Seth Gehle: Reclaiming His Story

Leslie welcomes Seth Gehle to his podcast to tell his story. A survivor of horrible childhood rape, Seth tells Leslie the whole story up to his recent recovery and reclaiming his story.

Hosted by Leslie Dobson. Produced and edited by Liam Billingham. Mixed by Aaron Dalton.

Executive producers are Paul Anderson and Scott McCarthy for Workhouse Media.

The views expressed in this podcast episode are solely those of the guest speaker and do not reflect the views of the host or the production company.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Okay, you're here. My name is doctor Leslie and this
is intentionally disturbing. Today is a unique episode with Seth
giel Now. I usually talk more in these episodes, and
I'm funny at least I'd like to think so. But
Seth is new to telling his story about being brutally

(00:31):
sexually assaulted, and I let him have the space to
share his story. And Wow, the motivation that came from it,
the resiliency and the passion that you hear at the end.
I hope you enjoy it, and please listen all the
way through because there's a massive lesson at the end.
Allay here, So welcome Seth. Please can you tell everyone

(00:58):
why you're such an incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Some Yeah, first off, thanks thanks for the h for
having me here, Thanks for the introduction. Yeah. So, Seth Giale, speaker, author,
amongst many other things. I got into this whole world
of speaking and writing a book because of the life,
the childhood that I endured. Basically, I went through the

(01:23):
better part of about sixteen years of an absolute hell.
So I got the full gambit of childhood trauma, neglect,
and abuse, and that's you know, going through all that.
I don't think is super inspiring. But what I've done
on the other end of it, I think is, you know,
so I'm a combat veteran, national award winning construction professional,
and now speaker author. So when you talk about all

(01:45):
those things, those things are great. When people hear your backstory,
I think that's what's inspiring about it all. So and
you're thirty, Yeah, I'm thirty years old.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, like that's a lot to go through.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot as well. People
ask me you. I tell people I wrote a memoir,
and then they say, you're thirty years old. Well, what
do you have to write about at thirty years old?
And so anyways, the story is, you know, I was
born to a single mother, three kids. I guess she
wasn't single when I was born, but my father ended
up stabbing her behying the ear. I was about two

(02:17):
years old, so he went to prison. I didn't really
know him growing up. He was in prison. I met
him in prison when I was about seven or eight
or so. When you met him, yeah, I went to
the prison to go like meet my father. Like that
was like, who took you my mom?

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Oh? So she was she on good terms.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Them good terms is probably not the right word.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
I think she she she wanted to. I think we
were asking about our dad, and she's like, he's in jail,
you know, and she she talked about him a lot.
Growing up. It was always like negative things, you know,
like a dad doesn't hear, he didn't pay child's port,
you know, just just like negative connotations associated with him.
And so about six seven years old, maybe eight, I
remember going to the jail and that was my first time.

(03:05):
That's my earliest memory of my father is meeting him
in prison. As soon as I saw him, I knew
he was my father. I knew that's my dad. He
walked in and sat down, and I picked I was
the first one to grab the phone, picked it up,
tried to talk to him, and I couldn't talk. I
just started crying. I remember crying for twenty or thirty minutes.
I just couldn't talk, and both my sisters talked to him.

(03:25):
I couldn't. I just I was just broken. So I
always tell people it's like missing a piece of the puzzle.
There's like one piece of the puzzle that's missing, and
you finally find it and you just can't have it.
And that's kind of how I felt like. I don't
know if I realized I was missing my father my
whole life, but when I when I met him and
I realized like he's not in my life, that just

(03:47):
it just hurts so bad. I remember that day vividly.
I don't think I'll ever forget it.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Why did he stap her?

Speaker 2 (03:53):
I don't know. They got they got into a fight.
It's that he said, she said today. You know, my
mom says that that he was mad and attacked her.
He says that she was coming at him with the
knife and that he pushed her away and stabbed her.
You know, they I don't know what this. I don't
know the story of the scenario or the situation to
this day. So that's kind of how life kind of

(04:13):
kicked off for me. Yeah, and then, you know, five
years old, because my father was in prison, single mother,
three kids, She's trying to do everything she can to survive,
and so we were always in different babysitters homes. We
were always bouncing around different places and sometimes being watched
by babysitter, sometimes not. And the times that we weren't, unfortunately,

(04:37):
we came across My mom had a porn collection at home.
And so we found the porn. We started watching it
and as kids were you're just phs, yeah, yep, yeah.
We plugged it in, started watching it, and it's like
a train wreck. You know, you can't look away. You're just,
especially as a young at a young age, you're you're
just it's infatuating. You know, there's something about it that's

(04:58):
just captivating for kids, and you're kind of watching it
and then that kind of messes you up. It desensitizes
you a little bit, right, And unfortunately, you know, coupled
with that, at a babysitters home, they had some teenage kids.
One of them is maybe sixteen or so. He began
to molest me and.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
He was babysitting or you were at a babysitters.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
He was the son of the babysitter. You know. The
babysitter had like four boys and he was one of
the older ones. And at night he would pull me
up into his bunk and then he would touch me.
He'd make me touch him. You know. It wasn't I say,
it wasn't anything crazy, but it was all I can
remember about that was just touching, touching one another, you know,
which you know, it's still not good. Right, So, no,

(05:48):
that happened at five.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
I guess how do you process a year?

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, I you know, it's funny. I wrote about it
in my book. I talk about that happening. And when
you're a kid being molested or somebody's taking advantage of you,
it's like getting off the highway into a town that
you're unfamiliar with and you're just on a bunch of
one way streets and you can't there's no street that's

(06:13):
like turn left for mommy, turn right for daddy. You're
just on the street and you're just driving deeper into
the neighborhood because nobody's there to save you, and you're
just you're just in this place and you're just trapped
and you're stuck because you can't do anything about it.
You're just stuck. I ended up going to my grandparent's
house on a weekend. You know. Shortly after that, I

(06:34):
told my grandma what happened, you know, I told her that, hey,
this boy's doing this or whatever. They tried to do
something about it, nothing ever happened. Basically, the family denied,
which is typical that the family denied that their son
had done that, and we were still going back to
that house to be babysat. In fact, we ended up
living with those people. So my mom was so inconsistent
with work and things like that that she wouldn't be

