Heather Simon's powerful story unfolds as she discusses the abuse she faced from an early age and the pivotal moments that shaped her life.

The episode highlights the stark reality of her childhood, where her father's violence created a traumatic environment for her and her siblings. Yet, amidst this chaos, Heather found strength in the support of caring adults in her life, which helped her envision a brighter future.

As she reflects on her journey, she shares the moment her father died and her mother was arrested for his murder, a tragic turning point that brought both relief and turmoil.

Heather's narrative is not just one of personal struggle; it’s also about her commitment to advocacy and change. By sharing her experiences at conferences, workshops, and with legislators, she aims to alter perceptions around domestic violence and push for reforms that support survivors.

Her story serves as an inspiration to others, demonstrating that healing and empowerment are possible, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Takeaways:

• Heather Simon's journey from abuse to advocacy highlights the importance of resilience and hope.
• The podcast discusses the long-lasting impact of childhood trauma and the journey to healing.
• Creating a safe environment is crucial for children who have experienced trauma, as highlighted in Heather's story.
• Legislative changes are needed to protect survivors of domestic violence and child abuse more effectively.

You can connect with Heather on her social platforms at:

FB: https://www.facebook.com/HomeLoanServices

Instagram: @journeyback2_me

The music in this video is copyrighted and used with permission from Raquel & The Joshua 1:8 project © 2025 All Rights Reserved. All rights to the music are owned by Raquel & The Joshua 1:8 project © 2025 All Rights Reserved. You can contact Raquel at https://YourGPSForSuccess.Net

I've walked through fire with shadows on my heels Scars turn to stories that taught me to feel lost in the silence found in the flame now wear my battle cry without shame this isn't the the end it's where I begin A soul that remembers the fire within.

Welcome back to another episode of A Warrior Spirit, brought to you by Praxis33.

I'm your host, Daryl Snow.

Let's dive in.

My show is all about warriors and warrior spirits.

And today I have another warrior joining me.

Heather Simon is a survivor, an advocate, and a storyteller who turned a childhood of abuse into a life of hope and resilience.

Abused from the age of three, she grew up in survival mode, never sleeping through the night until the day her father died.

A moment that brought calm but also tragedy as her mother was arrested for his murder.

Even in darkness, Heather carried hope.

At five years old, she believed her future could be different.

And with the support of teachers, coaches, and mentors, her positive childhood experiences, she began building a new life.

And today, today, Heather is a proud mother of two.

She's a wife.

She's also a mortgage lender of more than 30 years, helping families achieve home ownership.

And she shares her story nationally.

Easy for me to say.

Speaking at conferences, workshops and universities, and works with legislators to change laws and perceptions around domestic violence and child abuse.

Heather's journey proves that even out of fire, new life can rise.

And, Heather, I really appreciate you joining me today.

Thank you for doing this.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

So that's quite the bio.

That's quite the condensed version of the history.

Childhood abuse and changing laws.

Unfortunately, you have no shortage of necessity for what you do.

But let's step back into the early childhood for a moment.

Obviously, an abusive household.

Your bio states that your mom was arrested for the murder of your father.

Can you expand upon that just a little bit?

So I grew up in abuse.

It was pretty bad.

I remember as far back as three years old when the first time my dad hit me and it was just a continual cycle.

If we, if he beat us, more than likely he beat my mother.

A lot of times he beat her, but didn't necessarily beat us.

You just never knew what was going to set him off.

When things were really bad.

A lot of times we would be dropped off at my grandmother's or his mother's, and it could be for a couple of days, it could be weeks on in.

It was just a deep psychological cycle that just kept going along with all the physical abuse.

Jumping forward a lot of times we would call the police, we would ask for help.

We would, you know, beg them to take him.

And they never would.

They, they.

They would do what I call taking him.

Walk him around the block and bring him back and tell us, oh, he promises he'll never do it again, which he always did.

Then probably it was my eighth grade year.

My middle sister happened to be out of the house.

She was a juvenile delinquent.

She started getting in trouble as early as five years old.

The first time she was on probation, she was seven.

And again, the system never asked us what was happening in our house or anything like that.

Then when my eighth grade year came around, my mother finally had had enough.

