Groomed by My Sunday School Teacher

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Groomed by My Sunday School Teacher"

Podcast Information:

• Title: We're All Insane
• Host: Devorah Roloff
• Description: A platform where individuals share unfiltered, raw stories about their lives, challenges, and traumas. Each episode delves deep into the unique journey of the guest, presenting authentic storytelling without scripts or interruptions.
• Episode: Groomed by My Sunday School Teacher
• Release Date: May 12, 2025

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "Groomed by My Sunday School Teacher," host Devorah Roloff welcomes Alicia Seymour, an art therapist and counselor who courageously shares her harrowing journey through systemic abuse and trauma. This episode offers an unflinching look into Alicia's life, detailing the layers of abuse she endured from her earliest memories through her teenage years and beyond.

Early Life and Initial Abuse

Alicia begins by painting a vivid picture of her childhood in a small, impoverished town in southern Tennessee. Born into a dysfunctional family with a mother who resented her and a largely absent father, Alicia's early environment was fraught with neglect and emotional abuse.

• Quote:

  "I was born at the end of '84, in a very country, small southern town in Tennessee. Every stereotype you can think about that small trailer park kid in Tennessee, that was me." [01:14]

From a young age, Alicia exhibited signs of distress, acting out in ways that hinted at the unspeakable abuse she was experiencing. Her first memory of abuse dates back to when she was three or four years old, involving her grandfather, a respected pastor in the community.

Incest within the Family

Alicia's account of her grandfather's abuse is both disturbing and heartbreaking. Describing the abuse as beyond mere molestation, she recounts instances of forced oral sex and other severe violations occurring in the presence, or indifference, of other family members.

• Quote:

  "My grandfather raped me every way possible except for, you know, full on sexual contact, so oral, you know, penetration, all of those things." [03:46]

Despite her attempts to communicate her distress through drawings at the age of four, her mother responded with condemnation and further emotional abuse, exacerbating Alicia's feelings of isolation and worthlessness.

Expansion of Abuse and Family Complicity

As Alicia grew older, the abuse extended to include other family members, including her aunt and cousins. Her grandmother's complicity was evident when she intervened during an abuse incident but never addressed the wrongdoing.

• Quote:

  "She looked at him and looked at me and turned around and closed the door and left and never, never said a word." [06:07]

The presence of widespread incest and child pornography within the household further highlights the severe dysfunction and lack of protective oversight in Alicia's environment.

Adolescence and Encounter with Ronnie

Transitioning into her teenage years, Alicia sought solace in her mother's remarriages, only to find herself subjected to further abuse by her stepfathers. At thirteen, her life took another devastating turn when she met Ronnie, a 34-year-old art teacher who became her Sunday school teacher.

• Quote:

  "He started kissing me and made me perform oral sex on him in the car in the park and tried to get me to get out and go into the woods so we could have sex." [32:16]

Ronnie's initial approach seemed nurturing, offering Alicia the first genuine sense of trust and safety outside her abusive family. However, this facade quickly crumbled as Ronnie began manipulating and abusing her, using his position of authority and religious influence to groom her.

Marriage and Prolonged Trauma

At fifteen, Alicia fell into a coerced marriage with Ronnie, further entrenching her in a cycle of abuse. Despite her young age, Ronnie manipulated circumstances to marry her, only to subject her to relentless sexual violence, emotional manipulation, and psychological control for over two decades.

• Quote:

  "I was 15, just before I turned 16, I dropped out of high school, and she packed me up and moved me back to Tennessee until he could come down to marry me." [56:45]

Throughout their marriage, Ronnie employed various tactics to maintain control, including isolating Alicia, controlling her access to resources, and continuously abusing her both physically and emotionally.

Attempts to Seek Help and Systemic Failures

Despite the severity of her situation, Alicia faced systemic failures that left her without support. From medical professionals ignoring signs of abuse to her school's lack of intervention, Alicia's cries for help were consistently dismissed or mishandled.

• Quote:

  "Nobody stepped in and helped me, I wouldn't have ended up where I did." [89:00]

Her initial attempts to reach out for help were met with disbelief and further victimization, both from authorities and within her community, deepening her sense of helplessness and despair.

Path to Healing and Current Work

After enduring over twenty years of abuse, Alicia finally found the strength to escape, pursuing higher education and professional training as an art therapist. Her journey towards healing was arduous, marked by continued trauma and the long-term impacts of her experiences, including chronic autoimmune conditions.

• Quote:

  "I think making art at various times in my life saved my life." [87:29]

Today, Alicia channels her pain into helping others, specializing in grief and trauma counseling. She emphasizes the importance of validating complex grief and the need for societal understanding of disenfranchised grief—grief that isn't publicly acknowledged or supported.

Conclusion and Reflections

Alicia's story is a poignant testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable suffering. Through her candid recounting, she sheds light on the pervasive issue of grooming and systemic failures in protecting vulnerable individuals. Her work as an art therapist underscores the transformative power of creative expression in healing from trauma.

• Quote:

  "If you had anybody stepped in and helped me, I wouldn't have ended up where I did." [88:52]

Alicia's courage in sharing her story serves as both a warning and a beacon of hope for others grappling with similar experiences, highlighting the critical need for comprehensive support systems and societal empathy.

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Notable Quotes:

1. Alicia Seymour [01:14]:

   "I was born at the end of '84, in a very country, small southern town in Tennessee. Every stereotype you can think about that small trailer park kid in Tennessee, that was me."

2. Alicia Seymour [03:46]:

   "My grandfather raped me every way possible except for, you know, full on sexual contact, so oral, you know, penetration, all of those things."

3. Alicia Seymour [32:16]:

   "He started kissing me and made me perform oral sex on him in the car in the park and tried to get me to get out and go into the woods so we could have sex."

4. Alicia Seymour [56:45]:

   "At fifteen, just before I turned sixteen, I dropped out of high school, and she packed me up and moved me back to Tennessee until he could come down to marry me."

5. Alicia Seymour [87:08]:

   "I think making art at various times in my life saved my life."

6. Alicia Seymour [89:00]:

   "Anybody at any point along that line stepped in and helped me, I wouldn't have ended up where I did."

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Key Takeaways:

• Systemic Failures: Alicia's story highlights significant gaps in the systems meant to protect vulnerable children from abuse, including healthcare, education, and community oversight.

• Impact of Grooming: The episode underscores the insidious nature of grooming, where abusers manipulate trust and authority to exploit their victims over prolonged periods.

• Resilience and Healing: Despite enduring over two decades of abuse, Alicia's journey towards healing through self-work and professional dedication illustrates profound resilience.

• Importance of Support Systems: Alicia emphasizes the critical need for supportive environments and effective interventions to prevent and address abuse, as well as to aid in the healing process for survivors.

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This poignant episode of "We're All Insane" serves as both a stark reminder of the pervasive issue of grooming and abuse and a powerful narrative of survival and healing. Alicia Seymour's unwavering bravery in sharing her story provides invaluable insights and fosters a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding trauma and recovery.

Transcript

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[Alicia Seymour]

My name is Alicia Seymour. I'm an art therapist and counselor specializing in grief and trauma. And today we're going to talk about my trauma. Long history of sexual abuse that started with my grandfather and then went to my Sunday school teacher and then my pedophile husband who I married at 16. The only way to really start, I was only going to talk about the Sunday school teacher, but I realized that in order to talk about him you have to kind of have the context right. And there wouldn't have been him if there had not had been, you know, my grandfather to start with. So going back, I was born the end of 84, very country, small southern town in Tennessee. Every stereotype you can think about that small trailer park kid in Tennessee, that was, that was me, that was my family. My mom was 17, high school dropouts. My dad was 22, kind of a fuck up. He was around some when I was a kid and then left, became a trucker. Really wasn't in my life much when I was little. You know, from the time I was born, I was told my mother hated me and she showed that repeatedly up through, you know, the time I finally cut her off a few years ago, but it was very, we were very poor, it was a very abusive home and I ended up basically not living completely, but spending most of my time with my dad's family. I had a brother that was born almost dead on a year after me. They were, we were very rapid succession kids and he was mostly with my mom and her parents. Her mom, my, from the outside, you know, everybody thought my, my grandfather was this good, wonderful guy. You know, my, my great grandfather was A pastor at a church. And it was this good family, right? It wasn't supposed to be as messed up as my mother and all of that. But the sexual abuse with my grandfather started my first memory. I was about three or four. And I know that it started before that, and I'll get into how I know that. But it was this constant state of, you know, realizing that something was wrong and I was starting to act out when I was that age and I was, you know, trying to tell people that something was weird. I didn't know exactly that something was wrong at that point.

[Host]

You're so young, right?

[Alicia Seymour]

Like to me it was normal that, you know, my grandfather would. It's hard because, you know, it wasn't just. I think for a lot of people we have this sort of conception of molestation is. It's when we use the word molest, we think grope or fondle or, you know, that kind of inappropriate sexual contact. But it went so much further than that, right? My, my grandfather raped me every way possible except for, you know, full on sexual contact, so oral, you know, penetration, all of those things. And by the time I was starting to form memories, I knew that this was happening and I was, I was trying to tell people. So I remember being like probably about four and I was drawing pictures of what was happening and showing them. I had two aunts who are just a couple years older than me. There's not much of an age difference. And my mother found the drawings and screamed at me and called me a whore and told me to stop drawing shit like that.