(06:57):
able to take care of us at all. So we
would live with those people for a week or two
or three weeks at a time occasionally, and go to
school with her kids and all that.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
So you said he was touching.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
You, Yeah, and he kept doing it. I don't remember
it happening anymore after I reported him. I don't remember
it happening anymore. I think it only happened a few times.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
But you still had to be like in the home, yeah, sleeping, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, I don't. I don't remember a whole lot about that.
I mean about him specifically. I remember a lot about
that household and the things we did, but not a
whole lot about him specifically. Just I know that that happened.
So life goes on continues. My mom, you know, she
was constantly dating guys, getting in fights. The house started
to become more violent. She was always smoking weed, drinking with

(07:42):
her friends on the weekends or even during the week. Eventually,
she ends up meeting a guy who is a part
of a church. He gets her addicted to cracking cocaine.
So in addition to that, you know, my mom became
more more abusive. She became to you know, she was
always like verbally yell and screaming and cussing at us,

(08:04):
but she began to really put her hands on us.
You know, many many stories I could tell you about
her clothes hand punching my sisters in the mouth, hitting me.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
You know, she was high more often. She was more
into drugs too. Do you think it was there a
combination of drugs and violence that would escalat.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, it's a combination of it all. Yeah, It's just
it just kept getting worse.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
You know, you're a dad, I mean, like, could you
imagine doing that to your children or your wife doing
that in to your children.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
So not to say that I could imagine, but I
could empathize with why people do it. So there's there's
a lot of good studies out there, there's a lot
of good, good reading on it all. But when you
don't if you grow up and you grew up in trauma,
there's a reason why. It's generational, right, It's not like
it's a disease. It's not in your DNA. It's in
the behaviors, right, And so when you grow up and

(08:58):
nobody ever gave you that paternal instinct from a mother
or a father, it's not like this natural thing that
we have, you will likely do what your parents did.
That's just how it goes most of the time. And
so when people grow up without a mom and a
dad and they don't have a support system, you know,
they become these angry people, they become these resentful people,

(09:20):
and that's just what happens. So it's not right, But.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
You broke the cycle.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
I did. Yeah, Yeah, I mean I'm a bit of
an anomaly, and you know, just to dig deeper into
the childhood thing. So, because of all the trauma and
neglect and abuse just in the house, most of the time,
the kids will find and a resource outside of the home. Right,
they don't have anything in the home. They'll look outside,

(09:46):
and that's where you find trouble, right, whether it's gangs
or drugs or whatever it is. I had an older
friend who lived around the corner from me. He was
fifteen when I met him. I was ten. And he
had an older friend who his name is Mo. We
called him Mondo. His name is Armando Vesquez, but we
called him Mondo for short, and I met Mondo when
I was ten years old. He walked into my buddy

(10:07):
Jacob's house. He's six five sixty six, three hundred and
eighty pounds, massive guy. He's Hispanic, but you can but
he looks very pale, very pales Caan, but you can
tell he's Hispanic. He's got big like Dahmer style Avi
eater glasses on, long black slick back hair. He walked in,
introduced himself to me. He says, you know, what's your name,

(10:27):
seth Amando. Do you like football? I love football. Do
you like video games? Love video games? Do you like pizza?
I love pizza. He's like, all right, well cool. He's like, well,
why don't you come up to the house with Jacob
and we'll play video games all weekend? Sounds good, So
I go home ask my mom. My mom says, as
long as I'm with my friend Jacob, I'm good to
go to this guy's house. He's like thirty at this point.
Go back.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Adult man is inviting two young boys over.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, And he had known Jacob for a while at
this point, known him for a few years, And I
remember getting to his studio apartment. You know, walking in,
there's one big room, and the first impression was there's
multiple TVs and multiple game systems, which means we don't
have to take turns, which means we can play video
games all night long. Sit down, start playing video games.

(11:11):
There's pizza and pop that's ordered. There's no rules, you know.
We can eat whatever snacks we want, we can drink
whatever pop we want, we can cuss, we can do
all the things. You know, like this is like every
kid's dream hangout spot because there's no mom or dad
to come in at two o'clock in the morning till
you stop eating the chips or whatever. You know. So
we're playing video games all night long. It was awesome.

(11:34):
And I was really excited too, because like, I'd never
been anywhere like this. I never I didn't have a
friend who could drive, I didn't have a friend who
could buy me things, and so I was super excited
to be with this guy. And so Sunday came around
and I had to go back home. So he drives
us back home, it's about thirty minutes away, drops me off,
and you know, he says, you know, when do you
want to come back, and I'm like, dude, I'll come
back next weekend. So basically, from that point forward, I

(11:56):
started hanging out with him every single weekend, like clockwork,
Friday night, after he picked me up, he'd bring me
home Sunday afternoon. You know.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
And what grade were you in?

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Fifth grade or something like that, Okay, something somewhere around there.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
So freaking little Yeah, and an adult man is picking
you up every Friday and bringing you back Sunday.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, yep. So eventually begin to meet his whole family.
He never met my family, but I get I eventually
meet his family and meet his mom. I meet his sisters,
start going to his like Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Thanksgivings, Christmases.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
I'm like, they don't think it's weird he's bringing a
kid around.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
I don't know, I don't know. I start showing up,
and Mondo was the guy. He was like the big
brother that had the little boy kid friend. You know.
In fact, the first time I met his mom, I
had really long hair, had like down past my shoulders,
and I did look like a little girl. And his
mom tells me I was too pretty to be a boy.

(12:52):
So circle back to that here in a minute. But
after about two or three months of knowing Mondo and
hanging out with him consists only every weekend, and one weekend,
my my friend Jacob and I are there and Jacob
leaves on a Sunday to go get tacos, and while
he's at Taco Bell down the street, I told Mando
I was cold, you know. So Monda was like, well,
why don't you get my lap? He was he had

(13:12):
a blanket, So I get into his lap. I'm sitting
on his left leg and he pulls the blanket over us,
and I'm like nice and warm. I'm snuggled up with him.
And I had never felt this kind of like compassion
from a man, you know, so it was nice. Like
I laid there, laid my head on his chest. I
was nice and warm and comfortable. We're watching football Sunday

(13:33):
afternoon football, and his left hand is on my left
tip and it drops off and it hits my butt
and he says, I'm sorry, and I'm like, that's not
a big deal, Like if me and you bump each
other in the hallway, it's not a big deal, you know,
says set Us. Okay, and so he puts his hand
back on my butt and he says, so this is okay.