She kicked him out of the house.

She was able to support her.

And I, My oldest sister was married by this time then.

My eighth grade year was the best year ever.

It was the first year I'd never had been hit.

And it gave me a taste of what life really could be like.

Then my freshman year of high school, I came home and actually came out of school, and my sister was sitting on my boyfriend's car, and I'm like, oh, you're home for a visit.

And she said, no, I'm home for the courts.

Let me come home.

And by the way, dad's moved back in, too.

So there's a lot of chaos, a lot of controversy.

What had happened was that in order for my sister to come home, they.

The court, the judge said that my dad had to move back home, and that was the only way he was going to let her come home.

But the backstory to that is the reason why my sister was coming home in the first place, is the group home that she was in.

They were trafficking the girls.

They didn't call it that back then, but they were trafficking the girls.

They were.

The state was coming in and shutting it, shutting down the group home.

But the judge wanted to put my sister back in juvenile hall.

And my mother is, like, begging the judge, please just let her come home.

She needs to get therapy.

We need.

She, you know, I can take care of her.

My.

But the judge was like, unless he moves back home, she's not coming back home.

Just you and your sister and your mom.

Yes.

I know in the 70s, it was very difficult for women to not be, you know, with their husband, abuse or not.

I'm surprised that still in the early 80s, that the judge would mandate that.

We lived in a small town, California, and so they still, you know, let's face it even today there's still a lot of small towns.

I live in Oklahoma now.

They're small town Oklahoma judges that are the same way, that still have that old fashioned attitude that it takes the two parents and so they let my sister come home.

And the important part of this is that my sister's probation officer stood up in court and even said there was abuse in the home, that they did not recommend that he moved back home, but that my sister needed to move back home.

And the judge was just firm.

And so my mom finally was just like that's fine because she need, because my sister needed to come home.

So fast forward three years and it was just a few weeks before my senior year of high school.

I had a full ride scholarship.

I was just looking forward to getting out of the house and just had to make it through my senior year, take a few classes and I would be gone.

It was just a typical summer day and I had actually seen my mom that day, spoke to my dad on the phone.

They were meeting up because he needed to give stuff for me to get clothes and you know, different things.

She had kicked him out that summer too and she was trying to file for divorce and finally had had enough of the abuse.

And I think part of it is, you know, just being stronger, knowing she can support herself, she could support us knowing that I'm leaving in a year.

My middle sister was, had joined the Navy at this point and my older sister just had a baby, so she just became a grandma.

So went out, spent the day, did normal teenage stuff and came home.

And my middle sister was hysterical and literally pulled me out of my car as I pulled up and ran and pulled me inside the house.

And as we went into the house there was a flash of our parents, cars on the screen and the news talking that there had been an incident involving a husband and wife.

And so we knew that was our parents because my dad drove a very distinct car.

And so we're freaked out.

But I'll be honest, what we thought was that he had finally killed her.

That was our first response because all they said was one was DOA and one had been arrested.

And so my older sister lived out of town and so we had to call her and let her know.

We literally called her and said mom's dead, he finally killed her, you need to come home.

We don't.

We were just going to figure this all out then by in California the News is at 11 o' clock.

And so by time 11 o' clock came rolling around.

By this time we haven't heard anything from the police.

Nobody's come to our house, nobody has let us know what's going on.

By the time 11 o' clock rolled around, we found out that he was actually the one dead and she had been arrested.

And as strange as it sounds, we all just kind of let out a sigh of relief.

We were able to call our sister back and let her know because somebody was one of our cousins was going down to pick her up because she just had a baby a few weeks before.

Her husband couldn't bring her up.

He was in the Navy.

So we had time to call her and tell her what had happened and we were just like, okay, well everybody's going to know the truth now.

And the truth is that he's terrorized us and abused us all of our lives.

And that was how we became front page news just before my senior year of high school.

How, how long was it before the incident occurred and you guys were told anything?

The police actually never came and questioned us.

They never came and informed you?

They never came?

No, no.

She, she was arrested at 9 o' clock and they finally let her make her call at 3, at 6 in the morning and let us know that she had, they were booking her on first degree murder.

Wow.

And, but she didn't know what was going on.

