Episode 169: Seth Gehle, child SA survivor, public speaker, and advocate

When trauma casts long shadows over a childhood, how does one step into the light of healing? Seth's compelling narrative, woven through this episode, captures a journey from the depths of abuse and neglect to the summit of advocacy and strength. His upcoming book, much like our conversation, stands as a beacon of resilience, promising guidance to others traversing the rocky terrain of similar experiences. With martial arts and self-expression as his compass, Seth charted a course through insomnia, narcolepsy, and the profound absence of an incarcerated father, illustrating that it's never too late to start healing.
 
 The heart of this episode lies in Seth's courage to confront the chilling realities of childhood abuse, enduring manipulation, and the silent battles that often go unseen. As we navigate the confusing emotions and psychological effects that survivors like Seth carry, the discussion opens up a necessary dialogue on the importance of recognizing grooming signs and debunking misconceptions about abuse. Seth's story is not only a testimony to personal survival but resonates as a collective call to action—a reminder that solidarity in shared trauma can be a powerful force in overturning the shadows of the past.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

security hot podcast. Let's go. You're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who's the best with guns, with knives, with his bare hands, a man who's been trained to ignore, ignore weather to live off the land job with disposed of enemy personnel to kill period.

Speaker 2: 0:23

With my attrition, dude.

Speaker 1: 0:27

Um, yeah, I am no stranger. Everything that you, uh, just started sharing it, it it rings alarm bells because those are all things that I was diagnosed and, like you know, as soon as they give you a diagnosis, they want you to just be like, oh yeah, this is it, this is the rest of life. But the truth is, insomnia and narcolepsy you can overcome them. Uh, it just takes a little bit of work. Um, that's, that's the whole message that I try to get behind, because, like yourself, like all those diagnoses, like it can seem scary at first, it can seem like they're going to be forever, but, uh, with some discipline and the right tools, you can overcome them. Yeah, and the right tools, you can overcome them.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Yeah, seth, welcome. Thank you for being here today, man, I can't tell you how excited I am for this, not because we're going to trauma bond, but because a lot of the same things that you champion and talk about are things that I dealt with as a child and, as you know, that's something men don't talk about. So, seth, thank you for being here, man, and for being willing to share your story. So, man, take it away, tell us about your journey, my man, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Yeah, man. So it's been a hell of a ride. I've been. I'm 29, I'll be 30 this year and I actually just I wasn't going to kind of tell my story yet. I was going to wait till my book dropped, but I've got about maybe six more months before that's ready. And I was actually.

Speaker 2: 1:54

I started doing jujitsu about a year and a half ago and my head coach is. He just says a lot of things that really resonate with me, and one of the things he's been kind of hammering the last few months is just like there's never a perfect time for anything. Nothing's ever going to be perfect. So you might as well just just start going. You know, start walking, start taking your steps, and so that's kind of what I was waiting for, this perfect like moment to drop my whole story. And then I was just like you know what, I'm just going to start. I'm just like you know what I'm just going to start, I'm just going to start now. And so that's kind of what happened. A few weeks ago, actually, like two or three weeks ago now, I posted a video talking about what happened to me as a young man and it kind of caught some traction and I've gotten a ton of great feedback, since just with people telling me like, hey, I know somebody, I know somebody who knows somebody. Um, this happened, you know, to me or I'm going. I've had people tell me they're going through it right now with the, with the judicial system and getting their own justice. Um, so to stop being around the bush.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Uh, basically, I grew up with a single mother of three. Um, my father was never really in my life. I think the first time I ever really met him was when he was in jail. I have pictures from when I was a baby, two or three years old, of being around him, but he went to prison pretty early. The story is that he stabbed my mom behind the ear during a fight while me and my two sisters were in the other room and, uh, you know, he said it's her fault. She said it's his fault, that's, that's as much as I know of that. Um, and so he went to, he went to prison for that, and so I never knew him.