(13:54):
I immediately knew what was happening. I just I was like, okay.
I kind of feel like it was being at the
top of the roller coaster and be like, oh shit,
like this is the ride we're on. Okay. So I
froze up, didn't say anything. I hear Jacob pulling outside.
We hear the gravel kind of turning out in the driveway,

(14:15):
and he moves his hand away. Jacob comes in, We
eat our tacos, We go home. I basically that's when
I start to gaslight myself into thinking like this isn't happening,
Like that was just, you know, whatever's not going to
happen again. The man had clearly violated my body, and
I was telling myself it's not happening. You know, if
your husband walked in and punching the face right now,

(14:35):
I might say it didn't just happen, and it might
take me a minute to realize like what happened. And
by most of the time, when you do realize it's
too late, we say it's too late. You're like into
that realm of like what am I going to say?

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Now?

Speaker 2 (14:50):
I've already let it happen.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
You know, do you think you can be gas light
though or gaslight yourself at ten years old?

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah? I think anybody can. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because because
you don't want to believe it, You don't you don't
want to believe it, you know. I want to be
clear about something. This is about my story. Right Monday
through Friday was abuse, drugs, violence in my house, Okay,

(15:18):
Saturday and Sunday became basically a sexually abusive place. So
seven days a week, ten years old, I was trading
one hell for another, and it just it just got
worse and worse and worse as time would go on.
My mom became more addicted, more abusive, more violent. I
ended up living in a house where my bedroom had

(15:41):
a four foot by two or three foot hole in
the ceiling. No, I mean you could see straight into
the attic above. And the cold winters in Ohio, the rain,
the snow, the wind would come into my room and
I would lay there on a four inch mattress with
a thin blanket, freezing to death every night and just
wish to die. You know, ten years old, I became

(16:02):
extremely suicidal. Just I had ideation all day long, every.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Day what does that look like when you're ten?

Speaker 2 (16:11):
I thought about jumping out of my window. I thought about,
if I fall out of my window just right, I'll
break my neck and die. Thought about hanging myself, thought
about cutting myself, jumping into the river. I just didn't
want to feel pain. If I could do it without
feeling pain, I probably would have done it. But I
was so terrified of the pain of it all. Like
I was just scared of pain. I didn't want to feel,
you know. I wasn't scared of dying. I was just

(16:33):
scared of feeling it, you know, And so I wanted
to die. So all of these things were happening, and
you know, Mondo, he was the only person that I
could talk to reason being. He would listen to everything
I said. Not only that, but as I told him
more about my life. I didn't have a father, had

(16:53):
a single mother, had two sisters. I was getting bullied
at school. I was really smart, but I got bullied,
you know. I had a really tough life home. Mondo
would tell me the same things, right, so he would say, well,
I grew up with a single mom, I have a
couple of sisters. My father was never in my life.
I also got bullied at school. I was also very smart,
and he was a really smart guy.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
So was it true or was he mirroring you?

Speaker 2 (17:15):
It's hard to say.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
To draw you in and build your trust, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
It's hard to say. You know, I can't say, you
guess or no to that. I think most people would
say he was mirroring, right, that's part of the process
of grooming, grooming, right, building that trust, you know. And
so he became the only person that I could talk to,
and I would talk to him every single night, or
close to it. I'd call him at you know, at night.
And and so it's hard to say whether he was

(17:40):
marrying or if he was being sincere. You know, whenever
we were at his family events, his family didn't seem
to have a problem with him. He was definitely like
the odd ball of the family. You know. Obviously, hanging
out with a kid is weird enough. But you know,
he didn't have a family, he didn't have kids, he
didn't have girlfriends. He was you know, so he was
definitely the outcast of the family. But I don't know

(18:02):
how bad his childhood was, and relative to that, how.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Were his social skills around other adults.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
He was incredibly charismatic. He was the funniest guy in
the room. He was the big teddy bear. Everybody wanted
to hug him and love him, and he was the
epitome of a wolf in sheep clothing. He was everything
that you want out of somebody. And in fact, this
is one of the hardest things about sexual trauma, is

(18:33):
the person that is going to abuse you, Like I
said earlier, right, they're either very close to you or
in your household. Therefore they are a good person in
your life. Right, Mando is arguably the best thing that
ever happened to me while also being the worst thing
that ever happened to me. Okay, so most people, it's
like their mom and their dad, grandma, grandpa, cousin, uncle, whatever, Right,

(18:57):
that person likely played a pivotal role in their life.
They taught them how to ride a bike, taught them
how to throw a baseball, taught them how to do
their homework, took them to you know, vacations, had fun
with them. But they were also molesting them sexually abusing them. Right,
So while that person helped them develop, they also tore
them down at the same time. Mando was very much
that person for me. He was such a good guy

(19:19):
outside of the abuse. I mean, he was so funny.
He cared about me, he listened to me, he loved me.
And I think a lot of victims of sexual trauma
have a hard time admitting that part because it sounds disgusting.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
You know, built you a sanctuary, yeah, basically, but low standards,
horrifying sanctuary, right, but good enough can comparison to your week.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Right, right. And he would talk me through a lot
of things too, So like I would call him and
say like, hey, this is happening, and he would just
listen and he'd give me sound advice, you know, he would.
I mean, he really was helpful, truly with that, he
was also maybe just being deceptive and manipulative at the
you know, at the root of it.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
All, and it's time for a break. It's a common
question what makes a pedophile? And it's you know, was
he being deceptive and manipulative and or were you the
person he could connect to because he didn't have the

(20:21):
capacity to really truly connect to people his age.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, you know, he so that's what
that I would say, he was more than capable of
connecting with people his age. I mean we had adult friends.
We would hang out with adult friends, and I mean
he was he was a social butterfly. He would walk
into a room and everybody would light up and want
to talk to him, you know, which is what makes
him even more dangerous because why would that guy wouldn't

(20:45):
do anything?