All she kept saying was, he's going to come after you guys.

She, she did not comprehend that he was dead.

And she just kept saying, he's coming after you guys, you need to leave the house.

He's going to be really mad.

I'm safe here.

And we're just like, mom, he's dead.

And she's like, no, he's not.

You know, he's not, you know, he's coming after you guys.

I'm really sorry.

And I made him really mad.

And she just could not comprehend that.

So they, they actually booked her on first degree murder and set her bail at a half a million dollars.

That says a lot for the level of abuse that you all endured as a family, that she felt safer in jail than anywhere where he might possibly be.

And we, and we felt safer that he was gone.

Man.

How she.

They had met in a.

It was summertime, it was early evening for mid evening at 8, 9 o' clock at night.

They had met, they set it up.

I, I basically set it up with them.

So that was years of guilt that I had to deal with that, that.

And he met her out in the parking lot and he just all of a sudden started getting mad at her.

She was in his.

Her car.

He was trying to bust in the windows.

There was even a witness that testified he was on top of her, of her hood, trying to kick in her.

The windshield of her car, yelling and screaming.

At no point did he ever yell, I need help, or she's trying to hurt me, or any of that stuff.

And so she's just trying to get away.

And it was a busy parking lot.

It was a pizza place and, you know, a strip mall.

And it was, you know, a summer night, so people were out, the parking lot was packed, and she was just trying to get away.

And he got caught up between the two cars.

And to be perfectly honest, we don't fully understand what happened because they had, like, 20 witnesses testify, but everybody had a different story.

And my mom completely blanked it out.

She remembered him trying to get her, and she remembers being arrested, but she doesn't remember all of that in between.

She just remembers that she was trying to get away.

Was she exonerated?

No, she was not.

She was actually found guilty of second degree murder.

The first trial was hung jury.

The second trial.

So my mom was one of the first women in California to use the battered women syndrome as a defense.

And in the second trial, the judge instructed the jury that they can't use that as a defense.

It's not a viable defense.

And they would have to throw that out in order to find her guilty or innocent.

How long did she serve?

Very sorry that she never got the exoneration she deserved.

She did in a certain way.

They did a documentary, my mother and some other women who were in prison for the exact same thing and proof that there was abuse.

And we had proof.

There was in the 70s.

There was.

My dad was arrested one time, and then he tried to drive them off a cliff at one time.

And so he was committed for a few days for that.

So we actually had things to prove the abuse going all the way back.

But there's other women that are in prison across the country that were in prison for the same thing.

My mom was.

So they started a group in the prison that she was, and it was for battered women.

And they actually fought and helped bring a law.

And I'm sorry, all of a sudden, I forget what the law is.

But it's a law that allowed the women that had been in prison and weren't allowed to show the abuse and that they were defending their lives.

That passed in California.

It was the first law in the country that Passed that way.

My mom was allowed to.

And they went back and wrote another bill that allowed her to get a new trial.

So there is a lot of wonderful things.

And several women were able to get out of prison because of that bill.

And my mother and several other women were able to go to the state capitol while they were in prison and testify of why this bill needed to be passed.

And now this bill has been passed in several states across the country and was just passed last year here in Oklahoma.

A version of it was just passed here in Oklahoma.

So you said you had a full ride, full scholarship.

What was your school?

What was your.

Where was your path headed prior to this incident?

Where.

Where was life taking Heather at that time?

I was going to the school around San Francisco, and I actually had the opportunity to get two full rides from two separate schools.

I chose the one up by San Francisco.

I was going to go for astrophysics.

So the best way to explain it is I loved physics and physical sciences, and I actually had wanted to be a fighter pilot when I grew up, but my eyesight wouldn't let me do that.

So I thought, hey, you know, I design them.

So that was.

That was what my goal was.

So, obviously, both parents were no longer available to care for your younger sister, and you were almost graduated.

What happened to the two of you during that time?

Well, I'm the youngest, so my middle sister.

Yeah, I'm the youngest.

My middle sister was just getting ready to go off to the Navy.

My older sister was married and just had a baby.

So everybody just left me alone.

Nobody came to check on me.

My.

My family, our relatives did, of course, but nobody from the state or the county or the police or anything like that came to look, you know, check on us, see how any.

