397: What if you survived a terrorist attack in Paris?

Summary

Podcast Summary:

This Is Actually Happening
Episode 397: What if you survived a terrorist attack in Paris?
Release Date: March 10, 2026
Host: Wit Misseldine
Guest: Mandy Palmucci

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Overview & Episode Theme

In this episode, Wit Misseldine interviews Mandy Palmucci, who recounts her harrowing experience surviving the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, specifically the mass shooting at La Belle Équipe cafe. Mandy’s narrative encompasses her early childhood traumas, her path to the fateful night in Paris, the terror and aftermath of the attack itself, and her ongoing journey of healing from both recent and older wounds. The episode provides a raw, deeply personal examination of survival, survivor’s guilt, the complicated nature of trauma, and the process of reclaiming one’s life after unthinkable violence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life & Foundational Trauma

[02:00–10:30]

• Mandy recalls her upbringing in a middle-class Ohio family, the emotional volatility of her mother (partially due to undiagnosed TMJ disorder), absenteeism and infidelity of her father, and the sense of walking on eggshells in her home.
• She learns in adulthood there was a history of abuse in her mother’s family, which explained her mother's overprotection regarding male relatives.
• Mandy’s own molestation began at age five, not by a family member but by someone trusted. She describes the deep confusion, conflict, and resultant withdrawal, highlighting how childhood abuse shaped her sense of self-worth and ability to trust.
  • Quote:
    “I remember feeling like I was loved by the person who was abusing me sexually, but also simultaneously being told what we were doing was wrong. So that was a lot of conflict in my head.” (07:50)
• She compartmentalized or repressed this trauma for years, only addressing it in adulthood.

2. Adolescence, Insecurity, and Patterns of Coping

[10:30–19:00]

• Mandy details her fluctuating self-esteem—affected by her weight and appearance—her struggle to feel loveable or “deserving,” and her sense of being peripheral in friendships and romantic relationships.
• Family upheaval intensified this: her father’s departure, revelations about her mother’s secret past, coping with multiple deaths among peers, and an overwhelming desire to escape her hometown.
  • Quote:
    “I wanted to get out of there... something about my anger tempered a little bit.” (13:50)
• As an adult, Mandy developed a compulsive busyness—traveling, running marathons, always looking for the next distraction to avoid being alone with unsettled feelings.

3. Journey to Paris & The Terrorist Attack

[19:05–27:15]

• In 2015, after years of travel and marathon running, Mandy embarks on a trip to France with friends—including her seventh marathon in Nice—culminating in Paris on November 13th.
• The group’s evening at La Belle Équipe is described in detail: the hunt for a restaurant; the mundane decision that put them at a table by the front window; and the kindnesses of strangers right before the tragedy.

The Attack:

• The mass shooting erupts at 9:36pm. Mandy describes the surreal progression: gunfire, confusion, falling to the ground locked with her friends, the visceral, immobilizing weight of true hopelessness.
  • Quote:
    “I didn't know that hopeless actually has a feeling attached to it, like a really heavy, heavy sinking feeling. It's visceral and I wanted it over. I expected whomever was shooting to come just take us off one by one and I was ready for that.” (22:22)
• She faces the belief she is moments from death and processes an agonizing mix of acceptance, guilt, and dissociation.

4. Immediate Aftermath

[27:15–36:10]

• When the shooting ends, Mandy realizes she is physically unharmed, but some friends have been shot.
• She jumps into action—first helping the injured, then assisting other survivors and first responders, methodically covering bodies and providing comfort to strangers in shock.
• Vivid snapshots of horror follow: the deaths of people they’d interacted with minutes earlier, the peaceful and violent faces of victims, and providing comfort to a man who had lost two sisters.
  • Quote:
    “As soon as I realized that I wasn’t hurt, I averted my eyes from everything around me because I knew there was a lot I shouldn’t see. And I focused on my friends.” (30:00)
• Only hours later does she and her group learn via news broadcasts that the attacks were a coordinated terrorist assault.

5. Return to ‘Normalcy’ & Trauma’s Long Shadow

[36:30–44:10]

• Mandy describes the night and days that follow: sleepless, traumatized, wracked with survivor’s guilt and fixated on images and anniversaries of the attack.
• She turns quickly to therapy—specifically EMDR, a trauma treatment common for military veterans. The first session is “life-changing” in reducing the intensity of the most horrific images.
  • Quote:
    “That session with him was life changing. That reprocessed the images that were keeping me up that I was seeing constantly... just the act of processing it again, kind of almost in real time... repopulates it in the more normal part of your brain for memory.” (42:55)
• Yet many symptoms persist: hypervigilance, avoidance of certain places (especially near windows), immense guilt, and difficulty sleeping.

6. Survivor’s Guilt, Healing, and New Perspectives

[44:10–49:45]

• Mandy discusses her struggle with worthiness—believing she had nothing to offer and didn't deserve to have survived. She resists platitudes like “everything happens for a reason.”
  • Quote:
    “Everything happens for a reason... it’s like being stabbed, because I don’t think that that woman eating the oyster salad died for any reason. And I didn’t.” (46:20)
• Therapy, her beloved dog Elizabeth (and later Polly), and the slow, methodical work of processing old and new traumas help her find some stability and gratitude, though not happiness in the straightforward sense.
• She frames her ongoing healing as a process of accepting that trauma can be transformative even if it never feels “worth it.”