Speaker 1 (20:45):
You know, So he was just sexually attracted to children.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Possibly, Yeah, I think there's a lot of just the
power dynamic behind it all, not necessarily sexual. That's what
I've read. You know that there is this, like in
sayable desire for power, and when you can manipulate people,
it does feel good. Speaking from experience, I'll probably get
into it later, it does feel good to be able
to manipulate people and to be able to control people's

(21:11):
emotions and you basically read their minds. It feels good
to do that. Yeah, So we built commonality, which is typical,
and everything just kind of escalated from that point forward.
From the time I was ten to twelve, you know,
every weekend it was like rounding the bases. It was
touching me and then you know, it would be you know,
a finger in the waistband, two fingers in the waistband,

(21:33):
the whole hands in the waistband. Now it's his hands
on my baar. But then he began to attempt to
penetrate me with his fingers, and then it began to
use his fingers on me. You know, I remember there's
a jar of vaseline next to his bed, and you know,
I still remember what it looks like today. I still
remember the scoops that you could see inside the jar

(21:54):
from his fingers. In fact, one of the more like haunting,
you know, details of it all. One time, he's trying
to use his finger and I told him it hurt,
and he said, what do you mean. You know, I
was like ten years old and he had long nails.
I told him, I said, your nails. I can feel
your nails. They hurt. And the next weekend I came
back to his house and he was such a gentleman

(22:16):
that he trimmed his nails for this ten year old boy,
you know, which.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Is fucking horrific.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, And those details, I think are I get. You know,
I can get pretty graphic. My book is pretty graphic,
but they're I think they're important because I think when
people hear molestation or I was touched or like, they assume,
like the weird uncle like kind of protected your butt.
They don't realize that people are like committing full on

(22:44):
sexual acts on children. Yeah, Like, this is not like
an innocent playground touch. This is like basically rape and
it is it is, right, So it's violent.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, rape, Yeah, because of your age and your size
compared to his.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, and so so it would just continue and continue.
You know, it went from him using his fingers on
me to eventually, I guess the term would be like
masturbating me and using his hands on me, and then
eventually he would ask for it to be reciprocated, right,

(23:23):
So he would ask for me to use my to
use my hands, and you know there's some pretty disgusting
moments in that too. I can remember the first time
I ever like, he pulled my hand down to make
me touch him. He was weren't underwear and everything was wet,
and I thought that the guy had pissed himself. Because

(23:45):
I was ten years old, I didn't know what this was.
I was just like, oh my god, this guy pissed himself.
In fact, turns out that he was so aroused that
he was basically ejaculating before I had even touched it,
which is just that's just disgusting, you know, it's just
it's just it's it's horrifying that so many kids are

(24:09):
experiencing this. And for me too, I didn't There was
no whenever we were back in his bed, there was
no clock back there. I didn't have it like a
frame of reference for time. I would just lay back
there in the black blankets, darkness, and I just knew
that when the beast was fed, he would leave me alone,

(24:30):
you know. And every weekend it became like this thing
where I just wanted to play video games and need pizza,
and he just wanted to do this with He just
wanted to abuse this little boy. And the longer I
fought off that abuse every weekend, whether it was a
few hours or one hour, whatever it was, the more
I thought it, the more manipulative he would become. You know,

(24:53):
he would just it was it's like mind control, where
somebody can reach in your reach in your head, grab
your brain and force you to do things you don't
want to do because eventually gets it gets exhausting, especially
as a kid ten eleven, twelve years old, it's exhausting.
You can't win that fight, you know. So it was
just and I didn't have a way to escape, so
it was just exhausting. So eventually you just cave and
you perform and you do what he wants you to do.

(25:16):
And so to circle back to the hair comment I
mentioned earlier, while he would abuse me, he would tell me,
you know, you're too pretty to be a boy, and
he would make comments about my hair, and he'd make
comments about my body, and as I hit puberty, he
would talk about growing and hair in different places and
he was like proud to like watch my body you
know develop, you know, you you know. By the time

(25:39):
I was twelve years old, I had experienced almost every
sexual act and experience you can have with somebody. I
had done with him. And over the course of about
two years, twelve years old, I get home from his
house one day. My sisters are at my neighbor's house,
which is weird, so I went there. They're watching a

(26:00):
TV show called Intervention and it's about getting people off
of drugs. At the end, we've never seen it before,
but at the end of the episode they post their
contact infhone. They say, Hey, if you know somebody you
can get them, you know, we'll come and do an
intervention and so we're like, oh shit, like we know, somebody,
let's get my mom on the show. Can't make this up,
you know, the coincidence is pretty uncanny. Walk outside, there's

(26:24):
a fire in the front yard. My mom's boyfriend walks out.
He's got blood over her shirt. He had just been
stabbed in the bathroom by my mom over some drugs. Oh,
cops pull up. They take my mom away. And I
basically I was living with like just raining people, people
that I knew, and then you know, they would tell me, hey,
you got to go, we can't take care of you.
And then I would go to somebody else's house. And

(26:45):
I'd go to somebody else house, and I bounced around
like four or five houses. My grandparents they took me
in so that they could adopt me. They found me,
they you know, And so I got to my grandparents house.
My sister's already there. The plan was for them to
adopt all three of us. I said yes, my sisters,
they said yes initially. About a week later they told
my grandparents they wanted to go back to my mom's house,

(27:06):
back to a house with no utilities, you know, no money,
no food, because my mom had manipulated them as well,
and convinced them to go back and live with her.
So I stayed with my grandparents. A couple weeks later,
I tell my grandparents had got this friend who I
want to hang out with. So in comes Mondo. My

(27:28):
grandparents initially were like hesitant, you know, the like nope,
we got to meet him, Like, you're not hanging out
with this man. So he Mondo shows up to the
house one weekend and gets a life out of them,
you know, right away, gets in the house. Boom, he's
back in the saddle. He's good. He's convinced my grandparents
he's a good guy. He tells him that, you know,
he had a bad childhood, and you know, he knows

(27:50):
that Seth had a bad situation with his mom and
he's just trying to help me out. So now at
this point, Mondo has become he has entered my family
of me going to his situations all the time. Now
Seth is the kid with the adult friends. Kind of crazy.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
It's very crazy, yeah, and very predatory.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Right, so now he's in he's in my house and
he's doing all the things, and you know.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
He's sexually assaulting you in your house.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
No, no, he would only ever do that at his house.
But you know what was crazy by this point, so
about thirteen years old. I was about thirteen years old
at this point, and I remember right around my birthday,
turning thirteen, going to his house and that was the
first time he he he rapes me, Yeah, rapes me

(28:39):
in its entirety, I guess, you know. So calls me
back to the bed. I remember the whole thing like
it was yesterday, pushes me towards his bed, you know,
hands and knees, and he rapes me, and I basically caved.
He had attempted to do this multiple times, and at
this point I kind of was just like I just
let it happen, you know, and I accepted my fate.