You know, see how I was going.

See how.

Making sure I was showing up to school.

Such a horrible system that we reside in.

So how did you get through the last part of your senior year?

And where did life take you after that?

Honestly, I barely made it through my senior year.

I blew my first semester and failed government because for some reason, well, at the end of my junior year, I thought it would be a good idea to have government zero, period.

Well, that didn't work out after everything that happened.

And so that was the only class I needed to graduate, and I blew that and I blew my scholarship.

I'll be honest, I didn't take it very well at all.

About a Month, month and a half after I turned 18, my senior year of high school, I attempted suicide.

And my boyfriend at the time lived up in Northern California.

And I'm here today because of him.

He just.

Different events kept happening.

He knew something was wrong.

He couldn't get a hold of me.

He kept actually calling the police, asking them to go check on me, and they just kept brushing him off.

But like the fifth or sixth time he thought he was calling, he finally said who my mother was.

And then all of a sudden, then they were, then they were like, oh, how, what do you mean?

Do you think she hurt her?

And they were, they're like, no, she didn't hurt her.

I think she's hurting herself.

Can you just go and check?

And still, even after all that, nobody just bothered to check to see how we were doing.

And so how did you turn your life around?

Because your bio, you know, at the age of five, you believe that their future could be different.

Life took you down a horrific path all the way through your senior year, and yet you turned it around somewhere to where you're able to help others change legislation and live a better life.

So what, what turned your life back on a better path?

I actually recently learned about this the last few years.

So there is what they call acid adverse things that happen to you in your childhood.

And it's a question of 1 to 10.

Well, mine's a 10, so that's very scary.

And then there is, it's the op, the opposite they've been working on the last 10 years.

Plus is positive things that happen in your life.

And I believe I was just, I looked for all those positive things in my life as soon as I walked out of that door every day, I pretended that wasn't my life.

I went and looked for, you know, I was fortunate enough to have amazing teachers.

I was in band, I was in sports.

I was a straight A student most of my life.

And I was just determined that this just was not going to be my life.

Five years old, I would line up my Pooh Bear and all of my animals and have conversations with them and, you know, have conversations, you know, God, that I know these were choices he was making this that I didn't.

I was never bitter.

I was bitter at him, but I was never bitter at life.

And even when that incident happened and I'm, you know, my family's front page news and now all of our deep dark secrets hidden behind closed doors are all out for everybody to judge us and make comments and, and snicker and you know, you see people in the grocery store line when you're on, you know, front page news on the newspaper and comments that people made.

I still went to school that first day of my senior year and was like, I'm going to just keep going.

And I think I've just been very fortunate to have amazing people in my life.

And that was my paces, my positive things in my life.

I just always looked for those.

No matter how, you know, how bad things got.

It was like, okay, tomorrow is just going to be another day.

Tomorrow is going to be another day.

And even on the attempted suicide, that really changed my whole trajectory because it just made me like, that's not what I want to do.

I, I have a lot to do.

I, I, I want to live life.

I want to, I think more than anything, just the, the drive in me, I think a lot of it when I was younger, in my early 20s, was just to prove to people that I am not what my circumstances were.

And you're a mother of two now.

I'm a mother of two.

The two grown boys.

Married or not?

No, neither one ever is married.

No, I meant you.

Oh, I am married.

I actually just got married for the second time a little over a year ago.

And it's just been amazing.

My ex husband and I were married for 26 years, so.

And we're still, you know, we're still close family.

We still go out to dinner with the boys, you know, that type of thing.

That's very important.

My boys learned at an early age they had to know what our deep, dark secrets were.

I never wanted to hide anything from them.

Plus, you know, as they were getting older, that's when the Internet was coming out and they could easily just Google and find out things about their grandmother.

And I didn't want that to be how they found out.

And I also didn't want them to be ashamed that because they had nothing to do with that, I stopped the cycle with me.

You know, we always had open discussions.

I did not spank them while they were growing up because I knew that's in me.

But it doesn't mean I was a perfect mom.

I still made mistakes, just as all moms do.

And I think they probably became my number one determination just to change our family's history and rewrite our family story.

And I actually didn't share a lot.