7. Integrating Past and Present Trauma

[49:45–53:00]

• Further therapy reveals for Mandy how much her self-loathing and inability to sit still is tied to her childhood abuse, not just the acute trauma of the attack.
  • Quote:
    “I hate myself. Like, I’ve learned how much I hate myself. I didn’t think I was valuable. I didn’t think I had anything to offer... You just hate yourself. Like, you just think that you don’t deserve anything at all.” (51:30)
• Learning that her abuser had themselves been abused provides odd closure—not absolution, but understanding about the cycles of trauma.

8. The Long Road—Connection, Acceptance, and Moving Forward

[53:00–55:25]

• Mandy reflects on how all four friends processed the events differently, and how trauma’s aftermath is unique for each survivor.
• She notes the importance of annual returns to Paris and connecting with others affected, including family and first responders of the victims.
• Mandy ultimately expresses gratitude—not for the trauma itself, but for the growth it forced:
  • Quote:
    “I can feel sympathetic and passionately for the version of me who died. You know, I didn't have the skills to be better. I didn't have the access. I didn't have the propulsion to make a change. I collapsed on that terrace and that Mandy died. But this is a new Mandy.” (55:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Description | |-----------|----------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 07:50 | Mandy Palmucci | “I remember feeling like I was loved by the person who was abusing me sexually, but... that was a lot of conflict in my head.” | | 22:22 | Mandy Palmucci | “I didn't know that hopeless actually has a feeling attached to it, like a really heavy, heavy sinking feeling...” | | 30:00 | Mandy Palmucci | “As soon as I realized that I wasn’t hurt, I averted my eyes from everything...and I focused on my friends.” | | 42:55 | Mandy Palmucci | “That session with him was life changing...just the act of processing it again, kind of almost in real time...” | | 46:20 | Mandy Palmucci | “Everything happens for a reason...it’s like being stabbed, because I don’t think that that woman eating the oyster salad died for any reason.” | | 51:30 | Mandy Palmucci | “I hate myself. Like, I’ve learned how much I hate myself. I didn’t think I was valuable. I didn’t think I had anything to offer.” | | 55:10 | Mandy Palmucci | “I collapsed on that terrace and that Mandy died. But this is a new Mandy.” |

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Early Family Life & Trauma: 02:00–10:30
• Teen Years, Anger, and Coping: 10:30–19:00
• Path to Paris & Setup for the Attack: 19:05–22:30
• Paris Terrorist Attack (Event): 22:30–27:15
• Immediate Aftermath at the Scene: 27:15–36:10
• Processing Trauma and Survivor’s Guilt: 36:30–49:45
• Deeper Healing, Therapy, and Reflections: 49:45–55:25

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Concluding Insights

Mandy’s story is not simply an account of surviving a mass tragedy, but a profound meditation on cumulative trauma, the unpredictable paths of survival, and the continual, nonlinear course of healing. Her reflections offer rare honesty about the realities of PTSD, survivor’s guilt, and the sometimes painful gifts of trauma: insight, companionship with other sufferers, and, ultimately, a deeper sense of self.

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For more information about Mandy’s forthcoming book, or to reach out to her, consult the episode’s show notes.

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Transcript

[Wit Misseldine]

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of this Is Actually Happening ad free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the Show Notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services.

[Mandy Palmucci]

I didn't know that Hopeless actually has a feeling attached to it, like a really heavy, heavy sinking feeling. It's visceral and I wanted it over. I expected whomever was shooting to come just take us off one by one and I was was ready for that.

[Wit Misseldine]

From audible originals hi, I'm whit misseldine. You're listening to this is actually happening. Episode 397. What if you survived a terrorist attack in Paris?

[Mandy Palmucci]

Have you guys heard about this polar bear?

[Wit Misseldine]

He did the Pepsi Challenge and chose Pepsi Zero Sugar. Isn't that right Mr. Bear? Interesting.

[Mandy Palmucci]

So in other words, you now know

[Wit Misseldine]

how much taste matters.

[Mandy Palmucci]

Incredible. Do you have any techniques we could share with listeners to help them also accept who they really are?

[Wit Misseldine]

Interesting.

[Mandy Palmucci]

So meditation I think. Or he's hungry.

[Wit Misseldine]

It's hard to read polar bears, so

[Mandy Palmucci]

let's give it a go. Go out and try Pepsi Zero Sugar today.

[Wit Misseldine]

You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi.