[Host]

This was her father, right?

[Alicia Seymour]

This was my dad's father.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah. And at that point, you know, my mother, you know, like I said, she, she would tell me how much she hated me. And I think that she knew something was going on. When I got a little bit older, she definitely knew things were going on because I came to her and, you know, told her that things were not right. And I kind of didn't want to go back over there. And she told me, told me that I needed to shut up and do what I was told because basically that's, you know, it's the way it is. She was always very inappropriate too. I don't have any direct memories of like her molesting me, but it was like, from the time I can remember, she would call me disgusting pet names, like, you know, sugar slang for females, you know, areas which I can't even say out loud because it disgusts me so much. Up until the time I was like 35, she was still calling me this. And I had to be like, stop saying that. Like, that's disgusting.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

So the abuse of my grandfather, it was. It was in plain sight. Everybody knew that it was happening in his house. It was my grandmother and then my aunt who. The time when I was born, she was like, 16, 17. Everybody fucking knew. Everybody knew. I have a very clear. All this stuff I'm going to talk about is, like, very clear memories. So any memories that are a little bit fuzzy or a little bit hazy, I don't even need to get into them because the clear ones are so fucking horrific. But I remember being around that three or four age, and my grandmother or my grandfather must have told my grandmother he was going to give me a bath or something. And we went into the bathroom and he was forcing me to perform oral sex on him. And my grandmother came in the bathroom and looked at him and looked at me and turned around and closed the door and left and never, never said a word. There were, you know, stacks and stacks and stacks of incest porn and child porn. I mean, after my grandmother died, other people found it, and there were boxes and boxes and boxes. And it was just normal.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

Like, it would be laying out next to the bed. It would be like in the living room sometimes.

[Host]

He was doing this to anybody else, or was it okay?

[Alicia Seymour]

No, I know. I know for a fact that there are at least two others, but, you know, that's their story to tell. But I know there's at least two others.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

I know there's at least one before me and at least one after. After. After the bathroom incident. Well, that's not even. I was gonna say after that. It was when we moved into the whole car thing, but.

[Host]

Well, I feel like too, just as a child and having your grandma walk in and see that and do nothing, I feel like even that is something that could make you feel so betrayed and so alone. It's like, if your own family members aren't going to help you, then who is? I feel like that's the thoughts that go through your mind.

[Alicia Seymour]

Absolutely. And it makes you feel like you're the crazy one. If this is normal.

[Host]

I was going to say it. And the problem is, is that, you know, from such a young age, you're being brought up in an environment that's teaching you that these things can't be that bad if. If people are just looking past them.

[Alicia Seymour]

And I must be insane, right? Like, I must be insane if I'm upset, if I'm scared, if I'm uncomfortable and My grandfather was never like, a force kind of a guy. Like, that was not him. It was very much, oh, I love you, you know, very much. Oh, you know, that whole, like, substitute partner thing. So I was his buddy. He would molest me with my grandmother sleeping right next to us or not sleeping. Like, it would be like, bedtime, and it's like, come get in bed, and she's not doing anything right. And then it was. He was also a raging alcoholic. Not a violent drunk, but a drunk. So, you know, it would turn into. We would get in the car and go for drives where he would be drinking and driving. Always had a gun, so the gun would be between us. And then we would find little, like, corners or private spaces for he. For him to molest me in the car. In the car. And this was happening every single time I was there, and I was always there. I remember the pictures. I thought the pictures did not start until I was about 4 or 5. I found out later that I discovered later that I was wrong, that they started when he started molesting me when I was an infant.

[Host]

Taking pictures of you?

[Alicia Seymour]

Yep. So I remember when I was five, it was. They had, like, this addition onto their garage, and we would spend a lot of time out there, and he would molest me out there and, like, very posed kind of stuff. Those were the actual memories of the. The photos get a little bit blurry. But I found them later. But that's jumping ahead a little bit. So abuse is going on pretty much nonstop. I was starting to have a lot of issues. I was acting out. I was doing all the things that we expect from a kid who's being sexually abused. Right. Inappropriate sexual behavior of wetting the bed, having these regression issues, you know, and the whole time, my mother screaming at me, you know, hitting me and, like, not allowed to say anything. When I was seven, my younger cousin was born, and she was a female. And that's when everything with me started to drop off. Right. So. And at that point, I wasn't being as compliant as I had been before. So the molestation at that point with me did not completely stop, but it kind of changed where I wasn't necessarily the primary focus anymore. And it turned into. Every time I would go over there, I would be really sick to my stomach. Right. Because I knew. I knew it was going to happen. Right. My grandmother had systemic lupus, so the house was like a pharmacy. And I would be diagnosed with lupus just a few years later. So talk about the body keeping score. But I would go over And I would say, like, I'm really sick to my stomach. I would start having a panic attack. I would start freaking out. So he would give me her nausea medication to sedate me. And I would sleep for 12 or 13 hours and then wake up. And it was obvious that he had sexually abused me when I was asleep. And this was not as frequent as it had been before. The younger cousin. The younger cousin was born, but it was still going. And then about 10, 11 is when it stopped because I got my period. So then I wasn't. I wasn't in pedophile's dream anymore. And I had a cousin there who was seven years younger than me, so. And she was displaying all of the same behaviors that I did everything. So. And I was still being forced to go over there. I was still being forced to kind of be around them. Things, you know, when I was at my mom's house were just traumatic. It was a string of men who were also very gropy. And, you know, she condoned this. It would happen in front of her. It was kind of. She told me that she hated me and that I had ruined her life and that I owed her this to keep these men happy. I owed it to her to let these men grope me and fondle me. Lots of drug use in the house. Lots of pills, lots of pot. We were always hungry, always moving, you know, trailer park to trailer park. Like, it was not a stable environment. So I kind of buried a lot of the abuse stuff. I knew that, you know, something was wrong, but I just couldn't think about it. What were they going to do? Like, there was no escape, right? And then when I was 12, I started having a lot of flashbacks, and it was coming up in dreams, and it was. Things were coming back, and I was. I was old enough at that point to that. You're having in school, the talk of this is inappropriate touching. And I was like, oh, my God, like, the fuck? This is not okay. And I had remembered I had these flashes of memories of him taking the pictures. And the porn, the child porn, the incest porn was still, like, out and open. It was not hidden. And I remembered that these pictures were hidden in this, like, cupboard in the garage with, like, the extra. Because it was on this rotating thing of porn. So one day I decided I was there alone with my grandmother. And at that point, she wasn't really doing well. Couldn't get up, couldn't get around. So I snuck out there and I found the box. And there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and Hundreds of pictures of him molesting me from infancy, which is how I know that it started then and I could not have been.

[Host]

So he was in these pictures with you?

[Alicia Seymour]

Like, okay, yeah, usually just, you know, close up of him and then me. I don't think any of them included his face, but yeah, so that's how I know it started way back and that's like my brain just completely broke.

[Host]

Did you notice that when it started happening to your cousin, did you feel any type of like, need of protection for her or did it. Was it kind of something where it just felt normal and it. You just realized that it kind of went off to her? And then it was a.

[Alicia Seymour]

It was really confusing because on the one hand I was really jealous because I wasn't even in the attention, right? And it wasn't even. It was like a pay for. I hate to say it that way, but like a pay for play. So you let me do these things to you and then we're going to go shopping, we're going to go buy baby dolls, we're going to go buy you new clothes. Which for a kid that was dirt fucking poor. I mean, poor poor. That was okay, so, you know, we do that. But I'm. I'm the one who's getting to go shopping and hang out and have ice cream. And then I would say my concern for her, I was kind of a denial when I was seeing it. But when I was at that 12 age and I found the pictures of me, that's when I was like, oh, shit, like it's happening to her.

[Host]

Okay, but what, right? What are you gonna do?

[Alicia Seymour]

What can you do, right? I was. I was a little kid. Her mom was there in the house and was doing nothing.

[Host]

Yeah, it's like that conflict of like your gut knowing that something's wrong, but then everybody around you just dismissing it.

[Alicia Seymour]

And her, my aunt, this cousin's mother, she knew it was going on with me too. She told me, I confronted her about all this after everybody was dead and, and tried to have a conversation. And she's like, well, yeah, I saw it, but, you know, what are you going to do? My grandfather had a heart attack when I was 9 or 10, and we were getting ready to go to the hospital, visit him. I was with the aunt and she goes, well, hang on, we have to take him some of his books to the hospital. So she packed up incest and child porn and took it to him in the hospital so that he would have it while he was recovering from his heart attack. And it was just like, oh yeah, whatever. Like sick. Like, what the. Am I crazy? Because I feel like this is fucked up, but everybody's just like, yeah, this is totally normal, like, whatever, okay.

