This podcast is intended for mature audiences only and may contain content that could be triggering. Please listen with discretion. Stephanie was 15 years old and engaged to her former Bible camp counselor who was 10 years older than her. And her parents signed off on it. Why? Because as they later admitted to her, they were afraid. Afraid that if they didn't agree to the marriage, she would be too rebellious. I graduated high school at 16 in 1994.
Okay. And that was one of the requirements that I had for my parents before I could get married. My parents had to go and sign the papers for this. I couldn't have just gotten married on my own, you know. They had to sign me away. And they did. I believe it was March of 1995 when we got married. Um, you would think that I would know the date exactly, but I don't. Uh, and I was living in Kinder, Louisiana.
So we had full blown wedding and a church, the church that he went to, that I met him through the one that he was the camp counselor at. Of course, all my bridesmaids were underage, uh, which had to be for their parents too. I didn't even think about that. Who are your bridesmaids? My sister. And then I had another little friend that was from one of our churches. Oh, my cousin. My cousin was the other bridesmaid. That's who it was. Yeah. Okay. Your favorite cousin.
Yes. And then on the other side were his groomsmen, which were adult men. But yeah, I mean, I felt like, uh, probably a normal bride on that day. Just felt excitement for the wedding. I mean, you know, there was music, had a wedding dress, you know, the whole shebang. I mean, my dad married us. Where? Um, oh, at the Baptist Church in Batson. And I did their praise and worship, our choir directing at that, because it was a Baptist church. That's where he married me. I remember feeling excitement.
You know, I had All these people around me, we were getting ready, um, and there was a little reception in the church as well. Of course, no alcohol, no nothing like that. Just a few little food items and a wedding cake, you know, through the bouquet. Just very, very traditional. It, you know, it seemed like my grandparents were there. Wow. I don't know how anybody sat in that service and thought, that's not weird. I have spent some time researching the legalities of underage marriage.
I shared some statistics in our last episode, and I have a few more very important facts to share. Four states have no statuary minimum age for marriage. In 13 states and D. C., clerks can issue marriage licenses to minors without a judge's approval. Four more states allow pregnancy to lower the minimum marriage age. And in Mississippi, the law even sets different conditions for girls and boys. But in 2024, a bill was introduced to change that.
It's called the Child Marriage Prevention Act of 2024, also known as S 4 9 9 0. It's sponsored by Illinois Senator Durbin, and co sponsored by Hawaii's Senator Schatz and New York's Senator Gillibrand. This bill aims to close the gaps in federal law. Right now, it's under review by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Even though the abuse had already started and I was afraid of him, I was able to compartmentalize that day and just keep moving forward.
Because that was always my thing, just keep moving forward. I mean, I couldn't deal with anything, so you just had to move on to the next chapter. You know, that kind of situation. And, uh, that was that. All of a sudden, I was married and living in Sour Lake, Texas, where he lived. He did not want me working. I remember was like the beauty industry or some sort of business, you know, um, I was always the kid selling painted rocks on the side of the road. Um, or, you know, what's your name?
Come back and pick up your styrofoam cup and I'm going to paint your name on it. You know, like things like that, lemonade stands, you know, things like that. And so I loved the idea of, um, before I knew what it was like entrepreneurship, but I always loved the beauty industry. And I did actually really want to do hair at some point. I was not allowed to work. I started going to cosmetology school in Beaumont, Texas. I could go to school and come back home.
Um. All of a sudden I realized I was isolated, uh, he, I remember one time there was a next door neighbor girl that came over and he was furious when he got home that I had had somebody even in the house. So unless it was his friends, we weren't hanging around anyone that I knew personally. Was it your house, your house, or were you living with his family? No, this was his house that his parents had lived in at one point and it was handed down to him. Actually, I saw this house. Yes, you did.
We were in Texas recently. You did see this house. It got wild really fast. Um, I, first of all, felt like his, um, child slave wife. I, he would shake, he would be laying on the couch, for instance, um, he'd shake his tea glass. Because it would have, you know, ice left. And that meant that I needed to come get him some more tea. Uh, so, it was, you know, those kinds of things were happening all the time. Wasn't allowed to have friends. Only could go to cosmetology school.
And, uh, the physical abuse definitely, started pretty quickly. Uh, he would, he would just, there was no reason for it. That's what was, it's not like we were even fighting when it happened. You know, you expect something to lead up to those moments, but obviously there was nothing that led up to it before. So why would that change? Instead, it just got worse. And we would, we'd just be doing something normal, like cooking dinner.