(29:00):
Basically that night, I remember going as soon as he
was done, he pulls out a towel, wipes me up.
I go to the bathroom, sit on the toilet, and
I'm just crying, yeah, getting things out of my body
and just wondering why this is? Why? Mean, you know,

(29:21):
why don't I have a mom, Why don't I have
a dad? Why the drugs and violence, the abuse? Why
all these things? And then even more of it was like,
you know, am I people are going to think I'm gay. Now,
people are going to think I have aids. People are
going to think, like, why are you sleeping with this man?
Why are you having sex with this man? People are

(29:43):
going to think all of these like horrible things about me.
So I can't say anything at this point, you know.
So I think before this night, maybe I wasn't reporting
him out of like the sake of our friendship and
the little bit of enjoyment that I did get out
at his house. But from this point forward, I mean,
I hated every minute. I mean I hated every minute

(30:04):
of it, period. But from this point forward I had
I had to protect myself. And I didn't realize this until,
you know, just this year, that I couldn't report him
because if I go and tell somebody what happened, I
have to admit that, like I was there and I participated,
and I did certain things, and although it was not

(30:27):
my fault, I was there and I was a participant
and said act, you know, whatever it was. And no
matter how much manipulation or deceiving or whatever you want
to throw at it, that's all true. But it's what
is also true is I was there and I participated,
and so I just didn't want to admit those things
to people, you know. I didn't want to get tested

(30:49):
and to see positive HIV or whatever on a on
a piece of paper. I mean, I was terrified. I
didn't know what any of that stuff was or how
it worked. But those are the things that I would
have nightmares about, you know, And I just so I
didn't want to report him. I didn't want to. I
didn't want to admit that I had done those things,
you know, and so keep it a secret. So a
couple years later, I was about a month away from

(31:11):
turning to sixteen. I was up at his house and
I had a younger friend who was with me. This
kid was thirteen or fourteen probably, and Mondo made a
comment towards him. Manda would make these same comments towards
me around other adults. So we had other adult friends
we'd hang out with, and when I was over at
we'd be over at their house hanging out and Manda

(31:32):
would say, Hey, well we got to go because you know,
we're going to go back to the apartment, so seth
them blow me is what he would say. Or I'm
going to go back so I can fuck set tonight.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
He would say that to other adults.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
He would he would say it right in front of
other adults.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
What would they do?

Speaker 2 (31:49):
They would laugh. If I was sitting right here with
my wife right next to me, and I said, hey,
uh me and hey Autumn, hold on, me and doctor
Leslie are going to go in the other room and
have real quick I wouldn't like. Why would I say
them for my wife? Why would I admit that I'm
gonna go cheat on her right in front of her.
I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
So you think he was just making it so obvious
that they wouldn't question it.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
It's just hiding in plain sight as all it is. Yeah,
it's saying the most outlandish thing in front of people
because what he had to hide. I don't have anything
to hide. Obviously, I'm not going to do this. And
so all these people would sit around and laugh, and
we'd go back to his apartment and things would happen,
you know. So he made a comment towards my friend
that night. I was playing the video games on the computer.

(32:32):
He says to my younger friend, you know, if you're
having a bad day, I could take you back in
the bed and blow you says it right in front
of me, and we both all kind of we know.
I think it was only three of us in the room.
We kind of laugh it off, but I knew what
was happening, you know, And this was the first time
I can ever remember him saying that to somebody else.
But then also my friend going back to the bed

(32:53):
with him, and I don't think anything happened to my friend.
I don't know he I don't think anything happened, you know.
A short time afterwards he comes out. And during that
while they were back there, I had messaged my other friend, Jacob,
who introduced me to Mondo several years prior. Jacob is
in college now. I message Jacob and I said, hey,
I got to talk to you tomorrow, and so he says, okay,

(33:15):
you got it. So Mondo comes out. Very long story
between what happens over the next twelve hours, but Mondo
ends up raping me that night. I go to sleep,
wake up. Mondo takes me and my younger friend home,
drops me off. First goes drop off my younger friend

(33:36):
Jacob shows up at my house and Jacob gets there,
I say, hey, man, I got to talk to you about
something I've been wanting to tell you this for a
long time. And we go back into my bedroom. I
can't say the words out loud. Basically, I'm just kind
of like stuck, can't say it. And he breaks the
silence with mondo, touched you, didn't he And when he
says that, I fall apart start crying. It's obvious it's

(33:58):
a yes. And after about five minutes he breaks the
silence again and he says, he did it to me too.
And so my friend Jacob, who was like my role model,
like hero, big brother, like father, man figure in my life,
he was like he was just my hero, like he
was just who this kid was to me. He admitted
that he had also gone through the same thing with

(34:19):
the same man, and we had no idea right between
the two of us, several years prior so, about ten
years between the two of us, between me and Jacob.
So we go out, we report him, go down to
the hospital. You know, nurses come in. They're doing the
whole forensic interview with me, the nurse, and the police officer,

(34:41):
Chad Couples from Bluffon, Ohio. He's the one who gets
called into the case. I tell Chad everything that happened
to me. We go back in. The nurses asked me,
you know, do you have anything at your house and
your laundry that you've worn to his house recently? And I,
you know, the room's really quiet, and I say, well,
you know, he just raped me about twelve hours ago,

(35:03):
and I have not taken a shower, I haven't changed
my clothes, like I have everything on me right now.
And the silence in the room was like deafening, like
everybody's just like holy shit. So they're like, okay, take
her clothes off, like we need to test you now,
you know. So they do the whole test. Chad goes
up and arrest the guy that night.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
How was that? How was getting a rape kit done
and all of that.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
I was just kind of like whatever, Like I knew
I was going to report him, and so once I
made that decision, I was okay with it, Like I
was like fine. I just kind of was like whatever.
You know, they swabbed me and a couple other things.
I don't really remember a whole lot from that, the
specifics of the kit, but you know, they did what

(35:51):
they need to do. I actually have all those records
in my possession. Now, which is pretty cool. But yeah,
Chad went up there, arrested him, and they got a
confession out of him that night out of custody, and
he only admitted to a couple of things.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
What did he admit to admit to?

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, so he admitted to attempting to have sex with me.
He admitted to abusing Jacob I think nearly an entirety
like everything. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
So he didn't admit to raping you.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
No, And he he said that, you know, he had
performed flatio on me several times and vice versa, that
I had done it to him several times, and even
the officers were like, explained what that is? You know?
So he says, oral sex. This is all like in
the in the documents and the police records. And so

(36:48):
he admitsed all that, and they were going to charge
him with eleven felony counts of like sexual misconduct. Then
he was offered a plea deal, so he got four counts.
So he was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, in twenty eleven, he was sentenced to ten years
in prison. What's really crazy about that is he ran
a haunted house in his hometown. So he ran a
hanted house out of his mom's front porch and Bluffton,
Ohio on Main Street. Thousands of kids would come through
every year, and he was sentenced to ten years in prison,
although he admitted to basically, you know, sexually abusing, raping,

(37:27):
molesting two boys, and he'd so he'd be free today.
Fortunately enough, he died in prison twenty nineteen. He died
about a year or so before he's supposed to get out,
supposedly of a staff infection.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Do you think that's true.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Probably? Yeah. A lot of people say like prison justice.
But from what I know, there are so many pedophiles
now they get their own ward. They're not in the
general population, and they're protected, and they're some of the
most peaceful people in the prison because that's how they operate.
They don't operate by forest. They operate through manipulation. You know,
they have no reason to be forceful with anybody. It

(38:03):
doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
right back. How was it when you found out he
was dead?