When we moved here to Oklahoma, I was actually kind of happy because then nobody had to know my story as opposed to being in our hometown and people seeing and running into people.

So it was really great.

I was on the advisory board for the Governor's Status of Women years ago, and they started doing this research project of.

Because Oklahoma has one of the highest incarceration rates for women.

And they just.

One day we're talking about, we should go visit prison.

We should go do this, and a lot of stuff.

And I just happened to just stand up.

I don't know what possessed me to or anything, but I just stood up and just was like, this is how it works.

Da, da da da da.

And this isn't a room full of women that are running, you know, helping run the state of Oklahoma.

And I'm just.

They're like, how do you know this?

And I'm like, well, let me tell you how I know this.

And that just started me on a trajectory of not.

I have nothing to be ashamed of.

My boys have nothing to be ashamed of.

You know, he's the one that caused all the turmoil.

He's the one that chose to live the way that we did.

And so I just.

From there, from the state capital of Oklahoma, I just started sharing my story.

And.

And how do you find the sharing of your story has changed your perception of the story or how you actually internally feel about it?

Honestly, I think I still carried around a lot of.

Especially when I was on that advisory board.

I was on it for several years, and there were times that I felt like I don't belong in this room.

And one day they did.

They literally rolled out this piece of paper, and they were talking about the likelihood of a woman in Oklahoma being in prison.

And they had like 20 different things.

And they just kept going.

You know, here's, you know, a parent that's been in prison.

Drug use.

Da da da da da.

I didn't have drug use.

I was very fortunate that I never turned to drugs.

But they just kept going up.

And I was like, they were already at 18, and I'm like, well, I'm supposed to be in prison.

I don't know why I'm here with all these women.

I don't deserve to be here.

I don't.

I don't think it was until probably around the time that my mom died that it was like, I finally realized I just have nothing to be ashamed of.

And I did the best that I could.

And just looking at my boys one day and baseball is our thing, and going, you know, at a baseball game and just going, who would have thought?

You know, I know I had people betting against me, and I was pretty proud of that.

And so I just Started sharing my story more, but more confident, like this is my story.

I have nothing to be ashamed of.

And if.

And I've.

And I've learned and still to this day you get.

People react differently to it.

And I've just learned to be like that.

How you perceive my story is not really my business.

I'm just here to share my story.

And hope is, is the word that comes to my mind all the time.

That that five year old girl in me had hope that I was going to have a different life.

And that's what I've done.

I've just designed a different life for me because I wanted something very different for my boys.

And how did a life of abuse and the way that it was, I don't want to say resolved, that's a bad word for it.

But the way that it ended.

How did that experience of a lifetime alter your relationship with men?

Once no parent was there, you're in high school or getting through high school and then of course having to traverse the adult world.

So how did it play?

I actually, I like how you're getting a little personal here, Darryl.

A good question.

And honestly, I used to date.

The best way I explained it is like I kind of dated like a guy.

I didn't really care about their feelings and keep them around until I got bored with them and then I would date somebody else.

My attitude towards guys was a little bit different because even though I had all of that, one of the things that I did was when everybody moved back home my freshman year of high school, it took about two weeks for everything to start brewing up again.

And it took about two weeks for my dad to hit me again.

And I actually stood up to him and told him that he would never hit me again.

And when he drew back, he drew back his.

He had already hit me.

He was getting ready to hit me again.

He drew back his fist.

And I just told him, if you ever hit me again, I'm gonna kill you.

And he just looked at me and was like, how are you gonna do that?

And I said, I'll burn the house down with all of us in it.

I lived this whole year.

I know what it's like.

I'm not going back.

I'm just not doing that.

So he put down his fists and just stood at me and he goes, I believe you.

And I said, you should.

You will never hit me again.

And he never did.

He still hit my mom.

He no longer hit my sister, but.

So he stopped hitting us.

But he still hit her.

He hit her More secretly.

So I, I know, especially now as an adult, I didn't know back then that that was a very pivotal moment in my life, that I was standing up for myself.

I was saying no more and I just wasn't going to take it anymore.

And so that continued on and I think that's part of how I navigated that.

And I wasn't perfect.

Made some mistakes through the, you know, dated some people I shouldn't have dated, you know, but we all do that.