[Host]

It makes you wonder, like, did it happen to them too as children? You know what I mean? Like, it's just like this generational thing where it's just normal to everyone because it's just trickling down the family line. Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

And it's not just him, because, you know, these. Both my grandfather and my grandmother were southern farm families, right. So they're like one of nine or 10 kids. And his brother would come to visit and be very gropy. Come sit in my lap. Pull your dress up. You know, like, grind on. Let me grind on you. Here's the quarter. And then they would disappear. And I think that they were trading material because there were pictures in with my grandfather's stuff of people that I didn't know and I don't think it was him. So, you know, it kind of makes you wonder. But I have these very clear memories of his brother coming to visit and do the exact same thing. Not as violent, not as sexual, but the touchy feely, gropey. So I think it was just the norm for them, which is, it took me a long time to be able to even acknowledge that it happened. Because when I saw these pictures as a 12 year old, like my brain fucking broke and I was not okay. Like, that is when I started, you know, cutting myself, started being like, okay, I'm. I'm gonna kill myself. Like, I can't. The shame and the blame and the feeling. Nobody was fucking helping me. Like, nobody was there, nobody was gonna listen. Teachers were not saying anything. Like I was going to school sometimes with bruises from being hit from my mother and being molested by my grandfather. Like, I'm fucked. So I was going on this really hard downward spiral. And since the end of, end of the year When I was 12, going on 13, my birthday stayed in December. So right around there I was like, that's it. Like, I'm going to. I'm going to kill myself. There is no escape from this. I don't know what to do. Nobody's going to help me. So I took like a very low overdose of diet pills because this was the days where you could just go to Walmart and buy like a Fedrine, you know. So I was like, okay. And they let this 12 year old little kid buy these fucking diet pills, which is disturbing. But I took them and I went to school and I started Having heart palpitations. And they called my mother to come get me and take me to the hospital. And I wouldn't tell them what was going on. And because I was terrified of my mother, my mother hated me. Like, I'm not going to confide in her what's happening. Like, I was hoping they were just going to take me, right? Like, so I didn't say anything. It didn't say anything. They sent me home and my mom went in my room and was just absolutely trashing everything. She's like, I know you've done something. I know that's why you're sick. Like something's going on here. And she found the empty pack of diet pills and she beat the out of me and was like, this is, this is what you're doing. Like, what the is wrong with you? Just horrible. So I was like, okay, well that's not gonna work. So I went to school the next day and I was like, guys, like, I, if I feel like I'm gonna kill myself, like somebody needs to, to, to help me. That time they, I was like, don't call my mother.

[Host]

And you told teachers this?

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

So they called my grandfather, he took me to the pediatrician and they took me to an inpatient facility for like four or five days. But I get there and I'm like the youngest one. I'm 12 years old. I have no idea. Like, I've never been away from home. I'm sleeping on a mattress in the floor. That first night, everybody's treating me like, I'm like, this was a mistake. The next morning, my, my grandfather is there and he takes me over into like the corner where we're supposed to be, you know, visiting or whatever. And he's like, what do you remember? And I, I knew what he was talking about, right? And I'm like, I, I have no idea what you're talking about. He's like, good. He's like, because you don't remember a fucking thing. I was like, nope, don't. No idea what you're talking about. So I stayed for five days. He. My mother did not come to visit me. She didn't seem to care. And when I was released, I immediately went to my grandparents house. There's some confusion on whether my grandfather took me and forced me to go there or if my mother was like, fuck this, I'm not dealing with it, just take her. But I was there for about six months. And the whole time, you know, it was just like at that point, I did remember. He knew I remembered and he was having my grandmother and my aunt try and question me in this like non confrontational way, like, oh, what's going on?

[Host]

Yeah. To like, see what you would say.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah. So every time I was like, I don't know, I just feel really sad, like I'm not. Even though I know that they both know. Like, I, I was scared of him. He always had guns around. Like, it was never like an open. He was never the type to be like, I'll kill you if you say this. But also you often have a gun out when you're raping me. So.

[Host]

But also, like, you knew that they knew so. And they didn't do anything. So even by telling them, it's not like you would benefit from it.

[Alicia Seymour]

So. No. What would have been the point?

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

Right.

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[Alicia Seymour]

So as I'm living with them, I turned 13. My mom is married to the second stepfather. She's been married six or seven times at this point. But we were on number two, so third marriage. And this guy was very, very gropy with me. Always made me feel really uncomfortable. I caught him going through my dirty underwear, like, really gross. I was like, okay, like, I'll just stay here. This is not happening anymore with my grandfather. This is better, right, than being with that guy who I don't trust at all. And my mom had decided that, you know, we were all going to move to North Carolina because this guy had bought a house and, you know, he made good money and we were, we were going to move I was like, absolutely. The fuck not like, I'm not going with you. Well, on a weekend visit where I was supposed to only be there for the weekend with her, she drove back to my grandparents house, got all of my stuff and brought it over and told me that my grandparents had kicked me out. They didn't want to talk to me anymore. And here I am, I'm in North Carolina, I'm in a new place where I don't know anybody. I'm with, you know, my mother who hates my fucking guts, with the stepfather who, you know, is always making nasty comments and, you know, touching on me. And I'm like, like, what the fuck am I going to do now? Right? I'm still depressed, I'm still cutting myself. I still feel like, you know, okay, I'm just going to buy my time and then I'm going to kill myself because I can't, I can't do this anymore.

[Host]

When you went into the, you went to a mental health facility. I did. Did they diagnose you with anything or give you any medication? You were just there for.

[Alicia Seymour]

I was just there. There was no. No diagnosis? No. Because I wouldn't talk to them. I was like, I don't know, you know, it was that. I don't know, I don't know. I just fell off. So they're like, oh, angsty teenager. You know, cut off.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

Which I don't know what would happen if I had told them. Right. It just, yeah, didn't even enter my mind. And nobody, I don't think they realized just how extensive the cutting was either.

[Host]

Right.

[Alicia Seymour]

This was, we're talking 90, end of 97 going into 98. There was no Internet. Right. Like, we didn't have that kind of information about, you know, self injury and what to look for. So all I had to do was wear sweatshirts and they would be like, oh, angsty teenager. Like they weren't going to look at my arms.

[Host]

Right.

[Alicia Seymour]

So once we got to North Carolina, I was still, you know, spiraling out. This would have been in the summer when we finally moved. It was into the seventh grade year, going in the eighth grade year. And my mom is very prone to be like, we're just starting over, like, everything's great. Also I fucking hate you. But like put on a happy face. So my stepdad's family was very much into the church and you know, go to church, good Christian people. My family had never been that way. The only exposure I'd ever had to church was with the grandparents who were molesting Me. So it was this very like, up sort of feeling about, yeah, you know, what are you gonna do? Like, okay, right? Seems a little hypocritical, but all right. So I knew I was stuck in North Carolina, so I'm like, okay, it, like, I'll go to church, like, fine, maybe I'll make friends, right? Who knows? Maybe it'll happen. Well, me, I. We start going to church. My mother pushes us, me and my younger brother, to get into the youth group. And the youth group is run by this 34 year old man named Ronnie and his wife, who was a few years younger and pregnant at the time. And it started with, you know, There were probably 10, 12 kids in this group, all around my age, from like 11 to like 13. We're all kind of in that cluster. I think I might be one of the oldest ones. We started going out, you know, doing stuff together as the group. We would have the Wednesday night meetings and the Sunday night meetings. And Ronnie started being like, oh, you know, I can tell, like, you're really struggling, like you're new. Like, you know, let me be your friends. You know, it was this very, like, friend thing. So for the first time in my life, I had this adult who I felt safe with and I felt comfortable with. So I told him, you know, not details, but I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm struggling. My grandfather molested me and raped me for a lot of years and my mother hates me and she's torturing me and I don't, you know, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm not okay. And this is very hard for me because I still really love Ronnie and it's very confusing. But he took that as the green light of I don't even have to groom you. You know what I mean? Like, there's no grooming to be done. All you have to do is be nice to me, and here I am. So it started with, you know, just very friends, like, let's just meet by ourselves so I can minister to you. Great. You know, very, very religious. Always praying together, always doing things. And then around Halloween, time of 98 was when the conversation with him started to shift. And it was, you know, I think I love you. From him to me, you know, you're. You're so different from everybody else. And, you know, my God, if I hear another fucking person tell somebody that a young girl has been abused, has an old soul, I swear to God, I'm gonna lose my goddamn mind. Because that was always the thing that was said oh, you're so much more mature for your age. You have such an old, like, I wish. I wish you were just a little bit older, right? So. And then the touching started. Just. It's, like, very, like, you know, petting me on the leg, testing the waters. And I was terrified. But at the same time, Ronnie was, you know, this adult that I trusted, and I was starting to have feelings for. And, I mean, he was gorgeous. So I was like, yeah, this is just how it goes, right? Like, okay. So by November, early November, he was like, why don't we go meet and hang out in the car? There was a park right by my house behind, like, this factory. There was, like, a pond and walking trails. And we had been over there a few times with the youth group. He's like, why don't we just go over there and, like, have a conversation? I was like, okay. It was election day, so we were out of school, and he came and picked me up at my house, and we went over there, and he's telling me how much he loves me and how he's thinking about divorcing his wife, and he thinks that we should be together, and, you know, he would really like to take our relationship to the next step. And I'm. I'm trying to act like I'm cool, but I'm 13. And I remember sitting in the car next to him, and I'm shaking so hard that I thought I was gonna pass out because I'm like, I don't, like, freeze, right? I have all this history of abuse, and you just freeze. So he started kissing me and made me perform oral sex on him in the car in the park and tried to get me to get out and go into the woods so we could have sex. And I finally got enough voice to be like, no. Like, I'm not. I'm not ready for that, right? Like, I'm five foot one. At that point. I was anorexic. I weighed about 90 pounds. He's 646364. Massive, man. And I'm like. I couldn't decide if I was, like, terrified of him or, like, love him, and did I want this or did I not want this?