And then the next thing I know he would have me by my neck, hold me up on a wall. Start spitting on me and screaming Child marriage can lead to physical, emotional, and verbal abuse Girls and young women between 16 and 24 experience the highest rates of intimate partner violence And for girls 16 to 19, the risk is almost triple the national average. Unfortunately, I uncovered one that is even worse. Most states allow marriage to be used as a loophole, a defense against statuary rape laws.
This means predators can marry their victims to avoid prosecution. Um, he'd throw me around. We had a dryer washer one time I think that was moving out and it was sitting in the kitchen and he threw me into that and busted up the top of my hand. I was around a size 3 to 4 at the time and he would poke my belly and tell me that I was getting fat. And, um, then after that would, um, uh, throw me onto the bed and hold me down and rape me.
And I remember specifically one time trying to pull my head up and he twisted my neck and shoved it back into the pillow, which, uh, I remember having a lot of neck pain after that, but I was his wife. And so I never even considered it to be rape at the time I needed to be submissive. Uh, there was another time where he was always threatening to kill me, but there was one time he got close. to trying to act upon it, but, you know, making it my fault.
And I guess I was just having a bad day and feeling sad. And he put, made me hold a pistol to my head and, you know, spun the revolver and kept telling me to pull the trigger and, um, told me to kill myself over and over again. I personally, I did have to have EMDR for that kind of stuff.
So EMDR is, uh, it's like a bilateral stimulation of the brain, so it's bringing up memories while, in my case, I was holding on to vibration paddles while my therapist, uh, would take up the frequency, take it down, and we would dig into those memories, and you just keep working on it with the bilateral stimulation paddles in my hand. It helps your brain to start processing it and putting the pieces together.
For But also, it's like you remember it after you're all done with this, but it helps detach you from the heavy emotion to it. So this is one part of the story that I can actually talk about without a lot of heavy emotions attached to it, because It is a memory that I have dealt with through EMDR, and as painful as that was, it's kind of helped me disconnect a little bit of the emotional tie to it, so it is easier to talk about now.
I was isolated, and it's just, I was 16, and nobody knew this was going on. I Just dealt with it. Like I always did. And I blame myself because I put myself in this situation and there was one time I did try to run and I, I mean, I didn't even get halfway down the street. He chased after me and I had really long hair at the time. And, uh, he literally grabbed me by the hair, threw me down on the ground and drug me back to the house by my hair.
So. In that neighborhood, the houses are close together too. It's just shocking that nobody saw that. Right. I, I don't understand. I never will. But there were reasons why I didn't leave immediately because I did try and it just made it worse. Uh. I was just very, very scared because I was never alone with anybody other than at cosmetology school. And there was like my happy place. I did not talk about anything in my relationship or my life. I was just trying to fit in.
And the one time I did try to reach out for help and we did go to the church, uh, that I had met him through. I very quickly, while he was occupied talking to someone else in the church, I sat down really quick on the pew beside the pastor's wife and just whispered to her something of the nature of, I, I know something's not right. I don't know what to do. I might need help. And she just. Meekly told me that marriage is hard and, you know, obviously you trust God and you keep working harder.
The one time, you know, I did even, I, I, I got brave enough to just maybe mention that I needed help. And I was told I needed to try harder. Um, I'm not blaming her for that. I feel like she was going through her own situation, obviously, and who knows what else. So she didn't have advice to give me because she was going through her own difficult situation with the pastor of our church. So, you know, it shut me down again. Once again, it was my fault. I needed to try harder.
Cosmetology school one day, and I knew I was not supposed to ever have a friend over or anything like that. I remember having a heaviness that day. There was some sort of weird fear in me. And I, for some reason, I told a girl at school that day, I was like, would you like to come over tonight? You know, it's like my mind's battling my mind at that point. It's like, what are you doing? You know, but so I asked this girl to come over and she was like, yes, of course. And we had made a time.
She had planned to come over. I get home. He's not home, which was weird because he normally was. Um, and I was very rarely ever alone and I went in that house and about the time I got to that front door area that was in between the living room and the bedroom, it's like something just literally forced me face planted on the floor and nobody was home. I remember there was such. a heaviness of fear and grief and horror that it literally just overwhelmed my body and I couldn't get up.
