Sometimes we'd be at the babysitter's house, sometimes we were home alone. And really didn't matter which place we were at, something was happening at home. We were exposed to porn because she had a very like large porn collection. And since we were home alone, we found it, we got into it, and we were watching full-blown porn VHS tapes at five, six, seven years old. In addition to that, when we would go to babysitter's homes, there was one babysitter in particular who had a bunch of boys, and one of the boys was a uh teenager, he was probably 16 or 17. I don't remember how old he was, but he pulled me into his bunk, and that was like the first time I guess you could say I was abused or molested, which was very mild in comparison to some, you know, something it wasn't anything super egregious, it was bad. I understand that, but it but in the grand scheme of things, I don't really know that it affected me that much. But he basically exposed himself to me. I exposed myself to him, he touched me, I touched him. That was that was about it. That happened a couple times. I reported that. My grand and I told my grandparents when that happened. My grandparents then approached that family, that family denied everything, which is pretty typical. And uh, we were actually still sent back to that baby, that babysitter's home, and we would live with that babysitter for a week or two at a time, every now and then. So that was like my very early years, five, six, seven years old. And then as I got older, my mom began to drink a lot more, she began to smoke a lot more. She was smoking weed and drinking almost like every day. And by the time I was probably eight, nine, ten years old, she became very violent, she became very abusive. We were bouncing around at different houses all the time. We just we did not have a stable home life. We were either moving or she was fighting, she was dating different guys. We'd come home, there's glass on the floor, holes in the walls. It was just a very violent upbringing. And around eight, nine, ten years old, that's when she she started like closed hands, striking us, punching us, grabbing us by the face, slamming heads against walls. A lot of this was happening pretty consistently. And then around 10 years old, she met a new boyfriend, and he got her addicted to cracking cocaine. At that same time, my life was really, really going downhill. Things were really bad. And so I did what most boys do, and you find somewhere to go outside of the house, whether it's running around the streets, getting involved with gangs or drugs or whatever. My escape was I met a kid who lived around the corner from me. He was about five years older than me. So he was about 15. I was about 10 years old. And when I was over at his house one day, this man walked in the door. His name was uh Mondo, we called him, but he was in his 30s. He was about 30, 31 when I met him. I was 10. And Mondo asked me if I wanted to hang out with him and my friend Jacob up at Mondo's house because Mondo liked to play video games, he loved pizza and pop and all the things that kids love. So I said absolutely. So I started hanging out with Mondo and Jacob. After a few months of that, I was going up to Mondo's house by myself every weekend, and that's when Mondo started to abuse me and molest me. So Monday through Friday, I was living at home with my mom who's addicted to drugs, abusive, violent, crazy house. And then Friday night and Saturday night, I was at Mondo's house being sexually abused by this grown man. So I was basically leaving one hell and going to another, you know, just escaping one place to go to another and back and forth. I was quite literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. That went on for about two and a half years, and then my mom was arrested for stabbing her boyfriend in the bathroom over some drugs. So when she went to jail, I bounced around. I was basically couch surfing for about four or five, six months before my grandparents got a hold of me. My grandparents get a hold of me, I move in with my grandparents, and I tell my grandparents that I have this friend that I want to hang out with who's Mondo. And they shut it down initially. But after some defending and manipulation, I convince my grandparents to go and or just at least meet him. So he comes to the house, he meets my grandparents, he makes them laugh and smile, and I'm back in the saddle at this point. So I start hanging out with Mondo still, and that goes on for another two and a half, three years, where he's abusing me every weekend. And After about all after almost six years of being abused by him, I was up at his house one weekend and I had a younger friend with me. And my younger friend started, or he started to make comments towards my younger friend about what he was going to do to him or what he wanted to do to him. And when he started making those comments, I knew that he was serious. I knew he wasn't joking. And that was actually the catalyst for me to report. People ask me all the time, like, why did you finally report him? Or what happened that made me report him? And that was it. He was about to start taking advantage of my younger friend. And so that weekend I went home and reported him. And, you know, long story short, we go to the hospital, they do all the kits, they do everything they gotta do. And uh they go and arrest Mondo that night. He was charged with 11 felony counts of sexual misconduct with a minor. And they offered him a plea deal, so he only took four of the charges. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2011. He would be free today, but fortunately enough, he died in prison in 2019, about a year before he was supposed to get out. So that was that was my childhood in a very, you know, short, small little nutshell. Um it was it was about 16 years of just absolute hell and misery. And when all that was over, you know, I I graduated high school two years later, I joined the army, served in the military for nine years, got out of the military, and now I'm you know a best-selling author, a public speaker, a husband, father. I've got two kids. My third one will be here in two, three days. So um, yeah, now I'm living this life to try to help other people get through whatever adversity trauma they've gone through.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

The last part. Congratulations to being a husband, not just a husband, but a father to three beautiful children. That third one's on the way, but still. Congratulations to that.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Congratulations to choosing to push through and not repeating the same generational cycle as your mom and your dad. I think that's the easier thing to do, is to just let what happened to us just take us away. But healing and finding our own peace is hard. Yeah, it's hard, and I don't think people understand how hard it is. And you did that.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Yeah. I think people are they're unsure of who that person is. I mean, I think that's something that I dealt with was like I grew up in all this turmoil and toxicity and pain and suffering and misery and anger. I grew up with all these like negative emotions, negative experiences and circumstances, and all I wanted was a positive life, you know, and I was scared of who that person was, or maybe not maybe not scared, but just unsure. And that person didn't seem like me, so I didn't want to get to that place, you know. Uh, I I know like when people see me now, they're like, oh wow, you're incredible, you're amazing, you've done all these things. And it's like it took a lot of work, you know. I'm still working on myself, but it it's uh you have to have the right mindset for it. You have to, you really have to develop the right mindset to go and take care of yourself and and to take responsibility for that, you know. You can sit around and and be miserable, you can be angry, you can be sad, you can be depressed and lonely, you can do all those things. That those things don't really require a lot of energy, they don't really require a lot of work. That's a lot of people can do that, but to be intentional with your life, to wake up every day and to have a plan and to go and do things and to create your own value, your own self-worth, like to go and create your own actions and do your own things to build out who you want to be, that takes work, and people don't want to do that. You know, it's it's very simple, it's not easy. A lot of people see this and they're like, hey Set, how did you do what you did? How'd you get where you're at? And I tell them a couple steps and it's already too much. They're like, nope, that's you know, it's I can't do that, I can't do that, I can't do that. And it's well, no, you can, you just don't want to, or you can, you just won't.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah. Right. And you and you you have to be willing to do it. That's the whole part of it is doing the work. You can't want somebody's life but not want to do the work. You can't have somebody's life either way, but if you want to reap your own success and blessings, you have to want to do the work on yourself. And that starts internally. What kept you going? You know, six years is a long time besides being at home, but outside the home also being abused. Six years is a long time to endure pain and trauma and not be able to reach out to anyone, your grandparents, a friend, and let them know. In those moments of feeling alone in your dark place, what would you say kept you alive? And I don't mean alive in the physical, but alive in the spirit to know that this is not it for me.