Every 68 Seconds: Recent Episodes
Courtney Christiansen
In this podcast, we have honest conversations about abuse and trauma, especially sexual abuse. My mission is to educate and empower survivors to help them release themselves from the powerful stronghold that trauma's lasting effects have. I speak from my own experience as an abuse survivor and am committed to addressing these difficult topics in hopes that it will change the way we view and deal with trauma in our lives.
Y’all, this episode may be the most interesting one I’ve done yet. I couldn’t get enough of all this info from my new friend Leah Freeman Heim. She is a therapist and helps so many people who struggle with sex addiction and pornography, as well as couples who have experienced infidelity and “betrayal trauma”. Anyone and everyone will find something valuable out of this episode and I’m pumped for y’all to listen and learn so many new things like I did! Enjoy!
This week we get to hear from an awesome friend of mine who is an EMDR Therapist! She has the opportunity to help so many different people with different stories of their trauma, both “big” and “small”. I did not know much at all about this before so I was super excited to hear from her about what it is, how it works, and how effective it is. My hope is that y’all would learn some new things and maybe even consider doing this type of therapy yourself! Enjoy!
There’s things about my abuse story that I’ve left out in the past, and although it was intentional in the beginning, I’ve truly allowed my brain to stuff them down so deep that I no longer remembered them. I share more about why that is in this episode and get nice and vulnerable with y’all with the details of my own guilt. This episode wasn’t easy to record because of all of the things I worried people would think of me, but I felt it was important to do before moving forward in this season and wondered if others might be able to relate to even this part of my story. I hope it helps even one person!
This episode is so dang special! A truly amazing friend of mine visited this week and we had the most fruitful conversation. We talked all about how me opening up about my abuse and traumatic experiences to him grew our friendship tremendously and opened up a new door to growing in our faith alongside each other. This episode is longer, but it is truly one of my favorites to date. I hope you all enjoy!
In this episode, my anonymous guest shares her story of healing through two separate experiences of rape. As I listened to her story I was both shocked and encouraged by how much healing she has been able to find even through all of her circumstances. Listeners will get to hear what it truly feels like after an experience of sexual assault and the emotional toll it takes on a person, as well as the realities of how much it affects us subconsciously. I hope you all enjoy this interview as much as I did!
In my first interview with another survivor of sexual abuse, we hear the story of my sweet friend who shares about the struggles that happen when your boyfriend rapes you. It’s often believed or said that someone you’re in a relationship cannot in fact sexually assault you for many reasons, and we address why this simply is not true. We explore the struggles that come with and after an abusive relationship and my friend shares the reality of the healing process that she has recently started since her abuse. If you have been in a relationship where abuse a occurred, I hope that at least some of this story can make you feel heard and seen. For those that haven’t experienced this, I hope you can find better understanding of how rape can still occur in a relationship, and be able to support and believe more survivors that share their stories!
Sexual abuse invades every aspect of a survivor’s life, but rarely do we hear about those closest to the survivor that are affected. In this episode, my husband speaks to his experiences as a Significant Other of a survivor and how he has progressed with me in my journey of healing.
Whether we have given ourself labels or those labels have been put onto us, many of us that have experienced trauma and abuse find ourselves falling victim to those labels. In this episode I encourage listeners to take control of the labels they carry around and fight against them daily so that they may be able to begin healing. The longer we carry around these labels that don’t define us, the longer our abusers have power over us.
Do y’all know what a trigger really is? So many people have put their own definitions to this word, and have completely watered down what it’s truly meant to explain. I’m this episode I share what trauma triggers are and how survivors or trauma must take responsibility for dealing with those triggers. Although it is not our fault that we are left with triggers that are often debilitating, It’s no one else’s responsibility but ours to deal with and share those with those closest to us. I hope this episode is as helpful as others I’ve done, despite it being slightly controversial!
This episode is short and sweet and addresses the fact that many of us stay stuck focusing on things we cannot change or understand when it comes to our trauma. There is so much growth and purpose that happens when we recognize what we can and cannot change or understand, and begin to change how we deal with and heal from our trauma. I hope you enjoy!
It’s quite possible that many of us have been spiritually abused without even knowing it. My experience with spiritual abuse was really explicit with multiple types of abuse sprinkled within it. Two and a half years after my abuse, I can speak frankly about how religion was used to control, coerce, and shame me. This episode is so much longer than I expected it to be, so I hope you will still listen with open ears and an open heart. If you’ve been abused in the name of religion, I know what that’s like and I’m right there with you. My hope is you will feel seen as you listen to this and understand that there is a light at the end of that tunnel. Keep going, and if you ever want to chat with someone who understands, I’m here for you!