And this was before cell phones and stuff too. I mean, I crawled to the phone in our bedroom, which was on the nightstand by the bed. I tried to call my mom first, couldn't get a hold of her. My aunt, who I never called, there was like a ripped off piece of paper by the phone with her number on it. Maternal side aunt? Um, yeah, it was my mom's, um, my mom's, uh, younger sister and they lived in Houston. So I call my aunt's number and I'm hysterical at this point.
I'm still on the floor at this point. Wow. And she's trying to get me calmed down and telling me to reach out to my mom again. And then, you know, I still couldn't get ahold of my mom. And from what I remember, I don't know if it was my mom or her, honestly, but somebody on the other end of that phone told me to get out of the house now and go as fast as you can. And I remember all of a sudden there was this just panic. of flight or fear in my body.
Once I was disconnected from that phone, it was just me and trying to get to safety. And I grabbed a laundry basket. I just remember scooping out with both hands, just one big pile of clothes that were hanging in the closet, threw them in the laundry basket. and just ran out the back door, left a breadcrumb trail of clothes, like, like whoever was coming home, which was him, was going to see that somebody was, you know, doing something.
I mean, there was literally, I just closed flying and I'm running. And I got my little Ford Ranger and started driving a hundred miles an hour from Texas to Louisiana, where my parents lived and Do you remember the overwhelming panic of if I see him when I am driving, I am going to die. Wow. Um, I knew if he saw me driving as he was passing me that he would kill me before I got home. And so, I mean, it was just go, go, go.
I feel like it was like an hour and a half, maybe two, probably around two hours. Actually. Um, it felt like a lifetime away at that point, honestly, but I, I did, I made it, I made it home. So in the meantime, this poor girl that I've invited over, she did show up and he was there. And to this day, I feel so bad that this happened to her. And once again, I didn't even have her number. I was at school when I invited her.
And so she showed up and she said that he was so angry that she was afraid to leave because she said she knew if I showed up at that house, he would kill me. She stayed for over an hour with him screaming and raging. And I guess there was this show on TV, like a Lifetime show or something. And it had a guy wrapping a girl up in a garbage bag and throwing her in a river and and he literally said to this girl, this is what I'm going to do to Stephanie.
And she just was I was terrified to leave because she was afraid that I was going to come back. Um, finally she did leave because I never came back, thank goodness. And, you know, shortly after that, basically I was put into hiding with, uh, they immediately took me to Houston to a family friend, um, while we were getting restraining orders and everything. And so I hid out in Houston for a while so he couldn't find me. We were only married for a year.
And, uh, I mean, I, I was just in survival mode every day. Like, I was so just living outside of myself to try to survive. And so the only memories I have even of this year with him are the ones that were so impactful that they, it's hard to forget. And there was like literal physical harm to my body, um, as well as my mind. I finally came back home. Uh, he refused to give a divorce. He said he would never sign a paper.
Uh, and did you ever talk to him again or how was he communicating via his lawyer? That's a good question. I feel like it was probably via my parents because I was not communicating with him at this point. Uh, so we ended up in court and, uh, the judge obviously granted the divorce. I was 17 and he came to the court. Yes. Almost a 30 year old. He was 27 at the time, yeah. And he, how was he in the court? Was he indignant? I don't remember. I didn't look at him.
Like, I just, I just faced forward, did what I needed to do and got out of there. And at that point, of course my parents were with me and I felt, you know, protected by that. And that was that. I was divorced. So, there was never Uh, big repercussions for him. I mean, he stayed in the church. I'm pretty sure that we had been going to even after this happened. So, it was just kind of breezed over by everyone. No accountability in so many ways other than a divorce.
He just, like, was a teen counselor at a camp, volunteer, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, I ended up back in Kendra, Louisiana. And while I was there, I started, um, working for a lady that was doing industrial and residential wallpaper and stuff. She was in our church. And I actually enjoyed that work. I enjoyed working with my hands. A lot of people, I mean, most people that were in the church.
Those were her employees, people from the church, and there was a big casino that was being put in, um, a land casino out there, um, on Native American land. This, this town was so small, and so it was a pretty huge deal for that to be coming in. I mean, we knew it was gonna probably overrun the town with crime and things like that. But that went in and because of that, there were a lot of hotels that were going in.
And so I would go into the hotels with her and her crew and we would hang industrial wallpaper, which is very different than residential wallpaper. It was like heavy duty. You know, you roll it up, throw it over your back. You know, I got electrocuted one time trying to cut it because they had not turned the electricity off and the razor ended up in the wall behind me because it threw it out of my hand. I was just happy to know what it was behind me.