Speaker 2: 3:38

Growing up, I never had a father and I don't think it really ever dawned on me for a long time, uh, until I went to go meet him, and I don't think it really ever dawned on me for a long time until I went to go meet him. And I do remember meeting him in jail. I remember walking in to see the cubicles and you know I knew him as soon as I saw him. I knew who he was. I knew that was my dad when I saw him across the thing and I'm a very emotional guy. So I broke down and I started crying immediately. I couldn't even talk to him. I don't remember saying much to him because I couldn't stop crying. So that was like my first encounter that I can remember with my father.

Speaker 2: 4:13

So you know, whatever went home, and you know my mom, she did a good job raising us as best as she could. From what I remember, for a long time. I think I was probably about eight or nine when things kind of started to change and my sisters were the same age as me, so my younger sister was seven, my older sister was nine, so we're one year apart, 79. So when I was about nine years old though that's about eight, yeah, it says about eight or nine that's when things kind of started to change. That 20 years ago, you know, that's back when weed was like really bad, and if you were smoking weed. You were like a criminal.

Speaker 2: 4:54

And so I remember I remember going up the stairs one day after school and, uh, kind of like, look off to my right and I can see. You can see my mom's in the living room and there's a bunch of guys in there, a whole bunch of her friends and both my sisters are in there. And I don't know if my little sister was smoking at this time, but my older sister definitely was, and so she was probably 10, no older than 10 or 11. And she was sitting in a room with adults smoking weed. You know, at this point we had been exposed to it so much that it was just normal for them to pass the blunt to this 11-year-old girl, right.

Speaker 2: 5:31

And I remember going up the stairs that day and I was like you know what man, like this will never be my life, like I will never. I will do better things than this. And I thought I'd be at an Ohio State running back and all these other things that never happened. And I thought I'd be at an Ohio state running back and all these other things that never happened. But, um, yeah, you know, I just I just knew that I would do better things with my life. And then, you know, probably within six months of that situation, I would end up meeting this guy who I met through a friend, a very close friend of mine, and he he was probably about 30 years old at the time guys like's like 6'5", 6'6", 380 pounds, this massive guy.

Speaker 2: 6:12

And I was over at my friend's house and it was like a Friday afternoon and we were off school and I remember coming down the stairs and I saw this guy at the front door and I'm like dang, who's this guy? And he approached me and started talking to me about playing video games and things like that. And I was like, yeah, I play video games, I play, you know, madden and the NCAA and all this. And he's like, oh, you like football, yeah, buckeyes, yep, love the Buckeyes. I'm from Ohio, and so, you know, we kind of bonded pretty quick and the guy was like nice, very friendly, you know. I just it's like, yeah, cool man.

Speaker 2: 6:47

And uh, he offered to take me up to his house with with my friend who had my friend had already known him for probably a year or two at this point, uh, if not longer. And, um, you know, we go up to his house and and his, his. I actually just went there again last last weekend or two weekends ago to go look at it again, for I haven't seen it in 15 years. But I I went up there and I go to his house and, um, you know it's, it's like this big room, it's got like a low ceiling, acoustical ceiling, tiles, and it's just, it's a real dark room. Everything in there is like black and just, you know, it looks like a dungeon, it looks like a cave, like a dungeon. The back left corner had this black sheet that kind of cornered off his room and the right side had, you know, like three or four TVs, game systems, all the new game systems, which was like the Xbox 360 and Xbox One at the time. He had two or three computers in there like desktops, video games, things like that. It was like, man, you walked in, it was just video games, like everybody could play at the same time. It was awesome. And so that's what we did. We went up there, we played video games, we ate all the pizza, we drank all the pop, we drank the coffee, energy drinks and when you're 10 years old man, it's like, dude, I can come up here, I can cuss, I can eat pizza and drink pop all night. This is awesome. So that's what we did. It's a fucking wonderland, dude. It's crazy man. It was crazy.

Speaker 2: 8:24

So this guy's name is Armando Vasquez and he's dead in prison now. This is all public record, so it's not anything that's going to get anybody in trouble, but he, you know, he keeps inviting us up and he invites me up every weekend and I want to go as much as I can, cause I'm like dude, this is awesome, like at the cause. At the same time, at home, I was dealing with my mom who was starting to get it more into drugs. She was starting to get more physically abusive. So it's very hard for me to tell the story and and the like use the gravity that is in the situation, because Monday through Friday I was dealing with my mom, who was getting more abusive, more drugs were coming in the house, different people, just strangers, things like that and then Friday and Saturday I was hanging out with this guy.