[Host]

So I think, too, you know, like, you were saying before how you mentioned, like, oh, he wouldn't even have to groom you because of the fact that you were just a vulnerable young girl looking to be loved, like, and cared about. And I think for you, it was probably confusing because that was the first person that was outside of your family that was, like, offering that. Yeah, so it had this mix of, like, different emotions as well. You know, like, do I like him? Do I not? And it's just confusing. And you never were taught or given the right tools to even understand. I feel like, this age difference or, like, I mean, even with your grandfather and grandmother, like, they were together when he was doing things to you. So, like, what are you supposed to know?

[Alicia Seymour]

Right? And we were in the car, right? It was the same sort of thing of like, oh, I really love you, but I'm stuck with this person, and, oh, let's go to the park. And, you know, there were so many. Physically, they were very similar in physical appearance. Like, there were a lot of these weird, uncomfortable kind of overlap things going on. It was really. You're 13. What the. Yeah, what the do you know? Right? You're just like, I. This person is kind to me. This person's nice to me. And is this really that bad? Like, he didn't force me?

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

And I will. I mean, I. I will say everything that happened with him, and there's. There's a lot of years, but it was consensual, at least as far as I felt. Right. It was never, like, a forced situation. After that incident in the car, his wife was starting to get suspicious just because we were always kind of hanging around together. We were always kind of, you know, very friendly. And she had started to kind of, I guess, ask him questions and, you know, really try and figure out what was going on. He's like, no, no, no, nothing's happening. And before we had sex the first time. So it was like November 3rd was election day, I think that year. That was the car thing. November, like, sixth or seventh. He had me go out with his wife alone to let her take me to. In the car, to the same park, in the same fucking spot, in the same car where I had just blown her husband and had us sit there and talk about, you know, the fact that nothing was going on and that nothing was happening and that. No, I. I would never.

[Host]

Was she questioning you?

[Alicia Seymour]

Yes.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yes. He told her, why don't you just go ask her yourself? And then he called me and was like, hey, wife is going to come pick you up. You guys are going to go have a conversation. I need you to tell her that nothing's going on. I need you to be convincing. Okay? This one, she grilled me for an hour. Like I said, same spot, same car. She's sitting in the same spot. Like, I'm just like, no, I have no idea what you're talking about. No. November 11, he sent his pregnant wife. It was Veterans Day. He sent his pregnant wife three hours away to go baby clothes shopping with their son, who was a year younger than me. And he came and picked me up and took me to his house. And for three hours, it was like, you know, having sex and all this stuff and then stopping and praying and feeling very guilty about it, and then starting again and getting a kick out of saying things about how he can't wait for wife to sit on the couch and he'll know what happened. And. Yeah, so it was like.

[Host]

So when you say he, like. Like stopping and praying about it because he felt guilty, would he tell you that he felt guilty about it?

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

So it would be like he would be performing oral sex on me, and then he would stop and go, oh, my God, we can't. We shouldn't be doing this. We really need to pray about it. Like, let's stop. And I'm like, okay. I mean, keep in mind, like, I'm shaking. I don't know what the fuck's going on. Like, I'm disassociating because, you know, history of trauma, and I'm, like, there, but I'm not there. So then, you know, he would sit there and pray pre. You know, lord, forgive us for this, and, you know, us and we are doing something wrong. And. And then he would sit there for a few minutes and be like, well, but I don't actually want to stop. And I'm like, oh, okay.

[Host]

Like, yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

So we would start again. And that was the first time that, you know, I had full consensual sex. And.

[Host]

And you were 13.

[Alicia Seymour]

Thirteen.

[Host]

He's 34.

[Alicia Seymour]

He's 34. It was, like, two months before my 14th birthday. And I remember at the time, once we were, like, done, done once again, praying, we can never. We can never talk about this. Like, we never do this again. Whatever. He sat down next to me on the couch and was like, you know, there's only one thing I'm kind of disappointed about. And I was like, you know, what could you possibly be disappointed? I. Like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. He was disappointed that I hadn't bled because my grandfather had already, like, you know, I wasn't, like, a virgin in that way anymore. And he sat down. He's like, you know, I really thought because you hadn't had, like, sex sex that that would still happen. And I'm really disappointed.

[Host]

What the fuck? That's, like, literally, like, all that I can say that is insane.

[Alicia Seymour]

And I was like, oh. I remember going, I'm. I'm sorry. Like, I'm so sorry. He's like, are you sure that I'm the first person that you've had, like, full sex with? And I'm like, yeah. Like, I. I don't. I don't know. Like, I'm so. I'm sorry.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

So to cover his ass that day, we ended up. He called the other parents of some of the youth group members and we went to the mall. And he made me walk around the mall with all these people and pretend like everything was fine and that nothing had happened and everything was good. So after the first time, he was completely emboldened at that point. He was like, fuck it. I got away with it once. Like, here we go. And it would be, you know, pick me up from my bus stop in the morning and take me to the park or take me back to his house to have sex. And then dropped me off late for school. His wife was getting more and more and more suspicious. She. She knew. She knew something was wrong. But instead of talking to somebody else about it, she continued to grill me. So it would be like we would go to Wednesday night youth group. She would pull me out of the group, take me into the back room and grill me to the point of, like, having me in tears and being like, I don't know what you want me to say. Like, I'm not.

[Host]

I.

[Alicia Seymour]

Nothing's going on. And then Ronnie would have me tell him about her grilling me while we had sex. I figured out later that this was part of the kink and this pattern is going to be repeated. So there was one time when we had sex at his house that it was like, I want you to be bent over her pillow. I want you to like her stuff. Like, put on her shirt while I. You. Yeah, there was a time that we. Oh, I've got a good fucked up story for you. So there was a time. Not this one, but the next one. There's a time we're at the house, youth group hanging out. Everybody's at their house. It's me, him, wife, son, 10 of us. We're all hanging out. And they had this little, like, game room with, you know, a full standing version, arcade version of the game Centipede. So his wife and son and a couple of the kids are standing right there while I think the son was playing the game. And we're standing behind. He comes up behind me and starts fingering me with his wife about this far in front of me. Like, she was literally right here. And I'm like, stop. Like, don't. Don't do that. But he thought that was hysterical. His son had a crush on me, so he used this as, like, a reason to have me around. So there was one time that he had to go out of town. I don't know what it was for, but he told his wife that she needed to invite me over to the house so that me and son could have, like, a movie night together with the wife, and this would be good for us. And see, nothing's going on. Bring her to the house. I agree to this. Fucking terrified, but I agree. I go to the house, we're sitting on the couch. The movie that his. He told his wife to play was old Sandra Bullock movie Hope Floats. And for those of you guys who haven't seen it, in the. The beginning of the movie, Sandra Bullock is taken on one of those old school, like, Jerry Springer shows, right? And her best friend is there, and she's like, oh, what's going on? And her best friend comes out and goes, by the way, I've been having sex with your husband. And we've been having sex on your couch and in your living room floor. And I'm sitting on the fucking couch where Ronnie and I had just had sex, like, two days before that. And his wife is sitting next to me. And this comes on the tv. And I remember going like that. And his wife looked at me and she's, like, staring a hole through me. And I'm like, not looking. Movie goes on. We're probably 20 minutes into the movie. He calls the house because there's no cell phones, then calls the house, and I can hear her.

[Host]

He.

[Alicia Seymour]

He was saying, let me talk to her. Let me talk to Alicia for a minute. And she was like, no, why the fuck do you need to talk to her? You don't need to fucking talk to her. No. And she had the phone on him. Hi, guys.

[Host]

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[Alicia Seymour]

This was another instance where when we would have sex, he would want me to say, well, what did her face look like? Did she look shocked? Did she look upset? Do you think she noticed? Like, it was this constant. We went camping with the youth group and he had me buy one of those, like, really tight, like, onesie pajamas, right? With, like, the ass flap. And it was cold. This was like November. But he's like, I just want you to wear that. And like, nothing else. Like, don't put on a coat. He had been groping me in the woods that day, and I was like, okay. So I'm like, fine, fuck it. Like, I'll do this. We're sitting by the fire, and his wife and there are other, like, pastors and stuff there. And the wife looks at me and goes, could you look more like a whore? Could you please go put on some fucking clothes right now? And I was like, I'm just sitting here. And she's like, no, you need to go put on some clothes. So I had to go, like, put on a coat and stuff. So this is going on. He's getting more and more bold about things. I'm getting later and later to school. Like, they're kind of getting suspicious. But even the school's not saying anything. Like, I'm always there. I told a friend of mine what was going on, and she told her mother at the end of December. So just before I turned 14, she told her mother, and all hell broke loose. And I admitted that it had been going on.

[Host]

So this was basically less than a year in.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah, this is six months. The first go round.

[Host]

Okay, got it.