So, you know, there were a few little things like that, but overall I enjoyed it. And I was good at it. She would take me to some of her residential homes and I would help her in there because I was really good and meticulous and things like that. But. She had a son, I was 17, and he was, I think like 14 and a half or 15, and we were working together. And, um, we became friends. We would end up hanging around with each other and our siblings and we'd go rollerblading and stuff like that.
Your siblings? Yeah, my siblings and his sibling, we'd go to the school parking lot, um, and, you know, rollerblades. Sometimes we'd go to like the abandoned Walmart parking lot. It felt like this normal time. I think there were definitely like feelings that had developed a little bit, like a crush situation and I think I broke his heart because I moved that summer, I turned 18. I needed to finish cosmetology school. And so I moved back to Texas.
I ended up staying with the pastors of that church that he went to. Oh my, were you scared? Were you afraid? I mean, there was parts of me that, yes, I was afraid. And I was hoping like people were not speaking to him anymore. And I found out. Some people were and it was, it was very uncomfortable, but it was the way I could get back and finish school. And so they had a big enough house where they had like a separate little apartment area. And so I went and stayed with them cause it was free.
And I started going to school again. And in the meantime, this is how I ended up. Meeting, um, husband number two, I believe like, uh, they had an, uh, a niece or a nephew and it was a friend of theirs. And he is by all means a rebound. And I don't even know if rebounds the right word because I had never been in a good place. I don't think they have a rebound, you know, it was a tension and he was. He was fun. He showed up in this big truck and just kind of had wigwags on it, a CB radio.
And he was just, he was really tall, just kind of that larger than life, uh, person at the time and just really immature. Didn't take things seriously. It was almost like a. A very opposite situation of what I had just been in. The fun party boy with no responsibility, still living at home. When he was older than I was as well. He was like, also like in his mid twenties or something. Where I'm not with my mom and dad once again.
And so I feel a little free and, you know, started going out dancing every now and then. And drinking and that sort of thing. That's not a life I had lived yet. When I was a teen, I drank a sip of warm beer and a sip of warm strawberry wine, um, which obviously led me to be an alcoholic at that time, I'm sure, uh, according to my family. But, and so, you know, dancing and two stepping and kegs and tequila and I mean, that's just what you do. There's nothing else to do.
You went to Texas with me where we were from. There's nothing. Nothing. You drink. You drink. You dance. You have bonfires, you know, that's, that's what's happening and sex. And this was the first time in my life where I kind of felt like, Oh my God, I'm, I, I'm, I'm having a good time. I, you know, went to like a new year's Eve party and I, you know, was drinking, got way too drunk. And I just, you know, it was, you know, felt wild, wild and free.
And that was very short lived because I also was not supposed to have sex outside of marriage, so birth control was not something on my top list of things that I knew to do when I wasn't in a relationship. And so, uh, this man and I obviously had sex pretty much immediately. I get pregnant with him. And, oh dear lord, that was, that was not a good Situation. Married, not married. I did not love him. Married. Mm. I was just having a good time.
We went to my parents, we told them, they were of course, very disappointed, but their immediate solution was we have to get married. So I was two months pregnant, and here I am walking down the aisle again, getting married. To this man, um, I don't think he knew what he wanted either. It was like, well, we just got told to do this and, you know, got to be the man because, you know, these are her parents. And I knocked her up, you know, that kind of shotgun wedding. You do that pretty smoothly.
She did an imitation of a shotgun running, crack the gun. Oh my god, but he, he was just a Texas country boy, very prideful, um, he wasn't physically abusive, he wasn't mentally abusive, I, you know, he just, was just almost like a break from life and responsibility. I mean, we were just having a good time. I don't know if he ever loved me, honestly. I never, I don't think I ever loved him. I think it was just, it was a situation.
It happened and we did what we thought we needed to do to make it right. And then. Over time, you try to develop love for each other. I had a hard time with that. He was not my favorite person. Um, I did not like him. I didn't like his personality over time. Like, he made me just crazy. Like, he made me feel angry, honestly, because he was just so ridiculous.