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, so, well, I'll say one thing real quick. When
I reported him, just to be clear, like this is
what kind of was crazy? Is I just went back
to school like I just like, never went to therapy,
never saw a doctor, never like, no treatment nothing. I
was just like back to school. Life goes on like
nothing happened basically, and I kept everything a secret. I

(38:36):
found out he died while I was in Afghanistan. So,
you know, I joined the army whatever, go to the
you know, go through the military. I had a combat
tour in twenty nineteen.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
And okay, you joined the army and you were deployed
to Afghanistan. Yes, for combat, Yeah, okay, that's massive.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yes, my deployment wasn't anything like. It wasn't we would
say like kinetic. It wasn't. There wasn't a lot going on.
My deployment was very calm and relatively peaceful as far
as deployments go. We didn't lose anybody. I didn't have
any direct contact. I didn't have to kill or shoot anybody.

(39:21):
The most that we had were some rockets that come in, which, yes,
it is terrifying, but it wasn't like this like heroic
movie scene kind of thing that you see. You know.
What made the situation worse for me was childhood trauma
kind of kind of exacerbates the effects of war, so
it makes it worse, you.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Know, So can you say more.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
You're in a you're in an environment that's chaotic to
say the least. You know, there's just a lot going
on when you're sleeping at night, you know, if a
rocket comes in, that's really the more terrifying ones because
you can't see anything.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
And you're in full gear all the time.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
No, that's like a big misconception. You know, you're you're
you're rarely in kit. You're really rarely in here most
of the time. You're kind of walking around and just
your uniform, you know, doing kind of admin stuff. Or
because I was just a regular army guy. The Special
Operators they're out running and running a gun and they're
out doing a lot more than we were. We're just

(40:21):
we just were not special We weren't a Special Operations.
So we were a q RF, which basically means quick
reaction force. If one of the Special Operation guys would
get into a situation they needed help. Basically, if one
or two of them were shot, they would call us
and we would come in and save them. Because we
just had a massive a massive so humble.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
If someone was shot, you had to be ready at
any minute to go save them.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah. Sometimes, yeah, yes, there's a lot to it. But yeah,
but it's I know it sounds like crazy, and it is.
It is. It is crazy.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
I mean war is crazy, right, it is crazy.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
It is.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
But the fact that your whole youth was war leads
you to interpret being in war as not that big
of a deal.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Well, most guys would. Most guys would explain it the
same way I'm explaining it.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Really.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. We circle back and answer
your last your question. When I found out he died,
I didn't really care. And when I found out my
abuser died, I was in Afghanistan. I got a call
my wife said, hey, you know Mondo died. I said, okay,
didn't affect me. I was like, don't really care whether
he died or lived. I say that now if he
would have survived, if he was still live today, I
don't know how I would feel. I can't say how

(41:41):
I would feel because he's not here. I could assume
that I probably wouldn't care. But given today's day and age,
where you can find anybody on the internet, you can
find out where they live, all those things, I can
imagine maybe I might have different feelings, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Because he he would have been out.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, he would have got out in twenty one.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, So.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
What would that have been like.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to say,
you know. I think I think part of me would
maybe be a little worried. But I didn't care. I
mean I never thought about him, like I never thought
about the situation never, you know, I was never scared
of him getting out, Like I was never worried about
him finding me. Like, none of that ever concerned me.

(42:26):
So I don't think it would have affected me, you know.
But I can't say that uncertainty because it never happened.
You know, you never got out. So but there is
this interesting thing with you had mentioned like my childhood
being like war right, which it absolutely was my childhood
is It's funny when I tell people I'm a combat veteran,
you know, they're like, oh, wow, you must have seen

(42:46):
some shit. It's like, not, really, I didn't really have
a bad time in the army. All of my pain
and suffering came by the time I was sixteen years old,
you know. But there's this thing when I joined the
military where, especially when I got to Fort Bragg, North
Carolina when I was in eighty second and eighty second.
There's a lot of former Rangers, former Green Berets or

(43:06):
current that are there. There's just a lot of Special
Operation guys that are there, and I would always look
at those guys like they were like heroes and they
are just some savage human beings there certainly are. There's
a rigorous like testing process and selection process they all
go through, and I would always look at those guys like, man,
I wonder, like, what how hard their life is compared

(43:27):
to my childhood. And in recent conversation with a buddy
of mine, he was talking to a navyco about this
similar situation. And one of the interesting things about the
childhood that I endured is in comparison to our Special
operators as I didn't have a Belder ring. So I

(43:47):
didn't like choose my path, I didn't like sign up
for this, And when I got tired and hungry and
wanted to quit, I didn't have like a belder ring.
I didn't have somebody fifteen feet away in a warm
truck saying like, hey, man, if you quit, you can
just get in this truck and we'll go home, and
you can just stop. I didn't have that. I had
no option but to continue moving forward. Right, So I

(44:08):
think that was kind of like a crazy thing. And
to even go further down that rabbit hole of the
difference is is I don't get some award for this,
Like I don't. There's no accolade that I get for
the survival of my childhood. There's no like badge that
I get to wear that says X y Z. In fact,

(44:31):
I don't even get a title for nothing. I don't.
I'm not a Green Beret. I'm not an Avy CeAl.
I'm not a marine raider. I'm not a pair of
jumper or whatever pair rescue. I'm a survivor. I'm a victim.
I am I fit in this box with other people
that are damaged from broken, addicted, suffering generational trauma. Right,

(44:53):
So that that is that is the award that I got.
That is the accolade that I carry. Right. So these
people that you see like that are side homeless and addicted,
like that, that's their tab that they're wearing on their shoulder,
that says what they've been through, Like that's the that
is their selection process. Was their childhood likely that put
them in the in the place that they're at, and

(45:13):
that's the accolade that they get to wear, that's the
representation that they get for the rest of their lives.
So there's there is an interesting thing about, you know,
not having that bell to ring as a child, to
just quit and give up and survive. You have no
option but to survive, and then what do you get
out of it?