[Mandy Palmucci]

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My brother was born in 1985 and so that was our family. We moved when I was in kindergarten to Amish country in Millersburg, Ohio. My mom is very motherly and it was nice. She didn't work on Fridays and one of my earlier memories was being excited to come home from School because she, I knew she was going to be there and it was just nice that she was there when we came home. But there were a few years that it got a little difficult because my mom was having unexplained headaches. So that made her a bit volatile. A noise or trigger could cause her to just explode, you know, because she had this pain that she didn't understand. And after maybe a year or so, I think that it was diagnosed. She had a TMJ disorder and it kind of became a joke in the family. I think that's how we coped with just living on those, those eggshells of not knowing where this was coming from because I expected to be yelled at for something. I felt like I was constantly aware of what I was doing and trying not to upset anybody. But then there were times they were interested and sometimes they weren't interested. And it, you know, really gave me this conflicting message of what value I guess that I had. But you know, we had an average middle income upbringing. I mean, there are plenty of smiling photographs of when I was a child. But I think, I think they followed the formula of the time. You know, you, you get married, you have kids and you work on your job. And I don't necessarily think that at that age that that was the right thing for them. I think that they were immature. And my brother and I have paid the consequences of that. I did for a while have a suspicion that something was off in the family. You know, my dad was very frequently gone, or he was commuting, or he would take work trips. And it did turn out that he had been having affairs throughout the marriage, including when my mom was pregnant with my brother. My mom's side of the family was quite big. We had a lot of cousins. We had twice yearly family reunions. We had big Christmas and Thanksgiving gatherings. And the best part of that was, was getting to hang out with our cousins. But my mom would often tell me both when we would go see my dad's family and when we would go see her family, to be very aware of my cousins, my male cousins, because it was possible they might try to touch me inappropriately. This is one of my earlier, more consistent messages that I received from my mom was to not be left alone with any of the male cousins and to let her know if any of them tried to touch me later. As an adult, I learned a bit about why my mom was so cautious on my mom's side of the family. There's quite a strong long line of men in the family. Who would commit acts against women in the family, children in the family. So I know my great grandfather has been accused of doing things to his children and his grandchildren. Very often those girls were not listened to. They were told they were lying. And so nothing was ultimately done. So it made sense that my mom was so focused on family members touching me. Even though I didn't understand at the time where the message was coming from, it was really confusing because I felt like these people, we loved each other. I was unclear why someone would want to do that to me, who I loved and who loved me back. So it was a message that put me on edge when I was around them, but that also felt very conflicting because I never saw cue from any of my male cousins who I was being warned about that they were going to do anything inappropriate. So nothing happened with my male cousins or any of my male family members whom I was warned about. But when I was five, I did begin to be molested by a person who was close to the family, Someone who no one seemed to have any concern with me being with. So I wasn't warned about being molested by that person. And that person also told me, if, you know, someone knew what was happening, I would get in trouble. Like, what can you do about that? You know, you trust this person. I do remember them also telling me that we would need to stop. It went on for a couple years, but that we would need to stop. Because if I didn't stop, I was going to grow up to be A. That's what I was told. And I trusted this person. And I didn't know what A was, but I was told. And, you know, you can. I can still picture my baby brain imagining it. I was told I would be running from house to house having sex with people. And so, you know, in my head, I'm literally picturing me running from house to house. Like, I didn't know what having sex with people meant, but apparently that was bad. So I didn't want to do that. So it eventually just stopped. It a bit dulled my personality when I was a kid. I think it made me insecure about who I needed to be to be loved. I remember feeling like I was loved by the person who was abusing me sexually, but also simultaneously being told what we were doing was wrong. So that was a lot of conflict in my head. You know, just really caused confusion on who to trust and when to trust. But then you have the juxtaposition of you're still just a kid and you still have friends your own Age you, you're going to school, you're playing sports, you're learning things, doing Girl Scouts, Brownies, all of those things. So just surrounded by all the normal things that you should be surrounded by. But I do think there was a solid decade, at least, where I shut it out of my brain. And so it wasn't something that I thought about. And, you know, I continued to see the person they were around. And so I think I just put it away because it was over. I didn't want anybody to get in trouble, including myself. So, yeah, I just had to carry on. I do think that I tended to be a quick to anger person when I was an adolescent, but I'm really conflicted about what part of that is normal teenage behavior and what part comes from the unresolved trauma as well as what I had observed when my mom was experiencing her TMJ disorder. I thought anger was an acceptable reaction to things. I had thought that I had been okay with what happened to me, but I was unwilling and unable to sit still. And if I did find myself alone for short periods of time, I felt unsettled and I felt, like, uneasy. I always needed the next thing to, like, keep me going. And even when I was in the one thing, I was thinking about the next thing. So I was very infrequently present and enjoying the moment. When I was about seven, I started to put on weight. And so I was pretty chubby probably from the age of six or seven until I hit puberty at 12, 13. But the summer between eighth grade and ninth grade, I suddenly went from being, you know, 150 pounds to being about 115 pounds. And before then there were crushes on boys, but also the feeling that I was fat and ugly. But once I got into high school and I had, like, long skinny legs, I was hanging out with some of the popular kids, all based on the fact, I think, that my appearance changed, but I didn't have the confidence to pursue any sort of relationship. That continued into college, too. But I was a part of, of a group of people, a lot of them sleeping with each other. And I was on the periphery because I was very conflicted about deserving to be seen or loved. And I didn't want to be hurt or be told I was going to end up a whore if I slept with someone. There were plenty of good times. There were more good times than bad times. But it's, you know, funny how the bad lands differently. When I was a junior in high school, our parents sat us down, said they had something to share with us. My dad sat in a chair across from us and told us that he didn't know what was going on but that he needed some space and he was going to be moving out. And I remember intentionally shutting down while he was telling us that. I went to bed and my mom came in crying. She wanted to make sure I was okay, but she was crying and I still couldn't bring myself to support her even though she was suffering. And I regret that a lot. My dad had been unfaithful for most of the marriage off and on. But I don't know if she blocked it and just accepted his infidelity. But that resulted in revealing that she had a child when she was 16. So six years before she had me, she'd gotten pregnant and she gave that baby up for adoption. So I have a half sister. So some of like the cracks in the quote nuclear family that we were started to be shown the anger from my parents separation. I think it made me the bully in high school. I think I was mean to a lot of people. There were a few relationships that I remember witnessing like with my mom who had an argument or a disagreement with someone and then that person wasn't in our life anymore. You know, it was an on off switch. We had a fight. We're not friends. You were good or you were not good. I would treat people as you are important or you're not important. Because I felt like that at times I was important and then I wasn't important or I did something that I thought would make someone proud and it didn't make them proud or it wasn't worthy of acknowledging. So there was just this push pull of what thing can I bring? Of value? Oh, that didn't bring value. What about this thing? Does this bring value? Like always chasing that next experience to feel better about myself. I think it made me devalue people and it also just having this like inability to manage my. My anger in general. I'm quite ashamed by the way I used to value people and treat people. There was a lot of death around me growing up. Beginning when I was in junior high, there were an abnormal amount of freak deaths of people, of peers, of classmates. Because I grew up around an Amish community. There were horse and buggies on the road. So there were people who were killed trying to pass a horse and buggy on a hill. There were people who drank and Dr. Drove, didn't wear their seatbelt, went through the windshield. But then there was a guy who was unloading a tractor and it exploded, killed him. There was a girl from my town who was driving behind a semi with three of her. Other of her friends. And something from the semi flew off and went through her windshield, killed her. Just people I went to high school with who died of short term illnesses or long term illness. Like it just. I opened my yearbook and obituaries fall out because I saved them all. So I also think that I had this really weird sense of mortality and I wanted to get out of there. I went to school in Pittsburgh, to Duquesne University. And I think some of my insecurity about myself could be left behind in my hometown. And something about my anger tempered a little bit. After I graduated, I started working in Pittsburgh. And in 2008, I accepted a job in Chicago. My boyfriend at the time, we started dating at the end of college. We were together for another few years before we broke up. So that was, I think, around 2011. And that was shocking, the pain of a breakup. But I started traveling for work, always flying somewhere on Monday, flying home on Thursday, or flying elsewhere to run a half marathon, visit friends, try a new restaurant. Just run away from basically feeling anything. It was just a constant stream of busyness, of plans, of not sitting still. Because the moment that I sat still or had a few moments to myself, I would feel this physical sensation in my body of something just doesn't feel right. Something's just unsettled here. It really was something that kind of coursed through my body. I was also starting to acknowledge a bit more to myself, not to other people, about being molested as a child. I was in my late 20s when I started to see a therapist. I went because I wanted assistance in breaking up with the guy I was seeing. She was quick to call out during therapy. I remember crying to her about the pain of the breakup and saying, I can't believe he would do this to me. And she said, he didn't do this to you. You did this to you. And it was like, yeah, you're right. I mean, it was. I just needed somebody to tell me that. And on our last appointment, I did tell her, oh, I was molested as a child. And she said, you can't drop that bomb on me on the last appointment. Which was very fair, but I didn't do anything else about it afterward. As a business owner, Jennifer Garner knows it takes hard work and patience to keep growing. So finding a serious business card that goes the extra mile was important for the success of Once Upon a Farm. That's why they chose the Capital One Venture X Business Card with unlimited double miles on every purchase. They have big purchasing power so they can spend more and earn more. The Capital One Venture X business card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com for details.