[Alicia Seymour]

Mine and Ronnie's relationship is going to continue on for the next 22 years. But at this point, this was the first six months when he was caught. He. He admitted it. He was arrested, charged with. I think they charged him with, like, indecent liberty with a minor at that point. And he pled out, ended up doing a year. But when the story. When everything came out, it was my fault. So I was kicked out of church. Everybody at church was on me. They were sending their kids to school to jump me. I got jumped at a football game by one of the kids because her mother told her to come. We both, like, beat my ass because it had to be my fault, right? Like, how could this good Christian man have done this? Like, obviously it was me. And my mother took that very seriously and was like, this is absolutely your fault. You ruined his fucking life. I was put on, basically, solitary confinement in my room. She would let me come out, like, once after I got home to use the bathroom. If she fed me, it was put in my door, scream and yell at me, close the door. Like, I was not eating. I was going to school. I was getting harassed by everybody at school because I was now the slut and the whore that fuck the Sunday school teacher. This still continues to this day. I ran into somebody that I went to school with about a year ago from down there, and she was like, oh, yeah, wait, you're the one who. That Sunday school teacher, right? And I'm like, well, that's not exactly what happened. And then it was like, oh, okay. And, like, turn around and leave. Yeah. So I still have, like, this notorious reputation for being some sort of lolita who seduced and ruined this man's life. Like, I ruined his life.

[Host]

What did the wife end up saying? Did you ever have a.

[Alicia Seymour]

Two days after we got caught, she came to my house with the pastor's wife and sat down, and she was like. She was shaking. She was so mad. And she's like, you know, I asked you, and you didn't tell Me, it was happening. And I don't know why you would go after my husband like this, like, I'm pregnant. And if I had known this, I would aborted the baby. And like, why would you do this to me? And I'm like, I, like, I'm sorry. I. You know, because at this point I'm. It must be my fault, right? Everybody's saying it's my fault.

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[Alicia Seymour]

And then she came. Her son went to the same school I did. And within a week of all this happening, she came into our gym with her son one day. I don't know what was going on, but she had the baby with her. I guess it was a little after a week, must have been a month or so because she went into labor not long after that. And I, in my stupid childlike way was like, oh, like, let me go say hello. Like maybe you're not feeling that way anymore. And I stood up and before I could even walk anywhere, she turns around in an, in an open gym full of my classmates. It was like before class started and starts screaming at me, get the away from me. You like losing it. And I'm like, nobody made her leave. Like she just got to have her little fit at me and screaming, yell and then leave. So yeah, he went to jail for a year. And I tried to deal with, with school. I mean, I was 14 going on to 15. You know, that year was just a blur of like, you know, horrible at, at Home. I remember my stepfather coming up to me alone one day and being like, you know, it's too bad. It really should have been me. Yeah, I was like, what the fuck? Like, yeah, just. Yeah. So I'm going to school. I'm getting harassed at school, started cutting myself again. Panic attacks were the worst they had ever been at that point. I mean, literally, like, I was spending. I was missing classes because I was in the bathroom stall because I couldn't breathe, I couldn't get up. Everywhere I went in school, I'm getting harassed. I mean, this is a small town, too. So I'm running into these church people at the grocery store. They have to drive past my house to get to the church every day. Like, it was just overwhelming. And something shifted in me where I was like, you know, maybe this isn't my fault. Like, maybe. Maybe it's not. Maybe this is a problem with men. Maybe men are just perverts. So we got our first computer in the house and keep on. This is like 2000 at this point, so, you know, we're not doing the stranger danger thing. So I'm, in my innocent, childlike way, I'm like, I'm gonna get online and like, make a dating profile so then I can prove, see, it's not Ronnie. It's all men, and it's not me because it's all men. So I tried to make the profile to say I was 16, but obviously you have to be 18. So I put, I was 18, and all these men started emailing me. And I'm like, there's a part of me that's like, this is hysterical. Like, what the fuck is wrong with all of these men? Like, can't they tell that I'm not an adult? Like, what is wrong with them? And then one person emailed me, and he was 28 at the time, good looking. He said he was in grad school. And I was like, oh, you're not. You don't seem like a jerk. Like, I will write back to you. So I wrote back to him and I was like, hey, look, just so you know, from the jump, like, I'm 15. Like, this is why I was doing this. And I'm not trying to, like, lie to you, but if you want to just be friends or whatever. He lives in upstate New York. He was like, yeah, of course we can just be friends. Before long, he's calling me all the time, and we're talking all the time. And it starts. It's this very, like, look at how smart and poetic I am. Like now I look back at some of the emails and stuff and I'm like, oh my God. Like, this only would have worked on a child because you're fucking repulsive. Everything was getting worse and worse and worse at home. Everything was getting like more intense with, with him. I'll call him a. And I'm, I'm like, okay. Like, he's telling me that he loves me, he wants to come see me. When I was 15, he came to see me. We had been talking at this point for about six months, maybe seven. And he picks me up from my high school, like full ages right up in front of the high school. And I told my mom I was going to a friend's house for the weekend, not that she cared. And we went to the cheapest, most skankiest motel room around the corner. And he registered under the name Bart Simpson. I was like, you fucking moron. Like, you're an idiot. Yeah. And it was, you know, having sex with me. And he went to the mall and bought me a ring and proposed to me while we're laying in this cheap, roach infested motel room. And I was like, well, yeah, maybe. Maybe this is my ticket out, right? You love me. He was not. It was always like this very like romantic, tender, caring. I don't want to do anything you're not comfortable with. Like, very kind, very chill. So of course I was like, yeah, of course I'll marry you.

[Host]

And this was on the first time you guys met, right?

[Alicia Seymour]

That was the first time we met in person. So. And at that point we didn't have video call or anything. This was just like phone calls. Right after I had said yes, he, my mother did not know about him yet. And he calls me and says, hey, you know, we've got a problem. And I'm like, okay, like, what could possibly be the problem? He got picked up by the feds for ordering child pornography on the Internet. And what he told me at the time was, you know, it wasn't, yes, it was child porn, but the, the girls were your age. It was 15 and 16 year old girls with, with their boyfriends. Like, yes, I know I was wrong. But you know, you came into my life and it just, you know, I was just curious and, you know, very like normalizing. So I'm like, okay, that, that makes sense. I'm 15. Okay, that makes sense. So he wasn't officially arrested at that point, but they had picked him up, he had been interrogated, he was kicked out of school, and he decided to get in touch with My mother and ask if he could marry me. And at this point, things with my mom were really bad. She was getting ready to leave the one husband she was having an affair. She was later diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. I question that diagnosis now because of how much glee she would get out of torturing me. Like, I don't think that that quite fits. But she was acting insane. So she said, yeah. She was like, all right.

[Host]

Right.

[Alicia Seymour]

What are we gonna do? So at 15, just before I turned 16, I dropped out of high school, and she packed me up and moved me back to Tennessee until he could come down to marry me. And just, like, she dumped me back.

[Host]

At your grandparents?

[Alicia Seymour]

Not at my grandparents. At a trailer in, like, nowhere Tennessee.

[Host]

Like, by herself.

[Alicia Seymour]

By myself.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

I had no car. I had no nothing. My grandfather.

[Host]

What was the point of her moving you back there?

[Alicia Seymour]

Because she wanted to fuck her new boyfriend. And the stepdad was like, fine, go. Like, if I'm not gonna get to have sex with you and your mom's leaving, like, you gotta go too.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

My grandfather actually died when I was 14, so right after Ronnie got. Ronnie and I got caught, he got cancer and died. So. And then when I moved back to Tennessee, dropped out of high school, My grandmother was getting very, very, very sick, and she would end up dying when I was right after I turned 16.

[Host]

When your grandfather died, how was that, like, emotionally for you?

[Alicia Seymour]

It was hearts, because I just got caught with Ronnie. All that stuff was happening. I was already not okay. So I would go back to visit, and he was just wasting away, and he would be like, you know, I love you. I love you. Like, And I'm like, at that point, I couldn't be mad, right? I felt bad for him. Later in life, I was like, oh, you got colon cancer that went into your prostate. That seems like really good fucking karma to me. But at that time, I was devastated. Like, I was confused, and I was really. I didn't know how to feel about it. And I was dealing with my own shit, too. Like, I was trying to survive. So, yeah, so we've moved back to Tennessee. Mom has dumped me. My soon to be husband had sent $3,000 for me to get a car. My mother stole it and went and did a whole bunch of drugs and disappeared. So I'm, like, stuck at this trailer that has a phone. I have no car. I'm like, can you just please come marry me and get me the fuck out of here? Because, like, what am I gonna do?