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Well, that's that's pretty much what I told myself repeatedly as a young man. You know, I told myself that one day I'm gonna get out of here, one day I'm gonna get out of this life. I don't know when, I don't know how, but one day, you know, I'll have my time in the sun. One day I'll get out of here, one day I'll I'll I'll go and do things and I'll live an incredible life. I know I will. I had a deep, unrelenting self-belief. I mean, I believed in myself like nobody else could, you know. I I just I knew that one day I would get out. I mean, that that was basically it. I would say that a lot of that comes from being exposed, like I was talking about earlier, to success. So when I when I read a child called It, I was 10 years old. And so I read this book about this man who had gone through all this abuse and he grew up to become a published author. That's what gave me the idea that okay, hold on now, there's something here. I can survive this, I can get out of this, and I can, if his story means that much to me, it's it's helping me that much, I can do this for other people. When I was 12 years old, I came across a motivational speaker. He got on a stage, shared this incredible story. Um, then he shared his story of his life and the things that he'd gone through, and the fact that he's not supposed to be there. And I said, Okay, if this man can go through what he went through, I can also get through my own, you know, and that's what it is. That's what you know that when you when you suffer, you build endurance, your endurance builds character. Your character is what inspires hope in other people. And so I had these people, these other people with character that I can look at in the public eye and say, okay, these people made it through, I can make it as well. And in fact, I would look at other I would look at people who didn't go through things, and I would say, like, if they can get there, then I can get there too. And when I get there, it's gonna be so much sweeter, it's gonna be so much better because of where I come from. So I just I have this deep, unrelenting self-belief. And you've either got to have, if if you have no hope, if you have no hope, you have got to believe in yourself like nobody's business. Like you really have to believe in yourself so much so that that you know it's going to happen. If you don't have self-belief, you gotta have hope. You've got to have something that that gives you an expectation in life. That you have to have some like expectation is part of hope. It's a it hope is like I expect that this thing will eventually end, or I will eventually get to this place. That's what hope is. Is it's there's expectation tied to hope. So when you see somebody do something and they come from where you come from, you know it can be done. And you can give yourself that hope. You can give yourself that expectation that you can go and do that. And when you put both of those things together, a little bit of hope and a little bit of self-belief, those two things together, like that's the recipe for a fire. Like you're gonna you're gonna get out of whatever you're at, you know? And I just hold myself every day that one day I'll get out of this, one day this is gonna end. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I'm gonna make it out of this life. I know I will.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

It's interesting you said that, because as you said that, I'm thinking about mental math. Anybody that's good at math, you know you're mental and how you work things out in your mind. And I'm as you're speaking, I'm thinking about myself because that's something I always told myself as a child. I know I'm gonna get out of this. I know this is not it for me. I know that there's greater things for me. And as a child going through and experiencing so much trauma and turmoil in your life, and you still have that at the back of your mind that I'm gonna get out of this, I'm gonna succeed, and you find somebody and people who you can that's that's inspiration for you. Like, okay, I found this person, if they can pull through, I know I can pull through. This is not going to kill me. So it's just interesting how we're going through that battlefield, but still we're holding on to faith and self-belief. When you finally chose and decided that I have to speak up, this has to end. You were in protection mode. And when you spoke about him making those comments about your friend, I always say we all go we all go through something in life. It may not be the same, we may not be from the same backgrounds or upbringing, but we go through similar things and we relate in certain ways. And as I'm listening to you speak, I remember when I finally decided to speak up. I went into protection mode to protect my little sister. And you went into protection mode to protect your friend because you didn't want your friend to experience what you did. What was going through your mind at that moment when you heard Mondo bring up those things? You heard him say those things, you knew who he was. So you knew he wasn't joking, joking, you knew he was serious. What was your thought process if you can go back to that time?