Speaker 2: 9:19

Well, one Sunday, before he brings me back home at some point, it became normal for me to sit on his lap. You know, I don't even think I was 11 years old yet and it became normal for me to sit on his lap and you know that was the first time he had ever like touched me per se. Um, he, you know, my, my friend had left to go get some tacos. He was my friend, was a few years older than me, so he was already driving and he drove down the street to go get some tacos and I was sitting on the guy's lap and his hand, you know, slips um off my hip and kind of touches my butt and I was like oh, yeah, he's like oh, I'm sorry. I was like, yeah, no worries. So, um, after that he he kind of puts his hand on my butt and he's like, oh, so this is okay. And I said, yeah, man, you know, I'm like whatever. And I knew I knew it was wrong. A lot of people ask me like, did you know? And I knew it was wrong. Immediately I knew something was wrong and you know, unfortunately, when that happened I just froze up, like a lot of people do, and so I froze up and I kind of just accepted it for what it was.

Speaker 2: 10:36

And you know, I still remember everything about the guy. You know, I remember what he smelled like. I remember what his hands feel like. He had these big dry hands, dry knuckles, like. I remember what his hands feel like. He had these big dry hands, dry knuckles, fingernails. I know what his rough hands feel like, touching me, going into my shorts Over the next few months every weekend. It was like dating a girl, I guess, and every time you take her on a date third date, fourth date, fifth date you know you start touching different bases and that's kind of how it was. And, um, yeah, after a while, you know it, it was totally normal for me to sit on his lap and he would just slide his hand in my shorts and just kind of touch me and feel me and, um, I was just kind of going through it, man, and you know I talk about that, that paralyzing feeling. That's kind of what it was like.

Speaker 2: 11:27

And you know, um, when I first started going up to his house too, I noticed that my other friend would sleep in his bed, with him back in his back in the corner, and you couldn't see the bed. It was blocked off with like these black sheets, but I just, it never dawned on me, I was just like it's just like a buddy, it's just like you and your buddies when you're 10 years old, you might sleep in the same bed, or it might be three or four of you sleeping in a room, so you know you might share a bed with a buddy. That's that's kind of what I thought about, um, but at this point, when he started touching me, I realized like okay, this is something else you know, cause I started to sleep in the bed with him and still, at this point, I had no idea that it was happening to anybody else. I really, I really didn't even like think that it could have happened to my friend, because he was older than me, he was bigger, stronger and he was like my hero, so like I didn't have a father. But I imagine, if you had a father in your life, your father's your hero, and like there's nobody that can hurt him, or, you know, he's just the toughest man ever, cause it's your father, and or like a bigger brother, and that's kind of what I looked at this guy Like. I was like, yeah, this, this wouldn't have happened to him. He wouldn't, he wouldn't let somebody touch him.

Speaker 2: 12:35

So, yeah, I started, uh, sleeping in the bed with him and, you know, things just got progressively worse. It went from touching to where he was trying to put his fingers in me and things like that. And then it starts to get pretty graphic where he starts to perform oral sex on me and during this time I was going through puberty. Right, I was like 11, 12 years old. I started going through puberty. I was 11, 12 years old, I started going through puberty. He'd make these comments of oh, you're growing, or your hair, it's like that. And then when your body's aroused, there's nothing you can do about that and that was a really hard thing to kind of understand. But when somebody touches you, I mean it's just your body's natural reaction is to be aroused.

Speaker 1: 13:42

And you know, you know so action is to be aroused, and you know you, you know so, and I want to pause right there. Yeah, because a lot of people don't understand. Um, these pedophiles are expert at grooming and manipulating kids. Um, it is an absolute fucking nightmare. And at first, when it's brought in, like you know my situation people ask, like how can you have lived that for so long? And they don't understand that it is a constant manipulation, a constant grooming to normalize these things. You and your own body know that this is wrong. And when it's an adult male who's bigger than you, stronger than you, there's no fight, there's no flee. The only thing you got is freeze, the only thing you have. And as a child, nothing's more fucking frightful, like and knowing that your friend is there. They're going through the same thing, they're dealing with the same thing and nobody understands, unless they've lived it, unless they've experienced it, how quickly it comes on, how quickly it happens, how they make themselves the center of your world. And there's a special place in health for these individuals.