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

So we got married almost a year to the day from when we met online. So it was April of 2001 and I was four months past 16 at that point. But the problem was, is he didn't want his family to know that he had just married a child in Tennessee because they were kind of a respectable family. Like his grandparents were long standing business owners in the community. Like, his dad had actually previously gone to jail for having sex with one of his students. Yeah, he was an art teacher, had sex with a 16 year old student and went to jail. So there's a lot of stuff going on up there. So instead of moving me to New York, upstate New York to be with him, he dumped me in North Carolina for five or six months. And within, I guess it was six weeks after we got married, I'm alone in North Carolina. I found out I'm pregnant for the first time. And I call him and I'm like, you have to come get me. Like, we're gonna, we're gonna have a baby. Like, this is, I'm 16. This is great, right? Wonderful. And he comes down and he's like, no, you're not, we're not doing this. Like, I may, you know, I don't know what's going on with these charges. Like, we have to take care of this. So at 10 weeks pregnant, he took me for the first abortion when I was 16 and then left me back. And I was just by myself. I was a fucking wreck. Finally I convinced him to move me up there to New York, to New York in September. And he's like, fine, you can move up, but you have to tell Everybody that you're 19 and you can't tell anybody that we're married. Like, okay, fine, right, Whatever, Whatever you want from me. So as soon as he moved me up, at this point, I'm not talking to my mother. My mother has not had any contact with me since I've gotten married to this man. Like, we signed the paperwork at the courthouse, she looked at him and goes, she's your problem now. And left. Like, there was no contact with my mother. As soon as he moves me to New York and realizes that I think you know, that I'm, I'm trapped and there's nowhere to go. That's when he started raping me and started as, I want you to tell me about your grandfather abusing you so that I can replay it so that I can recreate it so that, so that I can relive this experience with you. And then it progressed into, what was I going to do? Tell him no, right Like, I'm stuck. I'm married to this man. Like, I'm going to give him what he wants. And within a month or so, that's when he started sedating me and raping me and filming it. And this was constant all the time. I would. I don't know, it started with, like, just have a few drinks, right? And I'm 16 and, you know, I have no tolerance. So that would give me. Not completely passed out, but enough that I couldn't necessarily fight him off. And then that wasn't quite doing it anymore. So he would. I don't know what the pot was laced with, because I'm telling you, I've never been comatose after smoking weed in my life, but I was comatose, so I could not move my body at all. But I was conscious of what was happening. And I knew, like, I could hear him setting up the camera and him violently raping me for an hour, hour and a half and filming it. And this went on over and over and over and over and over again until the cops came back around, I guess. It was a year after we got married. So the first year of that was constantly being raped.

[Host]

Do you think that when he was recording you guys, do you think that he was keeping it for himself or selling it to you?

[Alicia Seymour]

Okay, yeah, we had boxes and boxes and boxes. So when I finally left, I was able to destroy some of them, but he still got them to this day. He has the most violent ones to this day and enjoys, like, reminding me that he still has them. Like, still in my head, but what we're gonna do. Oh, and he also got me pregnant again that same. Within a month of living up there. And again, forced me to the shadiest abortion clinic ever. And at that point, he was like, look, I could be going to jail. And I. I can't tell you that I wouldn't molest our own children. So you.

[Host]

He said that to you?

[Alicia Seymour]

Oh, yeah, yeah. He was very open and very honest about it. He's like, I. I don't know. I'm like, okay, well, yes, here we go again. So, you know, experiencing all of this grief, I'm being raped and being. He was much more violent. He was very violent as far as, like, shoving, you know, saying these horrible things. He wanted me to be as anorexic as possible because.

[Host]

Because he wanted you to look like a little girl.

[Alicia Seymour]

Right. I wasn't allowed to get tattoos and I wasn't allowed to eat. And, you know, he would take me to the. The little kids section of walmart to buy clothes for me to wear for the videos. And I would catch him following little girls around the section. This went on for years. This was our entire marriage. But in the beginning.

[Host]

And how long were you with him?

[Alicia Seymour]

It took me 10 years to escape. Yeah.

[Host]

Now, during this time, did you have any communication with Ronnie that's coming? Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah, Ronnie came back, so.

[Host]

But he was in jail for a year.

[Alicia Seymour]

He was in jail for a year. So he would have been in jail. I think he got out. He went in when I was 14. He got out just before I turned 16.

[Host]

And you were already with the new. The husband?

[Alicia Seymour]

Yep. And I had moved back to Tennessee, got married.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

And moved on.

[Host]

And Ronnie was in North Carolina.

[Alicia Seymour]

Ronnie was in North Carolina. So it's like four hours apart because he was in the mountains of western North Carolina. I was in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Got it. So we've been married for a year and the cops have come back around now. And he is formally arrested for the videotape that he had ordered previously. We found out later that the reason why they had not arrested him yet was they were trying to prove that he had seen me before we got married. So then they could charge him, but they couldn't prove anything, so they decided to go ahead with the prosecution. At 18, he was sentenced, and it was a year and like two months in federal prison. I became prison wife at the ripe old age of 18. I was. We were living in Pittsburgh. He was in a federal prison in Ohio. His dad, we had moved down there. His dad had bought a house in a really horrible neighborhood that he was turning into apartments so that I would have a place to live while a was gone to prison. So I was going for a year and two months. I would go over every weekend, twice a weekend, and visit. This was a federal satellite low. So what that means is, is there are no real cells. Like, it's more of like cubby, like dorm room style in the back and in the front. It's mostly like white collar criminals. So when you go visit, everything's kind of like this. Like, it's very open, it's tables, families. It's a very low key prison situation, if there can be a low key prison situation. So a continued to, you know, sexually abuse me even when he was in prison. Because it would be, you know, just stick your hand on my pants. Just handle it real quick while we're sitting here in this crowded room with CEOs over there. And if I said no, he would grab my hand to the Point that I thought he was going to break it, and it was like, okay, fine. Like, I'll just do it. He was getting very, you know, obsessive, very paranoid. He was having his dad spy on me to make sure that they always knew where I was and what I was doing. I wasn't going anywhere. I was terrified. My husband's in prison. Like, this is crazy. Right after he went to jail. Prison. I had started to think back about Ronnie and his wife, and I felt really horrible because I still felt like all of that was my fault, right? That I must have done something. So I was feeling super guilty because now I knew what it felt like to have your husband go to jail for these sex crimes. And, God, that must have been horrible for her. So I wrote her a letter because I had their address because he's on the sex offender registry. So I'm like, oh, that's convenient. So I wrote her a letter and apologized, and I was like, look, I'm. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that I did this to you. I'm sorry that I did this to your kid. Like, I'm really sorry. And I just. I didn't think she would forgive me, but I really hoped that she would because I felt. I felt horrible. And it was probably a week after I sent the letter. I included my phone number. I was hoping we could have a conversation about it. I get a phone call, and it's Ronnie. He intercepted the letter. So the wife never saw it. She had no idea that I had sent it. He intercepted it. And when he called me, he said, oh, my God, Like, I've been looking for you this whole time. I. I've always loved you. I miss you so much. Like, I just. I need to see you. Like, you know, and before I knew it, it's like, okay. I have this husband who's in prison. When he was out, he was raping me in these horrible ways. He's still sexually assaulting me. His dad is treating me like I'm in prison, too. Like, Ronnie's back, right? The one person who loves me is back. Probably wasn't a month after he called that he drove. He came to Pittsburgh to see me. And at first it was just. He was there for, like, three days. We were just hanging out. I felt like I was having to, like, sneak out of the house to go see. He went to the mall. What is the deal with these fucking pedophiles in the mall? But he went to the mall and bought me a ring, too. And this. This pretty Ring. And I came to see him, and he proposed that if he could just get his wife to divorce him, then we would be together and we would get married. And I was. I was so in love with him. I was like, okay, sure, absolutely. So over the next six or seven months, he's calling me almost every day from a burner phone. I drove to North Carolina a couple times to see him. Everything is kind of hot and heavy. And then I get a phone call from her. She had found the burner phone, and she was absolutely losing her fucking mind again. Rightfully so, right? I mean, at this point, she's like, you're an adult. You know better. Yes, technically. But there was still this, like, trauma bond with Ronnie, and I. I. Anything he asked me to do, I would have done. I don't care what it was. Like, I was so conditioned. That didn't matter. Like, there were times where he would call me and be like, I need you to come down now. And I would pack a bag and leave. Like, didn't care. So she got upset, and he called me a few days later, and he's like, oh, she's just pissed off. Like, she told me, it doesn't matter how many times I come back to you. Like, she's never going to leave me. She's just going to make my life hell. So, you know, we might as well just keep doing what we're doing. I was like, okay, fine. So there was a period there where I didn't talk to him. It was this very, like, on and off. Husband gets out of jail during the time where Ronnie and I are kind of taking a break because he's like, oh, things are getting kind of hot at home. Like, we just need to not talk for a little while. Husband comes home. This is a fucked up story. The day we had to pick him up from prison to take him to the halfway house, me and his father went to pick him up. And he had instructed me that I needed to be dressed like a schoolgirl and I needed to hang up some sort of barrier in the back of the van because he wanted to fuck me on the drive back while his dad drove. So he told me what outfit to wear. His dad knew what was going on and was, like, all for it. So presented, you know, I think I was 19 at the time. I was like, here you go. So. And when we got in the back of the van, I asked him not to. I was like, look, your dad's, like, right there. Like, this is really not comfortable for me. And he didn't care. So he raped me for the next hour on his way to the halfway house before he had to sign in for being a sex offender while he was in prison. I found the actual court papers and the videotape he ordered was not 15 and 16 year old girls. It was 6 and 7 year old girls with daddy and friends was the description. So. And I'd started searching through his computer and found some other images too. So at this point, by the time he comes home, like I know that he's a. He's a for real pedophile. That was the period where I started getting really sick though, and found out that I had lupus and at one point my kidney was going to failure. Where was I going to go, right. I was really sick. I. Going back when I. Before we got married, I had gotten my GED. So at 19, I started a community college, was trying to get my degree, and for the next. Was it eight years. The pattern of this husband, you know, raping me and abusing me just continued. It got more and more violent. It got more and more aggressive. Anytime that, you know, I wouldn't do exactly what he said, it was chase me down and rape me.