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yeah, you know, honestly, my initial thought was I couldn't believe that he had the audacity to say that in front of me. And not like I was jealous, like uh he was going to start paying attention to another kid, but the fact that it's like, I I know you're not joking, I know you're not kidding right now. I know you're serious about what you're saying. And and what he what he had said, or what he had done was he joked about he he said to the kid, verbatim, if you're having a bad day, I can take you back into bed and blow you, is what he said to him. And the reason why that was such a striking comment is because he would say that same exact thing about me to other adults. So we would we would be, you know, hanging out with other adult friends, and he would make these references or these comments of, like, hey, we got to leave because I'm gonna go do this to Seth tonight, or Seth is gonna do this to me tonight. And these other adults would just laugh it off because there's no way he's actually going to go and do that. He wouldn't admit that, you wouldn't say that, you know. He's obviously joking, but then we would go back to his house and these things would happen. And so when he made that comment, that was my initial thought was like, I can't believe you think I'm so stupid that I don't know what's happening, you know. Um, and my friend went back in his bed with him. They weren't back there for very long. I don't think anything happened, but that was the first time that I'd ever seen my friend go back there with him. And so at that moment, I reached out. Oddly enough, it's a very coincidental, it's kind of crazy how all this kind of came together. I reached out to the kid who introduced me to Mondo like five years prior. This kid was in college, my friend Jacob, who I talk about in the story, he was in college, and I reached out to him through this video game and I said, Hey, can you come to my house on Sunday? I want to talk to you. All he said was yes. He said, Yep, got it. So that was it. And at knowing now, Jacob he knew what I was what I was talking about. He he just knew. So I think that's probably why he didn't say anything. He just said, Yep, you got it. So that weekend, I was abused again by Mondo. Sunday came around. We go home. Jacob shows up at my house a couple hours later. And uh, you know, initially when he got there, I was scared. I was terrified. That was like one of the hardest days of my life. I was scared of rejection, denial. I was scared of all these things because Jacob knew Mondo before I did. He knew him longer than I did. He was they were best friends before I was best friends with Mondo. Mondo had been to my house for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, for birthdays, for holidays. I had been to his house, had been with his family for all these holidays. You know, I'd known him for almost six years. So I was scared of all these feelings of rejection and denial. You know, um, people wouldn't believe me. And when Jacob came to my house, I was pacing in my bedroom and I told him, I said, you know, I've been wanting to tell you this for a long time, but I'm scared to tell you, and I just don't know what to say. And, you know, I'm pacing back and forth, pacing back and forth, and I couldn't say it. I could not say the words. And Jacob broke the silence and he said, Did Mondo touch you? And when he said that, I fell apart and I fell to the floor, couldn't stand up. I was screaming and crying, I was punching the floor, punching the floor. And after a few moments, Jacob breaks the silence again and he says, Well, he did it to me too. And I couldn't believe it because Jacob was like my hero, you know? And I turned and I looked at him, and I'm just crying so hard. And I and then once again, this was no longer about me. Like I was reporting him to protect my friend, and then I hear that my other friend was also abused, and I'm like, This is no longer about me. So I was like, Are you serious? Like, what the hell? And I get up and I give him a hug. And um, you know, Jacob says, uh, which is very powerful, he says, What do you want to do about it? Whatever you want to do, I'm on your side. Do you want to report him or do you want to keep it a secret? And I said, No, we got to report him because he's about to start abusing our younger friend. And so Jacob's like, All right, let's go. And so we go out in the living room, we tell my grandparents, and you know, then we we do all that. But yeah, that that was an absolutely terrifying, mind-wracking moment. Anxiety through the roof, you know, because when Jacob, when I told him to come over to my house, and and Sunday came around and I got home and he pulled in, like it's just this impending doom, it feels like it's like you know the monkey's coming off the back today, and it's just you're just absolutely terrified. It's like this this overwhelming emotion, which is why it's so hard to report, you know, because you're not only you're not telling on the you're not telling on