Speaker 1: 15:14

It's understanding that your body is trying to protect you in that moment of disassociation and freeze and that's all you have. That is all you have, and I can only imagine. There's no going home and telling your mom, there's no explaining to anybody else. It is just one of the most helpless things you can experience as a human being dude.

Speaker 2: 15:39

Yeah, I mean you hit it. You hit. You hit it right there on the head, man, like especially with the. I actually talk about it in my book. I say there's a line in my book where I say these guys are extremely intelligent, they're calculated, strategic and you have to be. If you have a fetish for fucking kids, like if that's your thing, you've got to be really good at it, because if you're not, you're going to get caught. And as as bad as that sounds, just like if you're going to rob banks, look at me, if you're going to rob banks, you got to be good. If you're going to be a criminal, you got to be and you want to be. You don't want to get caught. You've got to be very smart about it. And you know to do what he did. Um, he was good at what he did, for sure, and obviously that kind of wrote me into the situation and, um, you know, so, yeah, man, like I was saying you know he, he, he would start to do his thing. And, um, you know, I, I, I, probably 12 years old, 13 years old, I had, uh, experienced my first orgasm right With this man and you know he looked up at me and he's like, you know, did you enjoy that Right? And because I had an orgasm, you know, he's like, he's proud of himself, you know, which is just just ridiculous, man. And um, looking back on it, you know, when that happened I was heartbroken and I was like disturbed because my friends from school weren't doing this, like they were doing pizza rolls and playing games at their own house, whatever they're doing. I was laying in this guy's bed just going through hell. At the same time that was going on.

Speaker 2: 17:14

Once again, I was going home and at this point my mom, there was crack and cocaine in the house coming through the house. We had this bathroom in the back of the house and literally every single day, people would come in the house. And we had this bathroom in the back of the house and I mean literally every single day, man, people would come in the house. I probably 20 30 people I didn't even I've never seen before would come in. They'd go into the back of the house. They'd sit in the bathroom like eight hours a day like it was their job. And if the house smelled, it was like it has a really musty smell, um, but I would see people come out at 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, sitting on the couch, completely high out of their mind, um, like eyes rolled back, sitting on the couch, just like shaking, almost like seizing um, slightly, just cause they were so high, and so that. So I was dealing with that Monday through Friday.

Speaker 2: 18:00

And then this house I lived in at the time actually had a hole. So my bedroom upstairs had a hardwood floor and the people who lived there before must have had dogs trapped in that room or something, because it smelled like just dog shit and piss. And I slept on this mattress that was like four inches thick, had a thin little blanket, and I pissed the bed every single night, you know. And then I there was a hole in my ceiling in my bedroom, and it was. It was about four feet deep and two, about two, three feet wide, I mean it, it was like the entire corner of my ceiling. I could see the roof structure above, you know, like I could see straight into the attic, straight into the roof decking, and we had it covered with plastic and, uh, you know, but this is an Ohio and the dead of winter and you know it's like freaking cold air is coming into my room.

Speaker 2: 18:47

I mean, dude, at that point I was like in a deep, deep hole, man. Uh, every night I would. I was calling this guy Monday through Friday. I would call him at night and I would talk to him because, as twisted as he was, he, uh, you know cause I was getting bullied and I was fighting in school a lot and I was dealing with a lot of things with my mom obviously getting my ass beat by her and just pissing the bed every night. It was just a bad, bad time. We didn't have a lot of food and so I would talk to this guy at night and he would actually like coach me through life. And it's really jacked up, man, because he was the worst thing that ever happened. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:23

He made himself the center of your universe. He was. He had everything, access to all the fun stuff, and all you had to do was just be a victim for a little bit. That's right For an endure, suffer and endure just for a little bit of comfort. Every day is a nightmare. But the one person I remember, the same thing with my predator. Same fucking thing, no matter how bad it got If that person, by the grace of God, if they offered you some sort of reward for doing something good, holy shit you lit up as a kid.