[Host]

And were you still in, in communication with Ronnie?

[Alicia Seymour]

Off and on.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yep.

[Host]

And did your husband know about it at all?

[Alicia Seymour]

Do you think he caught. I can't remember how he caught on that I had seen him when he was in jail, but I know that he knew somehow and I can't remember how he found out, but that was probably one of the most violent rapes because he was punishing me. And then after that I did a better job of him not knowing that I was going down there. And Ronnie and I would have this thing where it would be like, we would talk and we would be really involved with each other for a while and then we would get in an argument about something stupid and I wouldn't talk to him for anything, eight or nine months.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

And then he would call me again.

[Host]

Okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

Or his wife would find out and then, you know, it would be eight, nine months. So it was this very back and forth kind of a thing. And that continued on forever. So I finally was able. About the time that I finished my undergrad, I was able to escape. The husband get away. He continued to stalk me. I actually just heard from him about two months ago. We've been divorced since 2011, 2012. And I know he still watches my social media. I know he's still around, but he has married a woman from the Dominican Republic and he wanted Me to write a letter for her to get, you know, citizenship saying that the husband is not a danger to her or anybody else. And he wanted me to write this letter saying he's not a danger so that his, you know, much younger wife from the Dominican could move over here. And I was like, absolutely not. Go fuck yourself. But after leaving, you know, Ronnie was an ever present part of my life. Had a couple of, you know, okay, relationships, whatever, but Ronnie was always there. Always. By the time we get to, you know, that's 10 years of us going back and forth. In 2017, I guess the last time I saw him was 2016. And at that point I was like, I can't keep coming down here. Like, I still want to be your friend. I still want to talk to you. But as far as, like, coming down and seeing you, like, I'm tired. I can't keep doing this. You're never gonna leave, right? Like, this is ridiculous. We've been doing that. At that point, it would have been almost 20 years, like 18 years. And I'm like, I'm just exhausted. I'm done with it. But we kept in touch. So met my now husband in 2017, had a baby. Getting back. I was in grad school in 2021. It had been about six months since I talked to Ronnie in the summer of 21. So somewhere around Christmas, he called to tell me to have a happy birthday or we had emailed something. I called him, and I'm almost done with my grad school, and I have. I started having these weird dreams about Ronnie. And sounds insane, but I've always had these really crazy, like, psychic dreams, and especially when it comes to Ronnie. And every single night for like a week, I was having these dreams. And he was telling me he needed me to call him. Like, you got to call me. You got to call me, gotta call me. You know, it's like, you. Like, I'm not calling you. Like, I'm in grad school, I'm in therapy. Like, I'm doing all the good stuff. Like, I'm not fucking dealing with this. So I was sitting outside in my yard, and my son at the time was 2, and I had this very clear image of somebody close to me was about to die. And I thought it was somebody down south. And my grandmother, my mother's mother was still alive and not in great health. So I'm like, fuck. Like, I really feel like this is the last time I'm gonna get to see her. We need to go. So I packed up, my son went To Tennessee, saw my grandmother, and just so happened it was the last time I got to see her. She died in November. But as I'm driving home, I'm still like, ooh, something's not right. Like, I've still got this really bad feeling about Ronnie. So I get home, and instead of calling him, he was part of this band. So when we weren't in touch, he'd be like, oh, check my band's Facebook page. Like, see what we're doing. Like, you know, whatever. So I get on Facebook, and I'm scrolling through, and I get to his band's page, and I find out he died that morning of COVID Ronnie did 56. He died in his sleep. Yeah. The face you're making right now is the same face that I made then. I was, like, even saying it right now, like, I can feel it happening. And, like, you knew that. I knew. I knew he was going to die. And then I was like, oh, fuck, I didn't call him. I should have called him. Like, there were all these things that we didn't talk about that we needed to talk about. Like, what do you. What do you mean? What do you mean he's dead? And at the time, I was still trying to, like, be friendly with my mom. So she was at the house, and my husband is there, and I'm like, I gotta go. Like, he kind of knew who Ronnie was. And I was like, I. Ronnie said, I gotta go. And I just. I lost it. Even now it's been three years, and it's fucking horrible. And you can't tell anybody, right? You're like, what are you supposed to say? This man, who was technically my abuser, who I loved, who was married, is dead, and I'm really fucking sad, and I don't know what to do with it. So at that time in grad school, I was getting ready to start doing my practicum and my internship, and I'm like, where am I? What am I gonna do? So I'm like, maybe I'll start researching grief and I'll work with hospice and as an art therapist. I found out we don't do grief very well, or we didn't. So I took everything that was going on and turned it into a book and really worked hard to work through my grief about Ronnie. And it's still. I couldn't go to a funeral, right? I couldn't go to his memorial service. Like, what was he gonna do, show up at the church and be like, hi. Like, I'm really sad, too?

[Host]

Well, you Know, I think that in. In the only way that you knew at that time and, you know, the time that he was in your life, like, you did love him.

[Alicia Seymour]

I did.

[Host]

So it's like, even if you can look back now and know that it wasn't healthy and he had issues and all this stuff like, that doesn't change or diminish how you felt. And you, like I said before, you weren't really taught the proper way, like, to love or who to love and everything in between. So that's who you fell for at that time and for a long time.

[Alicia Seymour]

Sucks.

[Host]

Yeah, I really. And on top of it, like, you said, you didn't have that sense of closure.

[Alicia Seymour]

No, no, it was just suddenly he was dead.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

And I was. I had had in my head for, like, the previous couple years, like, okay, well, we're going to sit down and we're going to have this conversation, and I want to know what was going through your head. You know, when I'm 13 and you're engaging in this, like, I want to have these conversations, like, we need to talk about it, and we never did.

[Host]

But do you really think. And this is just me asking it. Yes. At this point, knowing what, you know, if you were able to sit down and have that conversation, like, knowing that he wasn't in the right place mentally, like, what answer could he really get? You know what I mean? Like, it's just right.

[Alicia Seymour]

No, it's like, because I feel.

[Host]

And I asked that, and I bring that up because I feel like our brain, like, we. It's almost like we like to grieve, we like to be sad. Like, that's kind of like the natural thing to do sometimes. But I think that sometimes it's better for us to get to a place of healing on our own, especially when it comes to people in situations like that. Because, you know, your whole life, if you look back on it, obviously you were just involved with all of these horrible, horrible people. Now, like I said, that doesn't mean that you didn't have the right to love him.

[Alicia Seymour]

Right.

[Host]

You know, you did love him, and that makes sense, too. And that's okay. But does that make him a good person?

[Alicia Seymour]

No.

[Host]

Right.

[Alicia Seymour]

He did some really up things.

[Host]

Yeah. I mean, and I think that, like, you spent a lot of time, you know, like, over 20. What?

[Alicia Seymour]

20.

[Host]

Over 20 years?

[Alicia Seymour]

20. 28. 22. No, 20. 22. When Ronnie died.

[Host]

So.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. Like, 22 years.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

Of those type of people and men being your normal. And I think, too, you got to a point where you had something worse than him, so it made him look better and more gentle and more kind, which is also a normal thought to have, you know, and obviously, by no means should people, like, die, you know, like, you don't. It's not like saying like, oh, he's dead. Good. You know.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

Which I'm sure a lot of people would feel that way. Okay, understandable. But, like. But you know, for you and the way that you felt, like, obviously, even if you got to a point in your life on your own without him passing away, where you were, like, you know, he's not a good person, and I never want to see him again, that doesn't mean that you want him dead, you know, so it's like. It's one of those things where I just feel like, unfortunately, life doesn't always pan out and play out the way that we want it to. And, you know, in a lot of ways, even if you didn't get the answers that you would want or that he could even give in person, we naturally want that closure. We want that understanding. Because I think that it makes it. It makes healing feel a little bit easier. If we can get somebody to explain, like, why did you do this? Like, make me understand. And they probably can. Yeah. It's because it's not. It's not a normal mindset. You know, these people, unfortunately, they're very twisted. They're mentally ill in their own ways. You know, to. To target young and weak and vulnerable kids in sexual weight. It's. It's sick.

[Alicia Seymour]

It is.

[Host]

And it's. And it's sad. But once again, like, that doesn't change. You didn't know any better, and you fell in love with somebody that was there when you needed it.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

You know, and that's just the reality. And it's. It's totally okay for you to grieve that and be sad about it. You know, Like, I think that it's easy for you to have guilt for many different things or have these confusing battles within yourself of, like, oh, but he's this kind of person. And, yeah, he did so many things wrong. Why do. Why do I feel this love? Why am I still sad about it?

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

But I don't think people can really understand that unless they went through what you went through.