[Wit Misseldine]

I'm Indra Varma and in the latest

[Mandy Palmucci]

season of the Spy who we open the file on Larry Chin, the spy who outplayed Nixon. For decades, Chin was embedded deep inside US Intelligence. Then comes an opportunity. Richard Nixon's secret plan to reopen relations with China. Information Chin can place directly into Mao's hands. But the CIA has a weapon of the their own. A Chinese mole ready to defect. How long until Chin's gig is up? Follow the Spy who now wherever you listen to podcasts. So in 2010, I was working in Chicago and I got a new coworker, and I'll call her Sarah. She was super smart, she came from a very cultured family, and we became friends very fast. And through her, I started to experience more of the world. Sarah had a really strong affection for France. And in 2014, my cousin told me that I should run the Nice marathon and she would come out to support me during it because she lived near Nice. So I said, Sure, 2015, I'll do it. Then I told Sarah and I told another coworker of ours and they said they would go with me. It was also around Sarah's birthday, so it would be in honor of her birthday as well. So that was the plan for a year and a half. So in August 2015, I was working for a hospital in Oregon near Portland. I was training for the Nice Marathon, which was going to be the seventh marathon that I had run. I had a goal of running a half marathon in every state. Sometimes I would just run a couple marathons in a couple months. I actually did one on a Saturday in one state and one on a Sunday in another state. So it was another way to keep myself busy. Because I had been in Portland for a little while. I hadn't seen Sarah much. We were going to fly together, and then we were going to meet Morgan, our other friend. And so we got to France November 6th. My marathon was going to be November 8th. The marathon was hot. It was a good race. You know, we just had this fun time and we flew to Corsica. The next day was Sarah's birthday and we were flying to Paris for the last two nights of the trip. And Sarah's sister was going to meet us there on Friday the 13th, and then we would be flying home on Saturday. Sarah really likes to do a Lot of investigation and research before she travels somewhere. So she had a long list of restaurants she wanted to try, and it was her birthday. So we got ready in the evening and we ventured out. And on our way to the restaurant, we had passed a cafe that was vibrant and packed full of people. And Sarah had pointed it out as maybe we could go there for a drink if we couldn't get a table. Sarah went in to put her name on the list. When she came back out, she said they don't have room for a couple hours so they could call us when the table was ready. So we headed back to this cafe called La Bellequipe. Someone noticed a table right along the window outside on the terrace, right next to the entry. So the four of us grabbed it, but it had three chairs. There was a large table next to us with like 10, 15 people. Morgan had gotten up to ask if we could borrow a chair from that table. And a man sitting there had said yes and another woman had said no. But the man convinced the woman to let us have the chair. So she came back with the fourth chair. So now we all have seats. And we settled in. We had a place to sit. We were going to get a glass of wine. Morgan and I's backs were to the street, and Sarah and her sister were facing the street. We sat at the table for a while, and this man stops by from that table and he says, I've noticed you've been sitting there for a while. I work here, but I'm not working tonight, but I can put in your order for you. And it was just really nice that somebody had noticed we'd been sitting there even long by French standards. He put in our order and the glasses of wine were brought to us. You know, we sat there, we talked. My phone rang and it was 9:35, and they had the table ready for us. So we started to look around for our server. And I heard a popping noise behind me. I turned and looked over my right shoulder and I could see these flashes of lights, and they were about shoulder level. The next thing I know, I'm linking arms with Morgan and Sarah and we're falling on the ground. Then there continues to be these popping noises, which I realize is gunfire. And I don't know in which direction it's happening. There are people screaming, and for about three minutes the smell of gunpowder is like floating through the air. And, you know, people are just continuing to scream and the gun is continuing to be shot. But I'm lying there and I'm staring at a Piece of sidewalk. It's the walkway from the street into the restaurant. As my brain is starting to process, I'm thinking I'm in a mass shooting. You know, this is the type of stuff that happens in the us, not in Europe. And I start thinking, I'm going to die here. I'm going to be one of these statistics of people from my hometown who dies young. I'm going to die in this freak way. And then the shooting stops and people are still screaming. There was maybe, I don't know, a 30 second pause and then the shooting started again. So there was maybe another 90 seconds of shooting and there weren't people screaming anymore. I thought, I'm gonna die. And then I wanted to die because I wanted it to stop. It was hopeless. I didn't know that. Hopeless actually has a feeling attached to it, like a really heavy, heavy thinking feeling. It's visceral and I wanted it over. I expected whomever was shooting to come just take us off one by one. And I was, was ready for that. I also didn't know if my friends were alive. I was linked with their arms, but I didn't know if they were jerking or I was jerking because every time there was like a shot, like we were just shaking and also pretending to be dead. The entire time for the shooting. I was staring at a piece of concrete. I couldn't see anything happening. I couldn't see anyone specifically. It was just my eyes were open and I was looking at this ground. I didn't have any sort of spatial awareness of how I was lying or what I was lying on. I just had gone from up to down as fast as I possibly could. I find it interesting that I specifically linked arms with my friends as we went down. I don't know if it was for protection for them, for me, but, you know, my body knew we were being shot at before my brain knew it. The feeling of hopelessness that I was experiencing when I was gave in and accepted that I was going to die right then and there. It was just so much more real and tangible than any other despair or anything I had felt previously. It put everything in perspective of the privilege of what my life had been before this moment. You didn't know hopelessness or despair or struggle because your life wasn't in danger. This was potentially going to be permanent. And I think also in accepting that contributed to some of that feeling of hopelessness because there was. There was nothing I could do. You know, you go through these, I