Speaker 1 (45:31):
What do you think that did to you? I mean
you talked about one way streets earlier.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
What do you think my childhood did well?

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Trauma is different when it feels like a one way
street that you can't get off, right, compared to trauma
in the military, where you know it's time limited and
you can leave. Yeah, how did that make you who
you are or change who you when you were?

Speaker 2 (45:59):
My childhood said me up for failure in a lot
of ways, in the same way that it made me
who I am as being a resilient and tough individual.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Right.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
But that resiliency, it can only be utilized if it's
like captured, Like you have to capture it and understand
the gift of adversity, the gift of trauma. If you
don't understand those things like I did not understand those
things for a long time. I talk the way I
talk now, and people think like, Wow, you're just an
incredible person. It's like I have not always been like this.

(46:29):
This has been a process.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
So if you're talking to a group of big, burly
men who don't want to be seen as people who
have been molested or raped, what would you say to them?
How do they capture the resiliency.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
This Whatever you're going through in life, you're having a
hard time, you're struggling, you're resentful, you lack empathy and
compassion and love of those things are hard to express. Like,
you're not alone, You're not the only one. I think
everybody feels alone. I think everybody feels like I'm the
only one that's going through this. I thought I was
the only one that was going through it. And to

(47:13):
be honest, like you're not special, Like you're not special.
Everybody has trauma, Everybody has adversity, whether it hits you
in your childhood or in your adulthood, Everybody's going to
go through it, you know, So you're not special. So
I think if we get past that and get out
of our heads, because what I would do is I

(47:34):
would say fuck you like, you don't know what I've
been through. You aren't shit, You aren't as tough as me.
You aren't I could put whatever I want on you
because you've not endured the same thing that I have.
So I have this inherent resentment for you, right, And
what you have to do is turn that into a
level of like compassion and empathy. So now instead of

(47:54):
saying you know what, you didn't have an addicted mother
and a father who spent his life in prison, Now
I say, I am so happy that you had good parents.
I'm so glad you did not have to experience what
I went through. It doesn't make me any better or
you any worse or any less.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
But how did you find that shift?

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Well? I had to read a lot of books. I
read several books. There is a you have to have
empathy for people. Okay, if you can't have empathy for people,
you can't have empathy for yourself. You have to understand
that what you went through, or whatever pain or suffering
or whatever crap you went through, it likely changed you.

(48:38):
You went through it, you survive, You're good. You can.
You have to be able to look back at yourself
and be like, Okay, this person went through these hard
times and now they're okay now, and maybe they made
some mistakes, maybe maybe some of it was your fault,
you know, and understanding that it's okay, Like this, it's
okay because when you look at other people, you have
to look at them the same way, like that person.

(48:59):
You can't look at them on the surface like something
probably happened to that person that made them who they
are today, or didn't have him. They probably didn't have
a mom and a dad to take care of them,
and that's why they are the way they are. Once
you have that level of empathy and you're able to
acknowledge your pain, you know a little bit, and say, okay,
you know what, I've been through some hard times because
I wrote my book three times and deleted it three
times before I told my story, because I would write

(49:21):
it out and I'd be like, nobody gives a shit,
like this doesn't matter, like it's not a big deal.
But once I finally committed to it, and I was like,
you know, this is going to make an it, this
is gonna make a difference, It's going to make an impact.
Once I acknowledge that, I mean, that was powerful, right,
And the next step is is owning it. Now. Okay,
you've had some hard times, got it, you had some
bad pass and trauma, adversity, got it. Now you need

(49:44):
to own it. And ownership is just taking responsibility of
the things in the future. You cannot control what's in
the past. Everybody's got one, so you might as well
do something about it now, Like, that is a decision
that people have to make. That is it. That is
a hard decision, and it's a decision that you have
to make repeatedly. People ask me, like, you know, Seth,

(50:04):
how do you wake up and be grateful every day?
It's a decision. It's an attitude. It's Empathy is an attitude.
Gratitude is an attitude. It is not this like magical
pill that you take it one time and now now
I'm just I have gratitude for everything. It's like, no,
I have to actively do it. Right. I got on
the plane this morning, I was hungry, I had a

(50:25):
five hour flight, got out here, I was hot, tired
and hungry, and I'm fine. I'm happy. I'm good. Why
because I chose to be You know, I chose this route.
So if you chose the if you choose the path,
of resentment and anger and fear. If you choose those
things every day, that's the life that you will live.
And until you decide to choose another life, that's going
to be the one that you that you get stuck with.

(50:47):
You know. And when I got married and I had
two kids, and I was in the military, and it
was time for me to start getting out, like I
had to choose what Seth was going to be. Was
he going to be the guy in the corner at
every holiday event who's just pissed off at the world
because nobody had it as bad as him, or is
he going to help people realize that to be honest,

(51:07):
nobody gives a shit about your past, Like nobody cares.
Like we can sit here and talk about it, and
I can have the empathy for you, and I can
have the compassion and say, man, that's tough. I understand
where you're coming from. But at the end of the day,
it's not gonna get you a job, it's not gonna
get you paid, it's not gonna put food on the table,
So you might as well make a decision to be like,

(51:28):
you know what, from this day forward, I'm moving forward.
I might I might mess up. I might have a
couple of bad days in the future, but I'm gonna
kick back up and I'm gonna keep fighting because like
everything I've been through, whatever the next obstacle is, whether
it's writing a book or telling my story or being denied,
it is not gonna be the thing that stops me.
It's not gonna be. That's not it. It's just not.

(51:49):
That's not gonna be the thing. All this shit that
I've been through my life. That's what I would tell
other man, All that shit that you've been through, and
you're gonna let somebody's interpretation of you hold you back.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Yeah, they're going.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
To think less of you because you're this big man
with a beard and you do jiu jitsu, or you're
a combat veteran and you run ultra marathons, and you're
worried about like this fucking person who's sitting on the
couch not doing shit. You're worried about like their opinion,
Like it's an attitude. It's an attitude, and then decisions
and it's a daily thing. Everybody, like I said, everybody

(52:24):
thinks it's like I'm happy now and I'm good and
successful and I can talk now and whatever write a
book like it doesn't happen like that. Man, It's a process.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
It's hard fucking work, and its action. It is so
in a sense, you stopped looking back and you stopped
looking inward. You started looking forward and letting people be
in your forward vision, and now you can motivate them.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
Right. That took a lot of work, though, I mean
that took The first thing I fixed, oddly enough, was
my leadership style in the military. I read a book
when I was right before I left for my deployment.
I read a book about extreme ownership by Jocko. Willing.
Started reading that and so, Okay, I need to fix myself.