[Alicia Seymour]

It's really. And that's kind of what I do now, right. Is teaching people and working with grief and explaining, you know, in grief, we have something called disenfranchised grief, which is the grief that is not socially acceptable. That's not, you know, witnessed. And that's not just death, Loss. Right. My stuff is death and non death. So now it's very much about validating that grief that we don't see because there are a lot of people like me who have these really complex, really complicated losses and we don't know what to do with it. Yeah, right. I mean, truly, the art, making art and having that as my voice and being an art therapist saved my life. Not just now, but like, because you.

[Host]

Don'T have to explain it to people.

[Alicia Seymour]

And there's a ton of secret. I guess not secret anymore. Ronnie is in that book. I took a picture of him and put a nice golden cow skull on top of him because he was my golden calf. Right. Like, I worshiped him. So having a voice in the art and looking at all these different ways that we can kind of address grief because it is complicated. And it's never a matter of this clear cut, straightforward, you know, oh, I love this person and they died. It's usually a whole lot of other shit around it. And I really think that had it not been for making art at various times in my life, I would have killed myself. Like after the divorce, when my husband was raping me, you know, dealing with two chronic illnesses that keep trying to kill me. Art has always been there. And then this book became, you know, I took the pain of Ronnie and the death and was like, okay, we don't do grief, right, so let's do it the right way now. So I guess it's making meaning out of all of it right now. I work with a lot of trauma survivors because I can say, yeah, I get it, it's hard.

[Host]

And I think too, for, like I said, for a lot of people, they could hear parts of your story and not understand because they would just look at it from a outside perspective and from anger and like I said, like the sick, twisted reality of it. Yeah, but they didn't live through what you did. They didn't. You didn't experience anything but that your entire life.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah. And that's something that I think that we don't understand even in the literature, you know, going into this counselor role for a minute of we don't see just how dangerous and how lifelong that is. When that abuse starts that young, it's.

[Host]

Like ingrained in you.

[Alicia Seymour]

You're trained to behave a certain way. And the body does keep score. Right. I have two chronic autoimmune conditions. I have to get chemotherapy about every two years to keep me alive. I have extensive damage all of That I have no doubt came from all of that trauma and that abuse, like, and we, you know, I feel like there's a lot of judgment. Right. Coming out and being open about this is hard because.

[Host]

Yeah, people. Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

You know, oh, it's always the girl's fault.

[Host]

The thing is, people will judge, right?

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

And that might be. There might be like this big pool of people that judge you and judge what happened to you. But there could be another. Well, there is another pool of people that can understand so much and relate to you, and those are the people that you save, you know, and that's more important than the people that judge.

[Alicia Seymour]

And if you're gonna judge, then that says more about you than it does about me always. You know, that's just sad because, well.

[Host]

You can't judge something that you don't understand.

[Alicia Seymour]

Right. And I had anybody at any point along that line stepped in and helped me, I wouldn't have ended up where I did.

[Host]

And that's the thing, too, that people need to understand is you genuinely had no help and no guidance. No, you are where you are now because of yourself.

[Alicia Seymour]

At one point, just as like, this is systemic. When I was nine years old being abused, I ended up with crabs in my eyes, got an STD in my face, went to the emergency room, they took care of it. Nobody called anybody, nobody reported. Was like, well, okay, just put this on. Like, even nurses and doctors, when I had obvious signs of sexual abuse, were like, yeah, we're not going to do anything about it. So the system failed me. Everybody failed me.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

Over and over and over again.

[Host]

And what age did you start going to therapy?

[Alicia Seymour]

Did you say I going to therapy consistently? Wasn't until I was 34.

[Host]

And then you opened up, obviously, about everything to your therapist.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

And then did you feel like that really opened a door for you to better understand, like, your childhood and let you start healing, or do you think you kind of started healing prior to that?

[Alicia Seymour]

I think it. As much as I. I loved the therapist I had at the time, I think it was the self work that I was doing on this, and that helped with, you know, dealing with Ronnie. And it's only recently in the last year that I've started working on a lot of stuff with identity that I've had to now go back and look at this stuff and be like, what parts of me came from this? And am I okay with that? Right. Are there parts of me that I want to keep that are absolutely product of trauma or, you know, do I need to let those Parts go. So I would say it's only been in probably the last year that I've really been able to start really looking at the other stuff a whole lot deeper.

[Host]

And I think, too, you know, I always say this. I think the more open we can be about what we've been through and how we feel, I think the more we're able to genuinely heal and discover who we really are.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

I think that when we bottle things up and we have this shame and this guilt around things, it doesn't allow us to just be free. Yeah. And be like. Like, own it almost. And that doesn't mean we define who we are with it, but it is a part of you. It is a part of your past, and it gives you a different understanding of life and of what kind of people there are in the world. Because I think a lot of people are very blind to that, whether they just don't know or because they don't want to know. But it's very real and it's out there. And I think, too, I had. I can't remember what episode it was, but I had somebody else on that was talking about this, and I said, too. Even on the flip side of things, an episode like this teaches parents what to look out for. Because some people might, like, there's parents that are naive and might think, oh, that would never happen to my child. And there could be things happening at a church or things happening at a school, and you would have no idea. And it's really important to look out for those warning signs of, like, when your kid is acting out or. And doing these things. And obviously your mom, you know, didn't care.

[Alicia Seymour]

She was her own issue.

[Host]

But there might be parents that could pick up on these signs and these red flags that they wouldn't otherwise have known. You know, they could just think it's. Oh, it's behavioral or why. Yes.

[Alicia Seymour]

Right. I mean, I've. I've listened to other people on your podcast. You've talked about this stuff. Oh, my parents didn't know. Right. They didn't see it. Yeah. And especially when you get into that, you know, 13 and on age, we get really good at hiding it.

[Host]

Oh, yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

And we dismiss a lot of stuff as teenagers.

[Host]

Shame and, like, fear. I think, like, I think a lot of kids are more scared of being honest and saying what's going on than to just hide it and keep battling.

[Alicia Seymour]

It on their own. I just turned 40. Coming here is the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life.

[Host]

You truly did amazing.

[Alicia Seymour]

This Is. It's hard. Yeah, it's really hard.

[Host]

And I mean, I've said this, too. I don't think we're ever. I don't think we're ever at a point where we're fully like, oh, I'm okay. You know, like, this happens to me, but I'm fine. You know, it's always something that, you know, depending on the day or our mood. Some days you might feel stronger. Other days you might break down and cry about it. It just depends on. On that day and how you're feeling and what you're. What you're going through that week. But you truly did such an amazing job because all that stuff isn't easy to recite and go through and relive in a way, because when we talk about things, it. It reminds us of. Of those memories in that past. But, you know, you're an amazing person, and you should be proud of yourself for, you know, stepping out of. I feel like your comfort zone to come here and tell the most traumatic parts of your life. Yeah, it takes a lot to do that.

[Alicia Seymour]

It's for the greater good.

[Host]

It is.

[Alicia Seymour]

Right.

[Host]

Like I said, like it. Because it has to. Because I don't want to.

[Alicia Seymour]

People.

[Host]

No, there's people that could either relate directly or even just pick up on little parts of your story that. Yeah, you know, it's very educational and it's very important to talk about. And I think it's topics and conversations like these that for a lot of people, it might be uncomfortable or, like, you know, like I said, people don't want to know that things like this happen, but it's very, very important to talk about because it does. And I think too often people think, like, oh, like these are things we hear about or we see about on. On TV or documentaries. But, you know, it won't happen to me. It couldn't.

[Alicia Seymour]

And it does all the time. And part of me really hopes that, you know, the church people and everybody who tortured me for all those years hears this and knows, you know, what really happened. Like, there's kind of a redemption here.

[Host]

And unfortunately, there are just some people that either don't care or you could grill it into them. You could explain it. And some. I swear, like, there is, like, some sort of switch that just never was turned on, and they will never understand. Understand the damage that their actions or lack of actions caused for people. You know, I don't think people realize.

[Alicia Seymour]

That I suffered so much.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Alicia Seymour]

So much for Ronnie in particular. Like, just. And I miss him.

[Host]

And that's okay.

[Alicia Seymour]

You know, I wish I could scream and yell at him on the one hand, and then.

[Host]

Right.

[Alicia Seymour]

You know, and that's.

[Host]

That's grief. That's normal. That's trauma. That's a lot of things combined, but that's okay. And you don't need to ever validate or explain that to anyone. You are always entitled to feel the way that you want to feel and grieve the way that you want to grieve. You know, the only thing I say to people is just always do what's best for your best interest, you know, and that's it. But that doesn't mean that we're not entitled to feel.

[Alicia Seymour]

Yeah.

[Host]

Sad or. I think. I think if anything, if you deny those feelings, that's when you get into a.

[Alicia Seymour]

A worse place. So much worse.

[Host]

Yeah. It's just better to just let it in and feel it, but also allow yourself to heal and recognize the truth of it and, you know, know that you were dealt a bad, bad hand and you deserved better. A lot better.

[Alicia Seymour]

Thank you. Feels good to get it out now. People can stop asking me, yeah. Who Ronnie is in the book. And.

[Host]

Exactly. And be like, it's all right here. Right.

[Alicia Seymour]

Go.

[Host]

It's all right here. Is there anything else you wanted to add, or you think you got it all?

[Alicia Seymour]

I think we got it all.

[Host]

You did amazing, really.

[Alicia Seymour]

Thank you.

[Host]

Thank you so much.