don't want to call them silly, but that's what they feel like to me at this point, trainings of what to do if a mass shooting begins where you are and you get trained to freeze, fight, or flight. And none of those options were what we had the option for if we froze. I sat there and I get shot. If we flee, I get shot running. If I fight, I get shot coming at this person because I have nothing to fight with. I've long thought that I'm a scrappy person, that I can find my way through a bunch of different scenarios. And this one had no paths forward. There was no option here. There was no training. There was no ability to even assess what was right here. And so giving up was the option. And perhaps some of that hopelessness was in giving up, because there. There was nothing I could do. In some ways, I was the reason for this trip. My marathon was why we were here. So did I bring this on everyone? Did I put us here? I don't think that's how life works, but you have all these seconds to think through stuff when you're just lying there waiting to die. I don't think I necessarily thought this was my fault. I thought that they could already be dead. I couldn't think of the next hour. I could only think really of, like, the next 10 seconds. You know, I. I didn't think I was getting off of that sidewalk. But part of me felt like the curse of the people who died young around me came with me here, and I was just going to be another random early death statistic. After the second shooting ended, I remember thinking, please don't scream. Please don't let them know that there are people still alive on this patio. Or maybe I'm the only person alive. But after some time, it became clear that the shooting was over. And I stood. And in that moment, I was thinking about how people go into shock. You hear about people going into shock when they're injured and they don't know that they've been shot or they don't know that they've been stabbed. And. And so they don't feel it. And so I stood up and just looked down at my body to see is there something here? And I'm just. I just don't know. And just focus completely on. On checking everything. And I was fine. And it was shocking. As soon as I realized that I wasn't hurt, I averted my eyes from everything around me because I knew there was a lot I shouldn't see. And I focused on my friends. Morgan and Sarah were standing, and they also. I Think were assessing themselves. And then we realized that Sarah's sister was not standing. And then we realized she had been shot. So immediately you forget about yourself and you throw it into helping someone else. So that's what happened, you know, we started to try to stop the bleeding. We sent Morgan away to find someone to help, because by that time, it had been 5, 10 minutes since the shooting ended, and there were no first responders. We worked on helping Sarah's sister. The bleeding eventually did slow down, and so it wasn't as important to be trying to push on the wound to stop it. And that was before the paramedics came and were able to remove her from the patio and take her to the triage patio bar. After Sarah's sister was moved, I followed behind, and we went to another bar, which was next door, and it became like a makeshift medical tent, basically. So I started helping to clear off tables because people had been dining, so there were cups and plates, and started pushing tables together so that they could lie people on top of the tables. I knew I couldn't stop because if I stopped, I was going to have to process what happened. And I was there, and I was fine, so I needed to help. I held a man's hand and tried to keep him awake, who was very horribly wounded, had been shot multiple times. I covered some of the dead bodies that weren't covered that were in the alley. One of the men I covered was the. The guy who gave us the chair from the table. Both he and the woman who had said not to take the chair were killed prior to the shooting. The large table that was next to us, There was a woman at the head of the table who was beautiful. She was wearing this purple hat and eating a fried oyster salad, and everything just looked perfect. She was the first person I realized who was dead. And she just had this look on her face that she hadn't seen what was coming. After the phone call that our table was ready, we started to look around for our server to get the check. And Morgan had noticed that the guy who had taken our drink order was in the front of the restaurant, just a few feet away, smoking. It kind of didn't take a lot to realize that that man was probably one of the first to go because he was right in front of the shooter. I did at one point, look across the street, and I saw a man performing CPR on another woman. And it wasn't going to do anything. I didn't know what to do. I watched. I watched him give up. And then I just Went and hugged him because I didn't know what to do and I didn't want to do nothing. And it turned out that was his sister and he had lost two sisters that night. There were just people who were physically fine, but who were splattered in blood and just kind of there and dazed or there and crying. Some people in their death on that terrace looked completely peaceful, and some people did not. There were two different types of bullets that I would later find out that they used. One is meant to ricochet around in your body, so you don't really see the impact on the outside of the person. And then the other bullets are. Are meant to explode on exit, so you see more of the wound. There was a woman who was a first responder of sorts. She lived in the neighborhood and she was helping. She helped calm me. She told, you know, me to take a breath and just take a moment. And I kind of. I knew she was being nice, but I kind of was. Brushed her off like, I'm fine, you know, I'm physically fine, so I'm fine. Of course, not really processing like what going through something like that would mean. There was a point after the shooting where I thought my parents might hear that there was a shooting in Paris. And I didn't want them to worry, so I wanted to let them know that I was okay. So I sent a quick message. I was at a cafe. There was a shooting. I'm okay. So the shooting began around 9:36. And Sarah's sister wasn't put into an ambulance until just before midnight. Sarah's sister was one of the last of the people who were injured and alive to be taken out of the bar and to the ambulances. Her injuries, they were severe, but they were not life threatening. And there's some relief in that once, you know, it was time to part because only one other person could go with Sarah's sister. We followed the gurney back past the cafe and I saw Morgan and she came running and we fell into each other's arms in this giant hug. And we turned and we walked off the scene. Going from one world to another world. We didn't know that this wasn't a singular event, but we were still scared. We were still afraid to be out in the French streets. But