the on the predator, you're also telling on yourself, you're telling other people what you have done or what you have allowed to be done to you, you know, or what you were complicit with to an extent. Um, and and complicit as in you were there, you participated, and you were a part of that moment. Not saying that it's your fault or anything like that, but it but but when you go report that, you have to tell somebody that this person did this to me, and I didn't try to get away from them, you know, and I did this to that person and I didn't try to get away from them, and I could have. I could have. And so all these emotions are are in your head when you're reporting, and so that's what makes it so difficult, and that's what makes it difficult to do an effective report. There's a lot of people that report, but they don't say anything, they say, Hey, this person touched me, and then the the police officer is trying to figure out, or the investigators trying to figure out the the circumstances of the situation so that they can paint a picture for it, and the person doesn't want to talk about it, you know. And so that they give minimal details, and then there's nothing that the police or anybody can do about it. So for me, when I went and reported, I knew that I was going all in. When I went and talked to the police and the nurses, I told them the deepest, darkest, worst details of my story because I knew that's what I needed to, I knew that's what I needed to do to finish the job.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Your grandparents, they're my heroes. I say they're my heroes because just like us being afraid of what we're gonna face when we come out, the adults don't even know what to do sometimes. It's like a ton of bricks just hit them, and now they have to think what's next for you and them and what their lives are gonna look like and what they're gonna face. So a lot of parents, uh guardians, whether it's grandparents or godparents or just people that are taking care of children, they end up going silent as well. And they also go into protection mode where they're thinking, okay, well, if you come out with this story, you're gonna face this. The world's gonna look at you this way, you're gonna be tugged in this direction. I don't want you to go through that. Not realizing that if I don't go through it, my life is gonna be chaotic. Because what I'm gonna face on the inside is gonna be worse than what I'm gonna face on the exterior, right? So I say your grandparents are my heroes because they believed uh in young Seth and they stood by you. A lot of us don't get that. So them doing that is an example for other people, how you stand by your child and how you stand in the gaps and support them. So you having that change the game for you. And I'm glad that you had that. And your friend uh Jacob to be able to say that I'm going to stand with you whatever you decide to do. And he didn't put it on you to keep it a secret, he didn't put it on you to uh protect his secret that he's been holding on to. But to say that we're going to stand together and we're gonna protect other children that are going to uh be destroyed at the hands of Mondo. You two are more than brave. And it means so much that I don't know if anybody has ever said, but it means a lot to know that you did that because you just changed the whole generational tone for your own kids and the generation that you're living in now. Again, you broke a cycle. And your grandparents helped you break that cycle. And I want to ask for the adults who heard those little comments, because you know, even in today's day, we hear these comments floating around. We have, you see, now in society where there's men in their 60s dating girls that are 15, 16, no one saying anything about it. They think it's perfectly normal. It's normal, it's fine, it's nothing. She consented to it. But those adults who heard those comments and laughed it off. Now that you are an adult, what would you say now to other adults that may hear things like that and think it's nothing because they know the parent, the person's character.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Yeah, well, the interesting thing is people always say, Who do you what should I watch for as a parent? They always ask me, Well, who should I watch? Like, what should I be looking for? And the answer is not one that they like because it's your husband, it's your wife, it's your dad, it's your mom, it's your brother, it's your sister. You know, you should be watching the people that are closest to your children. That's who you should be watching. And people don't like that answer because they're like, Well, my dad's not a pedophile, my mom's not a pedophile, my wife's not a pedophile, my husband. I'm not saying that I'm not accusing anybody of anything. What I'm telling you is statistically speaking, it's going to happen by somebody either in your household or in your immediate circle of trust, by coach, teacher, somebody at the church. It's going to happen by somebody that you know or