Speaker 1: 19:59

You lit up yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:01

Dude, god, dude. It was so fucked up, man. And looking back on it now it's just like every time I talk about it it's just like holy shit, man. And so when I was 12, that's when I left my mom, and this was a pretty crazy day. I'll tell it as quickly as I can.

Speaker 2: 20:19

But there was a show called Intervention. I think it just started re-airing, but it used to be really popular back in the day and they would do that, yeah. So at the end of every episode they would put their contact information out there and they'd say, hey, if you know somebody who needs help, contact us. So we were at my neighbor's house and we're watching the show and me and my sisters are like hey, like, let's get mom on the show, because I had just addressed her at 12 years old. I sat down with my mom and I asked her. I said mom, are you using drugs? Like we knew, I knew it was happening, but I wanted her to admit it to me and she couldn't, she wouldn't she, she couldn't, she did like what most people do she freaked out, yelled and screamed at me.

Speaker 2: 20:57

So a few weeks later, this, this happened and we go to walk outside, to go over and we're like you know what we're going to. We're going to our neighbor was going to help us contact this place. And we walk outside and there's a fire in the front yard. And you know, I think I remember this is like a this is really hard to remember these things that you black them all out. But you know, I think her boyfriend came out and he had like blood on his shirt like he'd been stabbed or something like that.

Speaker 2: 21:23

And so the cops pull up almost immediately and this is like something you'd see in a movie and they go in, they grab my mom and they put her in the back of the cop car immediately. And I'm 12 years old and I walk up to the police car and I'm like this is my mom and we don't have anywhere to go. If she leaves, what are we going to do? And the next thing I remember is the cop comes in and I'm looking at my mom and she's like I'll get you back or I'll be back, and we're kind of talking through the glass and boom, she's gone. And I'm sitting here like what the hell am I going to do? So I'm just hysterical, crying my eyes out. I just seen my mom get taken away from me and, despite all the bullshit that had happened, that's my mom man and there's just a, that's just a connection that you just can't get rid of.

Speaker 2: 22:08

And so, um, they take her away and the next four months of my life is pretty crazy, just kind of bouncing around at 12 years old like living with random people and different places and surviving, and all this time nobody had any idea that anything was happening to me. I mean, I would show up to school with a smile. I was a class clown, I was a straight A student and I was just this perfect kid. I would get in fights a lot, but other than that, I was a perfect student and I was just this perfect kid. I'm getting fights a lot, but other than that, I was a perfect student and I was a happy kid.

Speaker 2: 22:37

And, um, you know, so, about four months later, my grandparents take me in and they finally get the chance to adopt me and my sisters were already there and, um, my sisters wouldn't end up going back to my mom's house. They didn't want to stay with my grandparents. And I stayed with my grandparents because I was like, well, they've got money, I've got a warm house food on the table every day and I'm not embarrassed to be around them, you know. So I was like, yes, I'm staying, like you guys can adopt me. So they, they adopted me when I was 13. But when I got, hey, I want to go hang out with my friend on the weekend. And so, yeah, so he comes back. End of my life, right. Well, he never really left. So my grandma's like, no, who's this? No, you're not hanging out with this old man, it's not happening.

Speaker 2: 23:26

And so I was molested as well when I was about five or six, and it happened like once or twice, by one person who was babysitting us. We told my grandparents about that. That was so long ago and such a mild occasion that it's hard for me to remember those details, but I do remember briefly. My grandma knew I had already been molested once, so you're automatically just vulnerable to the situation. She's like, nope, not hanging out with this guy. Well, I said, you know, he's not like that, he's my best friend, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2: 24:00

I defended him as best I could. And so she goes okay, well, let's meet him first. And so the freaking guy shows up and it's like a first date, you know. It's like he gets out the car, he walks up to the house and it's like, yes, ma'am, yes, sir, you know, to my grandma and grandpa and he's making them laugh. And boom, now I'm back in the guy's bed. And you know, looking back on a man, it's like man. If they would have just stuck to it and I don't blame him for it, you know, because the guy's good but if they'd have just stuck to their guns, if somebody would have sat down and been. I don't care how nice this guy is, you're not going to his damn house and um and nobody really expert manipulators man, this shit is fucking crazy.