I got us to the train station and just stood there every second feeling like they were going to come back and they were going to finish the job. And I had some blood on me. And Morgan had been grazed by a bullet and had tear in her dress and her tights and she was wearing black, so you couldn't really see any blood. But we just felt wild eyed. And meanwhile people are just casually standing around. It just felt so surreal. It just didn't seem like this was reality. So we got into the hotel room and turn on the tv. So we start to learn that there was an explosion at a soccer game and a couple other shootings at cafes. But the focus of the news was at a concert at the Bataclan, where there were multiple shooters and many deaths and many hostages. And it was an ongoing situation. Something about it made both of us want to shower. She went first and. And then I went and showered. And I just remember staring in the mirror, just in complete shock and not feeling like any of this was real. Like, feeling like the moments on the terrace were more real than the moment of me standing in the terrible lighting of this hotel bathroom and showering. Didn't change anything, of course, but you have to go through these prosaic things. Everything suddenly seems, like, frivolous and dull, but necessary and comforting all at once. I had a friend who was with a journalist at the time, and she asked if I would do an interview. I actually did an interview while the battlecon was still happening. But I would only do it anonymously because both Morgan and I were convinced they were going to come back and kill us. That they. That whomever did this was going to just make sure they got everyone. And it was irrational, of course, but we didn't know anything else. But it was the beginning of this compulsion to talk about it. Morgan and I were awake the entire night. We had flights in the morning and we planned to take them. Although I really wrestled with leaving. I kind of wanted to stay to help, but there was no sleeping. We hadn't really eaten. There was just like this electrification going through my body where I couldn't stop, you know, it was pure adrenaline. So eventually it was time to go to the airport and head back to Oregon. There was no ability in me to not think about it. I cried for hours. I cried throughout the flight. And my mom met me. She talked her way into the terminal, like only something like a mom who really cares can do, you know, like, that's such a mom move. Like, who cares about your TSA rules? I'm going in to greet my daughter like she was at the top of the Jetway waiting for me, you know? She stayed with me for the next few days. And it was tough because I was on edge. I wasn't sleeping. The general images that were part of my biggest Memories were all flooded in blood. Everything is red, red against people. The street background, everything is covered in. In blood. And then I was constantly seeing the face of the man who I hugged, whom I didn't know. And it turned out that the table near us where we had borrowed the chair, 11 of the 14 people had died, and they were celebrating his sister's birthday. So it was also the images, but it was also acquiring the knowledge about these people that I was able to start filling in gaps. You know, I saw the name of the woman who had been eating the oyster salad. I saw a picture of her. I started to force myself to know who these people were, because I had guilt that one of those people wasn't me. It was every two to three seconds that I was thinking about this. And I became fixated with the time, the time of day, and on Fridays, really immersing myself in everything about it. I really. It was like I. I was torturing myself because I had all of this guilt for living through something when so many people hadn't, and so many people had it worse or were still hospitalized. And I couldn't get out of that spiral. I worked with someone who was in the army, and I texted her and said, what do they do for people who go through this? What kind of therapy? And she said, they do emdr. And I said, then that's what I'm gonna do. There are some images that I had from that night or some memories that were so haunting and so violent and just saturated in blood, really, that I did EMDR a couple weeks later to help move them so I could close my eyes and not see that every time I blinked or shut my eyes, I wasn't convinced I could ever be better or ever not see this constantly. But I am a person who is a rule follower. And someone told me that EMDR is what the military gets. Then that's what I'm going to get. I didn't know what I would get out of it. I didn't know what it was or how it would benefit me. So I went in completely blind. But just with the belief that nothing's going to change for me, this is my new status quo is pure misery. But that session with him was life changing. That reprocessed the images that were keeping me up that I was seeing constantly. You know, we stepped through it. This is what I see and this is what I feel. We would focus on one specific moment, image or feeling, and I would talk through. Through what I saw, what I felt while my eyes moved and just the act, I mean, it seems like magic, but just the act of processing it again, kind of almost in real time because you're so deep into that memory allows you to rationally step through every half second, second, and repopulates it in the more normal part of your brain for memory. Hugging the man in the street and tears just poured out. So for probably 25 minutes, I got through the worst of my memories. And I think I left him in that office. I walked out drained and still convinced I would always be sad. But without the worst images in front of me, it was like being cracked open. I feel I was reticent in my past about expressing things where I would have emotions or I would risk crying in public or something. And this veil was gone now. I just couldn't stop talking about it. But I also had friends who had gone through the same event, but they'd come to it with different backgrounds. They had experienced different things. Even during the shooting, you know, Sarah didn't think we were going to die. She thought it was a random, you know, gang shooting or something. And there I am sitting next to her, convinced I'm going to die, and then ready for it. I just wanted to continue to talk and learn and understand and really dissect. Just became a bit of an obsession. The EMDR really only shifted the most horrific images. It didn't change my obsessive scrolling and reading of articles. It didn't change my thought that I didn't deserve to be happy. It didn't change the weight that I felt like I was sagging under. It didn't change my sleep. It just changed what I saw. I was really withdrawing from things in public. You know, big windows were making me nervous because we were up against the big windows. Dark windows made me nervous because the electricity went out. I wasn't sleeping well. I was just on constant edge. But