(53:08):
I need to own my life and own and take
responsibility of everything that's in my life and going forward. Okay.
Then I fixed my financial problem. Me and my wife
are massively in debt, so we got out of debt.
Fixed my educational problem. I went and got my degree. Okay.
The next thing was, you know, the dead last thing
that I fixed was my marriage, which should have been

(53:29):
the first thing in reality, but that was the hardest
thing for me to fix. It was so hard for
me to tell my wife that I loved her. I
was in so much pain, Like I could not tell
somebody that I love I could not tell my wife
that I loved her, because I loved her more than
anything else in the world, and I loved my kids,
but I just could not express that to her because

(53:54):
it's just it's just hard. It's just so hard to
express that for somebody when every bit of like love
and compassion and all of those things has been ripped
from you your whole life. You know, my wife had
a mom and a dad, and brothers and sisters and
a good family, and came from good money and all
those things, and so it would just piss me off
to think that, like I could love her. So that

(54:16):
was the last thing that I fixed. And I mean
I tried to divorce my wife multiple times. I pushed
her away. I was resentful of her.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
What would what did it mean to tell her you
loved her before you were.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Ready to It was very like in passing. It was
just like love you too. It didn't mean anything, you know,
I just said it as like a formality. You know.
I was so resentful of her in so many ways.
I would get so mad that the house was dirty.

(54:48):
I'd get mad that the dishes weren't clean, the laundry
wasn't done. She wasn't raising the kids the way that
I wanted her to raise the kids. She wasn't going
to the gym that I wanted her to go to.
She wasn't, you know, getting the job that I wanted
her to get. And it didn't matter what she did,
it wouldn't gonna be good enough for me. Why because
I chose that resentment towards her. And this is the
reason why so many people that go through this get divorced,

(55:08):
right because sheet she is the easy target. She's in
the room. She everything she did didn't matter what it was,
I could put it in the hate bucket and just
hate her for it. Right, And it was and that
So I talked about this earlier, controlling people's emotions and
being manipulative while I was doing that to my wife,
and it did feel good. I could come home and
not talk to her for four or five days because

(55:28):
I knew it'd pissed her off. And I knew if
I could piss her off like it just felt so good.
And if I wanted to make her happy, I'd go
buy her some flowers, tell her she's pretty and she's happy,
and I'm controlling everything in this in this house, and
so that domestically violent relationship that people find themselves in,
while I found myself in that, and I was the abuser,
you know, the gas lading. I was the gay. Yeah,

(55:48):
I was the person doing all the things that had
been done to me. Fortunately enough for my situation and circumstance,
I was able to finally hold myself accountable and fix
the damn problem. And the hardest part of that was
coming home and tell my wife I loved her, and
texting her and telling her I love her every day.
You know, those are things I didn't want to do,

(56:09):
so I had to do those things even more.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
And that was the change.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
That was the change to.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Let her in or see, it's.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Just a change she was. It's changing from resentment to gratitude. Right.
I had to change my mindset into into thinking, you
know what, my wife is so comfortable with me and
loves me so much that she's willing to let me
see these ugly parts of her. That she doesn't clean
the house sometimes, and that she's not perfect, and that
sometimes the dishes aren't done, and sometimes she doesn't put

(56:41):
away the clothes, and sometimes you know she was, so
she loves me so much, she's willing to let me
see this deeply vulnerable side of her right that she
would not let anybody else see. She didn't let anybody
else go into her closet right or look into u
where she didn't let anybody else go in the house.
And the dirty dishes when I come home, there is

(57:02):
but if a guest comes home, there's not why because
she has a higher level of respect and appreciation for
me that she doesn't care. She knows that these things
don't matter.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
But I think that's a key point too, is that
you were abused, and it sounds like you abused her
emotionally at least, and then somehow turned again to being
okay and doing it right. So there is a there

(57:31):
is a way to fix the relationship when there's that
level of manipulation and gaslighting and well, it takes a
lot of self hatred.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
It takes a lot of empathy, gratitude, It takes a
lot of forgiveness. When I see people that I'm married
for a long time, the secret is forgiveness. It's just
those people have forgiven each other many many times over
the years. My wife has forgiven me. I mean I
literally told her, you know, I don't want to do
this anymore, and she just used to leave and she's

(58:01):
forgiven me for all the things, and so I have
also to her, you know. But it's it's a it's
a combination of a lot of things. Part of that,
at the end of the day is being disciplined in
your and your ability to take responsibility for things. You know.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
And can you tell us a little bit about where
to find the book, where to find you future plans?

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Yeah, so the book is on Amazon. That's really the
easiest place to find it. Strengthen on the shadows it'll
pop up, so uh yeah, go in there and buy it.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
And it's a black book with a little adorable babyface
on it.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. If you search in Amazon, if
you look that up or my name, you'll it'll pop up.
It should be the first suggestion. You can also buy
it through my website, which is Seth Gail dot com.
My last name is g e h l e dot com.
And then I'm on Instagram, is like really the biggest thing.
If you want to find me, it's just Seth Underscore Gale.

(59:01):
You know, from this point forward. It's me kind of
traveling speaking, sharing my story, helping other people overcome adversity, trauma,
you know, things like that, just building resiliency. That's kind
of where I think I'm headed. I think we talked
about this prior, but I think so many people hear
sexual abuse in my story and they think that like
it doesn't apply, you know, like this story doesn't apply

(59:23):
to me, and reality, my story is just about being resilient.
It's not about child abuse, it's not about whatever. It's
about being resilient and overcoming adversity. Everybody's going to have
it at some point in life. Every single person will
face adversity or trauma, and if you're not prepared for it,
it's going to kick your ass when it comes. And
that's what I'm trying to do is help people prepare

(59:44):
and understand it.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
I love it. Thank you, I love it, Okay, thank
you for being here. Thank you for coming to Los
Angeles and eating Tay food with me.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Thank you for ordering like four entrees for me. That's
the first time anybody's ever done that. It was awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Well, and I'm on a zempic, so I knew you
were going to eat it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
All, yeah, it was good. I'm like mega bloated, but
it's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
As there am carbly MSG thank you for listening and
taking the time to get to know Seth that this
was a really serious topic, one that's very close to
my heart and one I openly advocate for that we
need to speak out, that we need to say their names,
we need to call out predators, and by doing that,

(01:00:28):
we become stronger together and we stop the harm that's happening.
There is no shame in this, There is only power
and resilience. Fact you next time unintentionally disturbing all.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Hey

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
You're here,