Speaker 2: 24:39

This is some shit you see in a fucking movie. So, boom, I'm back in the guy's house, right, and um my 13th birthday, he showed up. They had they did a surprise birthday party for me, right. So he shows up at my grandparents' house, um, surprise birthday party for me. So he shows up at my grandparents' house, surprise birthday party. And I think even my dad was there when that happened. But my family was all there, everybody's happy for me, this guy's there.

Speaker 2: 25:07

But even from the time I had first met this guy, I would go to his family outings. So any family holidays Christmas, thanksgiving, fricking, whatever family events you got 4th of July, I would go and see his family. And this guy had a mom and like three sisters, and all of his sisters were married with children, and so he'd show up to Christmas with this fucking 12 year old kid and they're just like, okay, mondo's got a friend who's 12, not weird. And so, like I knew his whole fucking family, man, I mean it was, it is, it is insane, dude. And so I mean there's not enough time today just to get into the details of like how jacked up this shit was.

Speaker 1: 25:48

But we, uh, we're on this motherfucker we're going bro. These stories need to be shared because majority of Americans think that a predator is somebody that hides behind a computer and he's this gross dude. No, fuck, no, it can be anybody and that's a sick fucking truth. It can be the dude that just works at the fucking near office building Like you have to be able to see these warning signs, man, yeah, man, there is, there is, and it's frustrating, man. It's frustrating because I look back and there were so many fucking warning signs. Not a single fucking teacher, yeah, single fucking adult ever stepped in.

Speaker 1: 26:36

And there we are, living that life every single day. Yeah, and when you think someone's going to come and rescue, when you think someone's going to come in there and kick in that door, no, I had one time one fucking principal thought maybe he was going to do something. After I showed up to school with a fucking, really bad, fucking, both black eyes just looking fucking miserable. Didn't fucking do anything. Yeah, you can't see the abuse that's going on, yeah, and they're not willing with the signs. They can't see, they're not willing to step in. A lot aren't. And if you're listening to this right now, if you're listening to this right now and you suspect, just have one little bit of inkling. Fucking ask the questions, get fucking involved. It's better to have that moment of like hey, you know what? Hey, honest. Hey, look, I made a mistake. I was thinking something was going on. Get fucking involved Right now more than ever, like people, adults, everybody needs to be a fucking censor.

Speaker 1: 27:36

We say in the military yeah exactly if you, if you see something, if it, if it looks wrong, if it smells wrong, yeah fucking say something. Yeah, it's looking back, man like, and that exact fucking scenario of him taking you to a family outing with his family, 12 year old fucking kid doesn't belong, even if it's a fucking good mentor fuck that.

Speaker 2: 28:04

You got your own family Dude. So yeah, man, it was fucked up man. So so he shows up, my 13th birthday party and by the time I was 13 or 14, I had any, every sexual engagement encounter. Whatever you can do with somebody, right? Anything you can do in the bed with somebody sexually, I had to experience with this man by the time I was 13. I'll never forget the first time I guess I don't know what the right word for it is, but I'll just call it rape the first time he raped me and you know my little fricking tiny body and I can see it, like I can see it, and even when it happened to me, I could see it, I could. I was having an out of body experience, like I felt like I was the only person in the world.