That's part of life.

But also at the same sense, I was very fortunate that I had some very wonderful men and their families that made very positive influence on me.

And I dated several guys that had really great families and that helped me heal as well because I could see that, oh, this is how normal families act.

This is, you know, they get together every Friday night for dinner and, you know, the kids and the grandkids and everybody.

So I think I just, I just didn't.

In my early 20s, I just kind of had the attitude I wasn't going to take any crap from anybody and was going to do whatever I needed to do to survive.

And did the relationships that you had with those that came from a more loving family atmosphere shape your perception of men differently?

Because admittedly, you said you dated like a guy, which, you know, is a clear picture.

So at some point, knowing that they were of equal or better value than what you had allowed them to be up to that point had to change, otherwise you wouldn't have had a 20 plus year marriage.

So were some of those family nuances of the guys you did date kind of helped change that in you, or was there something more dramatic than that?

I think that, you know, there's something about being 20 years old and visiting your mother in prison that definitely changes your perspective on life.

But also at the same sense, you know, in my early 20s of still protecting myself still, I felt safe when I was by myself, but I didn't necessarily feel safe.

And not that they did anything to me, they were not physical to me or anything like that, but I still was searching for being, needing to be safe.

Because there's just something about when you grow up as a kid and that does change your outlook on life when you're not, when you don't feel safe.

When you, when an abused child grows up in an abusive home, you know, they may be able to sleep at night and sometimes they won't because everything starts up.

You start hearing the screaming and yelling, but when you wake up first thing in the morning, you you listen to what the house is saying to you.

You don't just jump out of bed and just be like, okay, it's time to get up.

Or even on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons.

You're like, oh, time.

It's time to get up.

You actually lay there for a few minutes to see is there yelling, is there screaming?

Is there.

What kind of day is it going to be?

You learn to listen to the house like everything could be going great, and all of a sudden you just hear him raising his voice and you know it's time.

Just get out of the house.

Just get out of the house as quick as possible.

So it took me a long time to be able to feel that.

And so I knew it was possible.

With the interaction with the different families and the loving families, I knew that it was possible, but I knew it was still something I had to work on.

And so as you encounter others now who are going through similar experiences, how do you help them navigate those waters?

A lot of it is just, I have found over the years people just like to share their story with me.

And I have been very fortunate that there has been a lot of women and some men who have told and shared things with me that they've never shared with anybody before.

So a lot of times it's not necessarily me giving any words of wisdom, it's just letting them talk and work through some of the feelings that they didn't even know they necessarily had.

Being a good listener, right?

Yes.

And I find that that it, that it's like their little kid inside of them just needs somebody to be in a safe place and just be able to.

This is what I went through, this is what I.

What happened to me.

And I've had a lot of very successful prominent women sit down with me and next thing you know, we've been talking two or three hours and they just are astonished that the things that they told me.

A lot of times it's like my husband doesn't even know this happened, or my friends don't even know that this happened.

I hear that a lot.

But I find when you're able to actually listen, then people will share more because they feel like even though you've been through it, they feel like you understand their version of what they've gone through.

You go ahead.

I'm creating a safe place for them.

So who created the safe space for you?

I'll be honest, and this is nothing about my ex husband.

You know, we had a good marriage, we had a good life, you know, but we were Just going two different places.

My boys were my safe place, but it's.

My husband is the one that for the first time I have ever felt safe.

And after a couple of months, after a couple of months of dating, he would.

We lived in two separate towns and so he would drive over and he.

And we would plan to go out to dinner, do all kinds of stuff.

And then I'd be like, no, I just want to stay home.

And then we would be having conversation and I just fall asleep.

And I tease him all the time that I'm surprised that he didn't think I had narcolepsy or something because that's the first couple of months that we were dating, that's all I wanted to do is sleep.

And I had never, never understood that.

And I never knew that was a thing for me until I started digging and doing more research.

And at that time I had also learned and met the two professors that have done all this research about Paces.

And so it just started letting me learn and understand that he was my adult paces.

And for the first time, I just felt safe.

And it took me a couple of months to realize I was waking up the morning because even as adult, you still do that.

You still just don't jump out of bed.