I also think I was doing it to myself. Like, I. I didn't think I deserved to be happy. I had such guilt. Survivor's guilt is real. What do I offer the world? This is why I had guilt. Maybe someone else could have done something better. What if, you know, someone else had kids? And now that those kids grow up without a parent, I just. I didn't have any of those things. I didn't have anything to offer. And so why was I so lucky? And I've had some people say to me, everything happens for a reason. And it's like being stabbed, because I don't think that that woman eating the oyster salad died for any reason. And I Didn't. I don't think there's any explanation for that. It's hard to escape the guilt, but it is helpful to kind of try to transform it into, like, a sense of obligation, of survivor's obligation and not survivor's guilt. That can also be its own burden. Getting mad? Somebody cut me off on the freeway. No, you can't be mad you're still alive. Just be grateful you're still alive. One of the biggest parts of my healing process was my dog, Elizabeth. I've always had a dog, and she. I had adopted two years before the attacks. And she was on my mind as well during the show shooting of who's going to take care of her when I die. But I was able to come home and be reunited with her, and I really think she helped keep me going. One of the best things that dogs provide is that they force you to be in the moment. You have to focus on them and their needs. And that was invaluable, and that was key in this, you know, my evolution of always thinking, next, next, next. She was like, no, now. Now is what we need. It was that. And it was also to have her chubby little neck rolls to cry into whenever I needed to without. Without judgment. You know, she never said everything happens for a reason, or she was just a constant, reliable being in my life. About a year after the attacks, we went through training, and she kind of. She became my support, so she was able to travel. So she's been to 23 countries, all the contiguous states. About two years ago, she lost her hearing and she started to have mobility issues. So she retired and got to live out her. Her days on my couch and my bed. And so she passed at the end of January, which was really hard. And before she went, I got Elizabeth 2.0, whose name is Polly. And so they were able to, you know each other, and hopefully she imparts some of her greatness on Polly. I did start seeing another therapist at the end of December, even though, to me, the biggest thing was the terrorist attack. I did start to open up about the childhood molestation. I was able to finally start seeing that, yes, this acute trauma is horrific, but I am more of a result of those previous 33 years than this one instance. It just continued to, like, open, open, open. And I could see how closed off I had been before. And honestly, I think the biggest takeaway I received from my therapy is I hate myself. Like, I've learned how much I hate myself. I didn't think I was valuable. I didn't think I had anything to offer. I didn't think I deserved to be loved or I didn't think I can be loved unconditionally. You just hate yourself. Like, you just think that you don't deserve anything at all. And I realized my projections, my anger, were projections on other people. They were things that I wanted or that I wished I had. This really opened up this pattern that I've been doing for four decades. And also to see it in other people and to relate to other people when they experience it. Once you start to see patterns of. Of behavior, you can't unsee it. You can't unconnect it. So getting into therapy and understanding that I didn't sit still and I didn't focus on the moment was because I hadn't dealt with being molested as a child. I really started to just learn a much healthier way of processing and approaching things and of being. I don't want it to sound like I'm glad this event happened, but I am able to have gratitude for what I scraped out of it to come out on the. On the other side. This was maybe the worst day of my life, right. But it was something that directed me into being a better version of myself. So just by happenstance, you know, I've learned that the person who was molesting me was also sexually abused as a child. Learning in the last few years that they were assaulted kind of closes the loop for me. It explains it a little bit more. It also just validates to me that people don't do bad things without something bad having happened to them. Learning that has kind of allowed me to reframe it a bit. They're a victim too. And so I don't like. I don't harbor hatred toward isis. I don't harbor hatred toward anyone who has wronged me in the past, because I now have all of the tools to assess and understand why they even did it in the first place. Versus this is just a random thing that you can't explain. It doesn't absolve someone of not being accountable. I still think you should be accountable for your actions. And I have all the respect in the world for people who can recognize and admit the things they've done and then work to change it. But it's really hard to do that work. The hardest part in this traumatic experience was how all four of us ricocheted off in a different direction after the attack and how we processed and coped and continue to process and cope. There were moments where we intersected, but it was brief where I couldn't stop talking about it, thinking about it. There were others who moved on. I didn't realize that only about 25% of people who go through something traumatic will have PTSD. So you know, there were four of us and I definitely had it, but not all of them had it. I do remember when I realized I didn't have it, but I don't know when it went away. So I learned a lot about the general repercussions of trauma and relationships and we've had some rough moments, me and my friends who went through this, but we all went back for the 10 year, which was amazing. And we got there. You know, we did it like we did it. There's one remaining sister from the two who died on the table next to us. I'm friends with the sister who wasn't there, who survived. I did become friends with a first responder who told me to breathe. So I've gone back every year that you could go back for the anniversary because I haven't known what else to do on that day and I feel like it's like a yearly check on what has happened. I'm still quite a work in progress, but I would never want to go back to the Mandy who died on that terrace, to who I was before November 13th at 9:36pm I wouldn't want to be the version of me who was so broken and hiding. I can feel sympathetic and passionately for the version of me who died. You know, I didn't have the skills to be better. I didn't have the access. I didn't have the propulsion to make a change. I collapsed on that terrace and that Mandy died. But this is a new Mandy. The new version has the programming of the old, but the ability to turn it into something better.