Speaker 2: 28:44

I was in his bed and he had black sheets, black blankets, it was dark and you know, I remember going back to his bed for all these years and there's this jar of Vaseline there and he always talked about it and um, he would make. He would make jokes in front of his, his, uh, some other friends that we would hang out with. He'd make these jokes about like, oh, I'm going to go fuck Seth tonight. Ha ha ha. And everybody would just kind of laugh it off, like these other adults that we would hang out with. They would just laugh it off, um, but yeah, man, you know, the first, the first night, you know, I remember the first time he freaking, raped me, man, and I'm like on his bed and you know he puts his hand on my hips and I can feel his hands holding me there and he did his, he did what he needed to do and you know I'm sitting there at that point I'm just like dude, like what the fuck is going on with my life? And I was fucking miserable, you know, I was just like like what the fuck am I doing? Like what the fuck is going on, like why is this happening to me? And I knew I couldn't. Well, I say I knew, but I couldn't say anything. Cause, like, what are you going to say now? Like, well, now Seth's gay? Uh, what if he has HIV? What if he has AIDS? What if? What if, um, aids? What if my friends at school find out about me? All these different things, man, and you can just get trapped in this fear of rejection, right? So this continues to happen. For another couple of years.

Speaker 2: 30:08

Everything just continued to happen the reciprocation of the oral sex with me and him, and then him and me, and he'd make these comments man, it's really, really bad. When I was almost 16, I was about a month away from being 16. I had a younger friend that was with me at his house. My younger friend goes back in this guy's bed, and this was the first time that I can remember ever seeing my friend go back there, and so I was like okay, like thumbs up, and he had been making the same kind of grooming comments towards him that he'd made towards me for years, and so I knew it was coming. But when he took him back there in the bed with him, I said, all right, this is it Like I'm like fuck this coming. But when he took him back there in the bed with him, I said, all right, this is it. Like I'm like fuck this. And, truthfully, my thought process at the time I was like the audacity to do what you did to me and then do it to somebody else right in front of me, like I don't see it happening. You know, it's almost like cheating on your wife and then texting the girl that you just cheated on her with right in front of her, like look at me, you know. And so I was kind of like I didn't feel like I was being cheated on, I wasn't jealous, but I was just like what the fuck is wrong with you, like that you think you can just do this and get away with it again. And um, you know. So, uh, kind of a crazy story Again.

Speaker 2: 31:30

I I was sitting here playing a video game it was World of Warcraft at the time we were really big into that and I was playing with my friend who introduced me to the guy like five years ago, and I messaged him and I said, hey, man, I need to see you tomorrow after Armando drops me off. And he says, okay, got it. And to him, I talked to him about this afterwards and he knew what it was about immediately as soon as I sent him the message he knew. And, mind you, at this point I was convinced that I was the only person that this had ever happened to. I never suspected it from anybody that it had happened, even to my friend who introduced me to the guy. I just assumed that I was the only one, but I knew it was about to happen to my friend if I didn't say something. So I said hey, I got to see you, right?

Speaker 2: 32:14

So just as I say that in the chat box, mondo comes out of the room and he walks over to the computer real quick and I'm just like what the fuck? I'm like you know, so I try to scroll up in the chat real quick so he can't see it. And I'm confident that he did see it, because the whole mood changed that night and and the guy's smart, and so I say this a lot, but like I thought I was going to get murdered that night. Um, I sat there and I'm like the whole mood changed. She just got quiet and it just was like not, you could just feel it in the air. And so the whole night I'm like kind of like watching the door, because he was six, five, like I said, 380 pounds, but he was built like, he was very capable. He did not look like a sloppy person, like he looked like he could throw a hard punch. So I knew that if he made a quick move or something, I was going to have to run away and escape, somehow, try to get out of his apartment.

Speaker 2: 33:06

So that whole night I spent thinking I was going to get murdered. I was convinced that he saw the message and I knew that if he saw the message, he knew something was up, like he's smart about this. And so, whatever, I make it home the next day, he drops me off first and he takes my friend home and when he drops me off, my other friend shows up and, uh, you know, I I go in my room and I'm talking to him about it and I can't get the words to come out of my body. Basically, I'm just like, look, man, I've been wanting to say this for a long time and I can't. I don't know how to say this and I don't want to, I don't want you to be upset with me. And, um, I can't get the words to come out, and so he goes. You know, mondo touched you, didn't he? And I kind of like just fall apart, you know, I just start crying and I fall to the floor, can't move my body. I'm like getting cold right now thinking about it. But I fall to my I fall to the floor and I just can't move. I'm just like crying harder than I've ever cried before in my life and, um, you know, uh, the next thing that happens after about 10 seconds or so is he says well, he did it to me too. And I turn and I look at him and I'm just like I was expecting like the rejection, you know. And I'm like what the fuck? And so he goes. You know, what do you want to do about it, man? He's like I'll follow your lead, man, whatever you want to do. And I really appreciate now that he had said that, because it just showed how much he supported me instead of forcing me, you know, into a place.