by somebody in your house. And so people don't like that answer. And when you are with those people and those people are making comments, or they want the child in their lap, or they are kissing the child almost, period. But I I would make exceptions for a handful of people to kiss my children. But outside of that, outside of that handful of people, nobody else needs to kiss my children. And even then, how and where they're kissing them is a point of concern for me. So what I would say, you know, if if somebody's making comments about children, that is completely like not okay. That's a red flag pretty quickly, you know, especially in the presence of children. When you were making comments about children in the presence of children, uh, it's very that's that's that's not okay. Um, you know, if you're with some friends and you're laughing and joking, and you guys have a dark sense of humor, I have a dark sense of humor. There are some things that are like, you know, that locker room talk, but when you are making those comments in front of family members, in front of children, there's like a time and a place for jokes. You know, I'm not gonna laugh about somebody's cancer uh while they're dying on their bed. Are there jokes about cancer that are funny? To some people, yes. Okay, there's a dark humor, and that's what Mondo was doing. He he was using this dark humor to hide his intent, right? That's what he was doing. He was using his dark humor to hide the intent of what he was doing. And so you have to you have to watch that. Um, I think you can find humor in just about every situation. I find humor in my own situation. I make fun of my own story, I make fun of myself. It is what it is. It's not a to me, it's not a big deal. I know to some people they don't like it. That's fine. You don't have to. Um, for me, it's not a big deal. But when you're making those comments about kids in front of kids, two kids, and that that there's a there's a line that has to be drawn. You know, you you can't you can't do that. Um and if somebody is making those comments, you really do need to say something. You need to say something to that person, or just not put yourself around that person anymore. It's really that simple. But the problem is that usually the person making those comments, or usually the person who's violating your child, is somebody who's very close to you. And you don't want to mess up the friendship, you don't want to mess up the family dynamic, you don't want to mess up this or that, you know. And uh I'll be damned if my kids are gonna go somewhere and they spend some time in somebody's bedroom, you know. We're not doing that. And I don't, I'm not accusing you of anything. What I'm telling you is that you're probably irresponsible. You're gonna show my kids something that they don't need to see because you think it's funny or you're just irresponsible. Maybe you're not even intentionally doing it, but you're gonna expose them to something that they don't need to be exposed to. So, you know, I'm very I like I don't associate with my family, I'm not connected with them, but I am with my wife's family, and and I'm pretty open around them. You know, what is it, what's not acceptable for my kids. And I don't mind hurting somebody's feelings, you know. I don't mind that it don't it don't bother me because I'm gonna protect my kids. So yeah, that's what I would say. I mean, if somebody's making comments toward kids, you know, about kids in a in a especially in a sexual manner, that's that's not okay. That that's that is never an okay situation. Yeah, you you should not be doing that. And so you you have to step up and say something.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

We talk about signs and things to look out for. One of my biggest biggest ones is body language. I believe that children speak through their bodies and their eyes. We all do actually. If you're in an uncomfortable situation, your body speaks louder than your voice will. And I find that even with my my kids, like my daughter, she sends off singles to me if she's in an uncomfortable situation. I've also built boundaries that as children growing up, we weren't allowed to build, such as if you have an aunt or an uncle that comes around and they want a hug, we're forced to give them a hug. If my daughter does not feel safe and she does not want to give somebody a hug, I respect that because that those are her boundaries. And then we'll speak about it after to figure out what's making you feel that way, what's alarming to you, what singles are going off in your body that I need to be aware of. Because if something's singling off in your child's body, then she's letting you know that she doesn't feel safe around that person, or he's letting you know that he does not feel safe around that person. What are some other signs that you would say parents should look out for? Because sometimes the signs don't just scream out at you. Sometimes it's not them saying a comment. What would you say are some signs that we should look at? So what?