When you grow up in trauma, you still kind of lay there, see what the house is going to tell you what the mood of the house is.

So I no longer have to do that.

My husband is my safe space.

So you were able to sleep because you felt internally safe to be asleep?

Yes.

Wow.

And does he, or did he understand where you came from to develop those safety mechanisms throughout your life?

Because this isn't your first date story.

You don't start off by, hey, you know, this is who I am.

Well, I kind of did with him, you know, because it, because it was a couple years after my ex and I split up and I wasn't sure if I was really ready to date.

It wasn't a priority for me.

A friend had just suggested just try it out.

And so I kind of, I'm not gonna lie, he'll.

He, he tells people all the time.

I kind of was just like a little bit of smart ass.

It was just like, call, don't call, I don't care kind of thing.

And apparently I actually don't remember it that much, but apparently on our first date I just kind of was like, just kind of.

We already been sitting down, having coffee, all of that.

And I was just like, yeah, my, you know, my family is front page news and it wasn't good for good.

It just kind of left it at that.

It went on.

So it took in a couple of dates.

I kind of did.

And I don't know if it was just because I was feeling that safe space with him or what.

It was just I. I kind of found myself going back to those pre marriage, you know, thoughts of, you know, I don't have to date, I don't need a man.

I don't know.

I had a. I was with my ex for 28 years.

You know, it just, you know, wasn't something that was really in my wheel house yet.

And I found myself in my early 20s doing that.

Like, if I was liking a guy, just be like, hey, my mom's in prison.

How do you feel about it?

And just see what their reaction is.

And as you would suspect, a lot of people were intrigued.

Some people were just like, yeah, that's just too much.

And I think I was kind of doing that with him at first too.

Like, let's see if you're serious, let's see if you really want to stick around kind of thing.

What day is visiting day?

Yes.

The yes.

I actually was dating a guy in my early 20s and he had asked me to marry him.

And my response to him was not yes or no.

It was, do you see your kids going to visit grandma in prison?

And his answer was no.

And I respected that.

And I said, well, there's your answer, because unfortunately, if we have children, they're gonna go visit grandma and she's in prison.

So it's.

It's not that I expected anybody to jump on board and go, hey, yeah, that's great.

But it was just a fact.

And even that way, I think how it's helped me get through my adult life is I'm just a matter of fact person.

I just kind of say what I want to say.

And that's one of the things that I took away from that because the trials did not go any way we thought they would.

And what was the most disappointing about it was it didn't seem like it.

When you grow up and you learn about our system and everything like this, you know, they.

Innocent until proven guilty.

Well, until you get caught up into the system, that's really not how our system works.

And it was, it.

It was very, I don't know, for a lack of better words, sad to learn that at a very early age.

And so I think I took away from that was, people are going to hear what I have to say.

And if you like it, great.

If you don't.

That's your problem.

That's not my problem.

This is just the way it is.

These are the facts.

And I think I've taken on that attitude.

And as an adult, because of I wasn't given that opportunity to sit.

You know, I had to be on that witness stand multiple times.

And to not be able to say what I wanted to say just was like, wrong.

It just.

In the second trial, the judge starts yelling at me and telling me he's going to hold me in contempt because I'm stating facts, but it's not the facts they wanted to hear.

That's crazy.

The psychological aspect, not just to you and your sisters, but to your mother taking a life, whether it's intentional, not intentional, whether it's survival or on purpose in some way should affect a person.

Was your mother able to ever forgive herself for that action, even if she didn't remember the action?

I think that there was a part of her that still there.

There was a lot of guilt that she had to deal with.

It wasn't just the fact that she had taken her his life, even though it was in a period of time where she was fighting for her own life, that not only she did that, but she knows it changed our lives and what we had to deal with.

I don't think she ever fully forgave herself.

I think she did the best that she could.

And one of the things that I know that truly helped her on her journey was what she was able to do.

I mean, her and a couple of these other women, you know, to do what they did and to go and testify in front of legislation in state capitol.

I mean, that's just not a common thing.

And they have.

And even though she has passed away, the women that have gotten out have done things for their communities, but that law just has changed so many lives.

Because now it's not just in California.

Now it's here in Oklahoma.

