Andrea Gunning

She saw no other path than to fight.

This choice, to revisit what happened to her, to trust other people with her story, has demanded a different kind of strength.

Jess and Saskia agreed to record a few of their sessions.

Saskia listened back to these recordings, and now she wants other people to hear them too, in the hopes that her breakthroughs might help somebody else.

In slowing down, Saskia's not only facing these emotions coming up through the podcast or sitting with her trauma from Mike.

She's going back further to her childhood to understand why she gravitated towards someone like Mike and to try to break that pattern going forward.

Remember, Saskia grew up as the youngest of four.

Her father struggled with mental illness, and her mom was busy keeping the family afloat.

It had a real impact on her.

She always had a lot of friends, but on the inside... I still felt so alone and like a freak.

For the first time in her life, Saskia's not dating.

Through this work and therapy, she's breaking patterns, sitting with her pain, putting herself first.

As I was listening to Saskia and Jess's last recorded session, I heard something that made me smile.

Saskia was looking back on the early days of working with us and how much has changed since then.

But slowly, through lots of interviews, check-ins, and visits, our team earned Saskia's trust.

Today, our conversations are as much about what happened to her as they are about what shows we're watching, what our pets are doing, good days and bad days at work.

Saskia's walls are down.

And to me, that's an honor.

We're really the first new people Saskia's let into her world in a long time.

Once the project ends, we're not going anywhere.