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Yeah, um, one of them is if your child is like saying things that they've never said before. So if your child says something they've never said before, it kind of you'll catch it, right? Especially if you're if you're involved with your children, you're engaged with your children, when they say something they've never said, you'll you'll it'll you'll pick it up immediately. You're like, where'd that come from? And it may have come from a friend at school or whatever, but a a flag is like an eight-year-old talking about the president's policies. You know, most eight-year-olds, unless you talk about that stuff with them, they don't know who the president is or what their policy is or whatever. And what abusers will do is they will talk to them about these very complicated uh topics to make that child feel more mature, to feel more appropriate with them, you know. And so that I mean that's what Mondo did with me. Mondo and I would have these very in-depth conversations about society and you know, the psychology and people and what's normal, what's not normal, and this and that. These very like advanced conversations to make me feel more mature, to make me feel like I wasn't a kid, you know. So I would say that's a big red flag. Um, you know, wedding the bed is another one. If your child goes back to wedding the bed and they haven't done it, if they're if they've got a violent nature about them killing animals or trying to even like I would say, even with bugs, if there's like a very violent, not just like stepping on an ant, but ripping it apart or something, there's you know, some sort of like sadistic, like kind of torturing in a way, even if it's with bugs, I would say that's a red flag. Um, that's pretty common and and people that go out and commit violent crimes in their adulthood, they usually started as child uh as children, you're kind of doing these things, experimenting. If they're a very quiet child, and then they become very they get into a lot of trouble attention seeking, there's usually something there that's causing that. And then the the inverse of that, if they're very attention seeking and they're very outgoing, and then they become very quiet all of a sudden, there's usually a reason behind that. So that's something to look at. Now, if your child is quiet and they're all and they just stay quiet, there's there's probably nothing wrong. A lot of people hear that, you know, and they're like, Oh, well, my kid's quiet. And it's like, is your child always quiet? Because if your child's always quiet, there's no change in behavior, you're you're fine. You know, so changes in behavior are really what you're looking at is your child behaving completely different. If they are, what is influencing that, you know, and it could be abuse, it could be other things, you know. It doesn't, it's not, it's not always the worst thing in the world that's happening to your child, but um, it could be. I would say the last thing I probably is anybody who's trying to hang out with your child and have alone time with them. That's a red flag. Adults should not be asking for or trying to get your children alone ever. You know, you'll see this as innocent as private lessons, right? For sports, tutoring at school, church, church is a big one. There's stories every single day about church, church, church, church. Because you have all these people that trust and pray and believe together, and you know, it's always these members that are leading the organizations that are trusted by everybody, doing the most horrific things to these children. So church is a big one. Um, you take your children to church and you let them alone with the person because they're a person of God and they're going to protect them and love them. And lo and behold, they're they're they're taking advantage of them. So private lessons, um, even like hide and seek, you know, it's like, oh, let's play hide and seek, and then that adult is going and hiding with your child or showing your child how to hide. That's a big one. And I know I said that's the last one, but here's I'll leave you with this one is uh teaching your children the difference between secrets and um surprises, right? So secrets are not good, secrets are things that we don't tell anybody ever, and those are not good. Nobody should be telling anybody secrets, you shouldn't have secrets between each other. Mommy and daddy don't keep secrets. You know, you don't keep secrets with any other adults. If somebody tells you a secret, you need to come and tell mommy and daddy. Um, and then surprises are hey, this is a surprise, right? So we're not gonna tell anybody right now, but they're gonna find out in a day or two. You know, a surprise is something that everybody's gonna know about here soon. A secret is something that nobody knows about ever. So there's a difference there. Getting your children to understand that is also important.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Guys, I hope you've been enjoying this conversation that we've been having with Seth. It is deep, it is layered, it is honest, and it is transparent. But this is Seth's truth. This is his calling and the work that he was assigned to do. A lot of times you hear us say, you don't need permission, you don't need permission to tell your truth, you don't need permission to tell your story, and you don't need permission to heal. However, for a lot of people, they need something that gives them the okay. Yes, it's okay. You're not in this alone. You have people that are here to support you and be with you. Go ahead, tell your story, however you choose to do it. It doesn't have to be publicly, it could be privately. This conversation was so layered that we had to split the episode into two parts. So next week will be part two of our continuation with Seth Gile. So, I've been telling you guys from the beginning of the starting of the never-ending of this podcast to turn on your notification bell so you don't miss an episode. Next week, you will not want to miss this continuation with Seth. So please do yourself, but do your girl me a favor by turning on your notification bells so you don't miss our continuation with Seth next week. And don't blame me. You gotta blame yourself. You didn't follow the instructions. So until next time, I will see you next week. I'm Jen Simpson. Please remember to love yourself so deep, so pure, and so honest, because you deserve your love first. Bye. What you choose today becomes the legacy you pass on.