He shouldn't have been married, and neither should I. And so, it wasn't anybody's fault, we were just really trying to do what we thought we were supposed to do, and we were not made for each other, and we did not have things in common really even, it was just, it was hard, it was a hard relationship, and I don't necessarily fault him for that, I don't fault myself for that, I do, uh, you know, wish that after we got married, we ended up living with his grandmother
for a little while in Raywood, Texas. And before the baby was born, we ended up moving back to Kinder, Louisiana, where my parents were. Because I think the reality of having a baby was really starting to hit and Uh, you know, becoming very overwhelming and I knew I needed help and did not want to have to brave that by myself and my mom being a nurse and all that. And yeah, I knew I would have, it would, I would be in good hands. And so we moved to kinder Louisiana.
We rented this little tiny house. Uh, at first behind the church, I was still pregnant and then we found a little bit of a bigger house. I think it was the same guy that was renting them. He was in our church and, uh, we were down the street from the church. So we were always very centrally located to Agape Lighthouse where my parents were pastoring. And uh, You know, my mom comes in, we, she helps me decorate this nursery. She's actually an excellent seamstress.
She makes these beautiful curtains for me for the nursery. Uh, I think part of her might've been excited to be a grandmother, you know, um, because we were in the church now at that point and I was praising God again and falling in line. We were part of the congregation and I was the pastor's kid that was pregnant now, but married and everything was. well and good. So I was 19 because shortly after that is when she was born. We have the baby.
I stayed with my mom and dad while we both did for about two weeks after that. My mom was extremely helpful with, uh, getting me prepped on how to take care of this child and was very helpful in that two weeks that we were together and I enjoyed that time with her, actually. Um, once again, I felt like her caretaking skills in a medical way. really came forth. Uh, you know, she had good instincts and knew what to do.
And then when we go back home with this baby and just the two of us again, and, you know, we're just trying our best. And shortly after that is when I somehow The next year, when I turned 20, I became a youth pastor to other children to teach them the ways of the Lord. And when you really think about that, that's just, I know that my dad was warned that he was setting me up for failure. Um, By whom?
By some of the members of the church, that You know, we're in higher power, I guess you could say to make those comments. And I, I honestly believe that they were right. It was, it was not okay for me to be in that position. Um, I had no, I had no business being a 20 year old youth pastor at that point. Um, I didn't even have my own coping skills or self worth. How in the world, you know, I know, do you lead others? But I will say this, I enjoyed so, so much working with those kids.
That was the one beautiful part for me. I know I didn't do everything right. I only had the tools that I was equipped with through church and what we taught. And I had to teach that same teaching. I could not stray away from that, obviously. And I had a. A lovely sidekick with me and she and her husband were just so supportive. It was a couple. Yeah. And, um, just, uh, they were much older than I was at the time, but we all just meshed really well.
And I think without them, I probably would have face planted, but they kept me afloat. And I think they behind closed doors fought for me even when I didn't know they were. And so what does that mean? I, you know, I was different than a lot of these people. I dressed differently. I ran their youth program differently and therefore there was, um, outlash for that. I, like, people didn't like the way I dressed, which shouldn't matter, you know, but it's not like I was inappropriate. I just wore.
Gosh, this is dating me. I wore like, you know, sometimes the big JNCO jeans. It almost looked like a skirt, but they were jeans. And so that was a problem. They had a very small group of youth. And then there was this little running soldier holding a torch painted on the wall. And then there was like Navy blue border. With scriptures painted on it. I was creative and I was more eclectic and I had that energy about me from the time I think I was born. And so I went into this youth building.
We shut it down for two weeks. We painted the whole wall. I mean, all the walls. Some of them were black. Some of them were red. I mean, we painted the windows. Wow, you painted the glass? Yes. What color? Black. Oh my god. I was trying to make it like, How did you get away with that? I just did it. I didn't ask. I'm going to run this youth group. It needs to be a place these youth want to come. And there was no place in that town for youth to go. Um, but it was funny.
This was a very, it was a small space, but when you went in, it felt bigger. And we're all closed up in there with our kilts, trying to paint the wall and. We walk outside and realize we're all as high as a kite. Oh my gosh. Nobody had thought about the fumes and stuff like that. I was like, Oh, I'm off to a great start. This is awesome. But um, no, we did. I, I mean, in that small town. Um, that long ago, it was probably too progressive for the people of the church that were adults.
Um, we built a stage, we built like this little wavy bar area so we could serve obviously like soft drinks and we would fry cheese sticks, you know, things like that. There was a pool table that I brought in. Wow. There was, uh, a foosball table. There were six Sony gaming stations along the walls. Um, there were couches. I took out all the chairs. It was like, it was, it was a cool place. And, um, we raised money. We, I ran fundraisers. I asked businessmen in our church to match donations.