[Wit Misseldine]

Today's episode featured Mandy Palmucci. If you'd like to reach out to Mandy, you can find her email address and socials in the show notes. Mandy is currently writing a book about her experience with trauma after the attacks from Audible Originals. You are listening to this Is Actually Happening. If you love what we do, please rate and review the show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts Amazon Music to listen ad free and get access to the entire back catalog. In the Episode notes you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors. By supporting them, you help us bring you our show for free. I'm your host Wit Misseldine. Today's episode was co produced by me and Andrew Waits with special thanks to the this Is actually Happening team including Ellen Westberg. We'd also like to thank Head of Creative Development at Audible, Kate Navin, Head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie and Chief Content Officer Rachel Gyazza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Originates, LLC the opening music features the song Sleep Paralysis by Scott Velasquez. You can join the community on the this Is Actually Happening discussion group on Facebook or follow us on Instagram actuallyhappening on the show's website, thisisactually happening.com you can find out more about the podcast. Contact us with any questions, submit your own story or visit the store where you can find this Is Actually Happening designs on stickers, T shirts, T shirts, wall art, hoodies, and more. That's thisisactually happening.com and finally, if you'd like to become an ongoing supporter of what we do, go to patreon.com happening even 2 to $5 a month goes a long way to support our vision. Thank you for listening. Follow this Is Actually Happening on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of this Is Actually Happening ad free by joining Audible.