The term “narcissist” gets thrown around pretty often, but do we really know what that means? Narcissist Personality Disorder is an actual mental disorder. It’s spelled out in detail in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders and has multiple criteria for being diagnosed in someone. In this episode, I cover all of the diagnostic criteria or “symptoms” of someone with NPD and then share with you 11 signs that you could be with a narcissist.
We are switching it up with this episode and talking about how comparison in the world of trauma and abuse can prevent us from progressing in our healing journey. Whether we think our trauma wasn’t as bad as someone else’s or we wonder why someone else’s family supports them more in their journey, comparison will always make us believe things that aren’t even encompassing the whole story. I share 5 pieces of advice to hopefully help you stop comparing your journey to others. I have to give a special shout out the Debbie Neal from Level Up with Debbie Neal because I got this idea from her!
We all have probably heard these terms at one point or another, but do we really know what they mean? In this episode, we discover what abuse really is and go into detail about the 5 main types of abuse that are commonly used by abusers. Gaslighting is something that gets brought up often but almost never understood correctly, so we talk about what this truly is and how it is used to manipulate victims. We also talk about trauma bonding and how this can affect victims, keeping them in abusive relationships.
To my survivors, I hope this episode helps feel heard and helps you put a term to the abuse you've experienced so that you can really understand and come to terms with what you've experienced. For those of you who haven't experienced abuse, I hope this episode helps you to see abuse around you and better empathize with survivors that you know. All of you are so special to me and I can't thank you enough for being here to support this cause and spread awareness for this topic of abuse and trauma.
Please remember to share this with friends and leave a review on Apple to get this podcast to more people who need to hear it. Love you all!
There are so many different types of trauma that we can all experience in life. What many don’t know is how these experiences actually affect the brain. In this episode I explain exactly what parts of the brain are affected, as well as how they are affected both during and after trauma. Many of us who have experienced trauma go on to have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and although I can’t diagnose anyone with PTSD, I share about what it is and how it manifests itself in our lives in this episode. My hope is that this episode will allow you to better understand your own brain as well as the brains of other people who have experienced trauma and be able to show compassion for those working through the many ways that it can affect their lives.
It is widely believed in our society that sexual assault only happens to this idea of the “perfect victim”. There are certain situations and qualifications that must occur for it to be sexual assault. In this episode, I explain what sexual assault truly means, and counter 15 different myths that are commonly believed about the “perfect victim”. Although there are many more myths out there, these were the ones that stood out to my the most from my research and personal experience. I hope this episode makes survivors feel seen and even helps you come to terms with your abuse. I hope this episode opens the eyes of those who aren’t survivors but are trying to learn more so that they can help squash these myths. The idea of the “perfect victim” perpetuates lies and disbelief of victims and often leads to perpetrators being seen as innocent.
Many of us who have experienced trauma have a really hard time coming to terms with it. There are so many reasons why this happens, and many of them might be obvious to us, but sometimes we do a great job at hiding these even from ourselves. In this episode, I go through the top 5 reasons that victims of abuse will experience denial and have a very difficult time ever coming to terms with what has happened to them. This episode contains stories and examples that could be triggering to some audiences, so please use discretion about when and where you choose to listen.
These topics can be incredibly difficult to face, I even had some triggers and emotional difficulty come up when preparing this episode. But, this is one of the most important steps in dealing with your trauma, and I would say its absolutely necessary before we can truly talk about more of these topics related to abuse and trauma. Find a person that you can talk to about this, someone that you trust, and when you've finished listening, make a point to tell them your thoughts and experiences with these reasons that we often can stay in denial of our abuse. It is so normal, and none of it is shameful. The sooner we can begin to come to terms with our abuse, the sooner we can take control back from our abusers. I'm with you, I see you, and I love you all.
Every 68 seconds, someone in America is sexually assaulted. If we tried to include every kind of abuse, there wouldn't be enough seconds in the day. So if it's no secret that people are experiencing trauma and being abused daily in our world, why is it that we rarely have open and honest conversations about these topics? It wasn't until I experienced my own sexual trauma and abuse of multiple kinds that I realized the reality of how common it is, but also how silenced and ignored these stories can be. Despite hours of google searches and podcast episodes, I still have never been able to find the real answers and conversations that I was looking for in order to heal. As the host of the Every68Seconds Podcast, I will be opening up this conversation and answering these questions so that we can begin to understand each other and break free from the chains that trauma so quickly traps us in. You will hear from fellow survivors of all ages and genders, experts such as psychologists, therapists, and police detectives, as well as those who have survivors near and dear to their hearts. My hope is that you will find a home here, you will find your power here, and you will find understanding here at the Every 68 Seconds podcast. We all have the strength within us to rise above our abuse, and there are people in our lives who want to help us even when we don't realize it. Stay tuned for the first episode dropping Tuesday October 12, 2021.
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