Now it's in multiple other states, it's in Texas.

It's in all these other different states.

And it's changing laws.

And hopefully one of the reasons why I go out and talk about the things that I talk about is I want to bring things out from behind closed doors.

We still have this attitude of the way that I see it, dealing with law enforcement and legislators and different things is your family is your property.

So in a lot of states, we'll use Oklahoma as an example.

If you were to kill your family and go next door and murder your neighbor, you'll get more time for the neighborhood than you will for your own family.

Wow.

And until those actual laws change, because those are, because, because your family is considered domestic laws, then once you walk outside of your house, then those are the, what you would call regular laws and domestic laws are very different.

And until we change that mindset and we can change the mindset of judges, then we're still going to have a major problem with this.

And so I want my, I am not a licensed anything.

I wound, I did go to college, I wound up dropping out to raise my family.

But I truly believe until we talk about it more, it's less taboo that a woman can stand up and she can, you know, call the police and the police are going to believe that he, you know, she was just abused or you know, tied up in captivity for several days because her husband didn't want her to leave the house.

Until we're believing these stories, I don't think things are going to change so drastically.

Yes, we're able to help these women that can now possibly get retried.

Can now women that are in the states like Oklahoma where they have this law passed, they can, women can actually now moving forward, if they were defending their lives and their abuser died during that commission of the crime, then there's a chance these women aren't going to go to prison as opposed to like my mom and the women she was in prison with.

So that is definitely changing.

And in California they have special laws that if you know you're in a domestic situation, you have to break a lease, then you can break a lease.

So you have ways of escaping.

There's a moving company in California that will literally show up, move you in a covert way so that you can escape.

So it's changing, it's just not changing as rapidly as you think that it would.

And so when I go to the universities, I'm talking to pre med students and nursing students and psychologists and nurses and doctors and, and, and showing them and telling my story to shock them but also to like you're on the front line.

A child's going to come in and they're being abused and if their abuser standing there with them, they're not going to tell you that they're not safe at home.

But you have got to pick up on the non verbal stuff.

And I just think that's just why I talk about it and bring it up and no longer ashamed, just hoping that, you know, if I could just change or help one family with sharing my story and change the trajectory of their life, then it was all worth everything that I've been through.

It definitely needs to come out from behind the shadows and into the light so that it can change.

And I appreciate you coming on here to at least start the dialogue so that others know that there are, you know, people out there, there's ways to.

To help and improve, and, you know, let's start talking about those things.

So I appreciate you doing that.

You, to me, have definitely what I embody or what I believe to be a warrior spirit.

But what does a warrior spirit mean to Heather?

I. I think I'm a warrior spirit because.

Great, Daryl, you're gonna make me cry.

My boys, because I was strong enough to change my life, that it.

That it changed their lives, and I was strong enough to talk to them about it and not keep it hidden.

They know about a lot of the stuff that my dad did to me.

They don't know everything because I don't feel like they need to.

They just needed to know enough.

They needed to know why they.

When they slept at night, their doors weren't allowed to be shut.

And that comes from being locked in our rooms with windows nailed shut.

But I believe that I'm a warrior spirit because I just have a spirit that wants to help others.

And if I, by sharing my story, if it helps one family and helps the kids, that that's where my passion is, is helping the kids to learn the same thing.

I learned that your past does not define you, and you have the ability to make your life anything that you want it to be.

I truly believe that.

I said it to my daughter all the time.

You're not able to, you know, decide which cards you're dealt, but you're able to decide how you play them.

And you can make a winning hand out of anything.

So I'm grateful that you took time out of your journey to share it here.

And, you know, I'm glad that you're in my tribe and I appreciate what you're doing out there and how you're advocating for others.

So thank you.

Thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it and I really enjoyed being on.

Well, if you would like to get in contact with Heather, you can can do so on her social platforms, Facebook and Instagram.

And as always, thank you for joining us on this edition of A Warrior Spirit.

We're now on all the major platforms as well as Roku via the Prospera TV app.

So be sure to like or subscribe to catch all the episode.

And as always, the journey is sacred.

The warrior is you.

So remember to be inspired, be empowered and embrace the spirit of the warrior within.

Fight.

It's how we rise from it.