Wow. We did auctions. Every time I did something with the kids, whether it was a camp or anything like that, I mean, we hit the streets. We weren't taking funds from the church. We had our own separate bank account. And I was personally getting paid a very, very small amount from the church, but, um, I took nothing obviously out of the youth funds for myself. I came up with sermons and plays and demonstrations and all that every week for services that we had.
I was playing in our main praise and worship band. And then I also started a youth band with the actual youth and, um, We had some of them running lighting, some of them running sound, some of them playing instruments and we were writing our own music and so that youth group turned into a handful of kids and um, it turned into something much bigger.
I mean kids were actually coming to youth on Monday nights and then decided on the weekends to turn it into what we called U Turn Cafe and then I would have other bands sometimes come in. and play for the weekend, and it was just an open space. What kind of bands? Like Christian bands. Oh. Yeah, like Christian rock. They were that easy to find? I mean, you know, little small bands around the area. Yeah, little garage bands.
We had, you know, laser lights and disco balls and rock music, although it was Christian, you know, playing. And, um, I came under a lot of fire for those things. Uh, people are like, this is a youth building, not a nightclub. I mean, there's just All kinds of comments and I, I know that I had people fighting for me to understand what I was trying to do out there behind the scenes, but I was also fighting for myself too because I loved those kids and I really did want to give them.
Somewhere safe to be and my dad, I think, was proud of me at that time because I mean I was drawing in a bigger amount of people and doing cool things and I was thinking outside of the box and sometimes he would defend me from the pulpit in ways like, I know my daughter has her ears pierced and, uh, she wears strange clothes, but you know, she's doing the Lord's work, blah, blah, blah, you know.
There is this need and desire to fill wanted and accepted and loved by the people that brought you into this world. That's a hard, it's a hard pill to swallow over the years. Um, I think there's a lot of devastation that occurs in that with a person's worth, um, when they can't. get that from those people. Every time I would do something wrong or something they didn't like, it was because I was rebellious and at any age, it didn't matter.
Um, and I had at this point still not learned how to self love, self care, like anything. Part of my self worth was. being that person they really wanted me to be. And so that's what I felt like self worth was. I think they really wanted kids that were in the ministry. And I also wanted my family around because I had a child and it, you know, once again, it's confusing, but I really did want to be a part of my family and I wanted to please them.
I learned how to cope through music and I would just sit. And just play whatever came to me and just play and play and play and sometimes I would cry and play sometimes I was happy and would play but I would just play my heart out until I felt a sense of relief. We learned that Stephanie was forced into marriage at 16. And she was trapped in an abusive relationship. Isolated, she endured escalating physical, emotional, and sexual violence.
But despite her fear, she made a daring escape, fleeing Texas with minutes to share. Bose is the harsh realities of child marriage and the systematic failures that leave young girls vulnerable. She sheds light on the fight for legal protections like the Child Marriage Prevention Act of 2024. Through music and community, Stephanie found resilience. Now she's helping others break free. This episode is a call to action because no child should be forced. into marriage next time on just one person.
I just kept saying like, what is broken in me? They were all abusers and I just was like, what am I doing wrong? Because all I wanted to do was love. But it wasn't as Stephanie's fight to build a new life. She's pulled into a battle. She never saw coming a church scandal, a shocking betrayal. And a custody fight that changes everything. And just when she thinks she's breaking free, a single moment shatters it all.
Don't miss episode 7, where the fight for freedom comes at a cost Stephanie never Listen to Just One Person on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Visit justonepersonpodcast. com for more information. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with a friend and follow us on Instagram at just one person podcast. If you or someone you know is affected by abuse or is in need of support, resources are available, and we have listed them in the episode notes.
Notes or you can call the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline. It's 1 804 a child available 24 7. You can also text four dash Hope 2 7 4 1 dash 7 4 1. Just one person is produced by J one P Productions executive produced by me, Lisa Bloom, lead producer and story editor. Carrie Caulfield Sound designed by Alejandro Ramirez. A special thanks to voice actor Scott McKinley portraying Stephanie's dad.
Our heartfelt thank you to Stephanie's partner, Melissa Weaver, and my wife, Julie Koleski, for being a part of the podcast team. Also to Stephanie's three close friends, Krista, Annalisa, and Bex, for participating in this series. Music for this podcast is from Epidemic Sound and Soundstripe. Original music recorded and performed by our first season's guests. Stephanie Michele and the Michele Michele Band.