Speaker 2: 34:36

Because, if you're listening to this, reporting is not always the best right away for that person, and this is a very hard thing to explain to people. But a lot of times when you say, well, if somebody raped my daughter or my son or my wife or my child, then I would go and murder that person. And when you say that it makes it very hard to report because if I'm at 15 years old and I report this guy and then my grandpa goes and murders him, well now my grandpa with the same name as me goes and murders said pedophile and then goes to prison, right, well, now it's like well, why did Seth's grandpa go to prison. Oh, it's in the news. Oh, he murdered the guy that's been raping his grandson. So now, at 15 years old, not only did I just come out about the guy, but now the entire world knows about this tragic story, and so then I surely kill myself because I can't deal with it right.

Speaker 1: 35:35

So that's why I was so that's something that nobody talks about. Nobody talks about the implications socially, especially as a young boy and as a man. I didn't talk about any of my sexual abuse or any of the trauma I endured as a kid, purely because I'll be damned if someone's going to use that against me, make a mockery of my trauma, make a mockery of what. I went to a treatment center and talked about that. It wasn't until I was actually somewhere where I felt like, okay, like I can be vulnerable in this situation and speak about the atrocities that I experienced as a kid. No one's going to talk about rape openly and if they found out when you were a kid, yeah, these are fucked.

Speaker 2: 36:15

You know, kids are fucking ruthless Kids are ruthless, who's going to be?

Speaker 1: 36:19

And you don't have a protector? Yep, you don't have somebody that's there for you to help navigate the way through this. Like surviving this type of trauma, surviving this. It puts an emotional toll that you carry for the rest of your life until if, if you're lucky enough, if you're blessed enough, you get help, you're able to talk with somebody that can explain to you why you're not a failure, you're not weak. You know that there is such a thing as fight, flight and freeze, but you were a fucking child. You were a fucking child. It's not your fucking fault and no one's there to say that shit to you until you get help.

Speaker 2: 36:59

Right, and, and you know, before I continue, if anybody or whoever is listening to this, and if you are a victim or or you know somebody I don't mean to say this in a in a scary way, but the way to, you've got to find somebody that you can confide in you. Just, you just need to find somebody who's level-headed and just talk to them, even if you want to say, look, I don't want to report this, I just need to say this out loud. There are ways to do that. It's kind of like in the military with the sharp reports there's a public report and then there's a private or something like that, so confidential or whatever. So I would just say, if there is something going on, it doesn't matter what it is in your life, it doesn't matter what it is. You have to find somebody that you can talk to, that can just listen and not respond. And if you are a person who does hear this from somebody, just listen, listen and let them get out what they need to say and let them make the decisions of what do you want, like, can I help you or do you need to find a resource? Like, what's the plan from here? Did you just need to talk. That may be it, and if that is it, then you have to let that person who's going through it kind of handle that situation. So I say all that because my friend he basically left it up to me, you know, even though it happened to him too. He was just like what do you want to do? You want to report them or do you want to keep it a secret? And I said, fuck this guy, like let's, we got to fucking get his ass. And so what's crazy about this, too, is is I was molested that weekend. He had touched me that weekend, so I knew I had his DNA on me. And so when I got home that Sunday and and the Saturday night that I spent at his house, I knew I couldn't take a shower, like I knew I needed to have his DNA on my body. And so Sunday comes around, you know, and I'm walking around with his DNA all day.

Speaker 2: 38:44

So we go out, we tell my grandparents and my grandma was just absolutely like floored right, because they tried to stop this three years ago, almost four years ago, and they tried to stop it 10 years ago when I was like five or six when it first happened to me. No. So my grandma was just like destroyed and unfortunately she passed away a few years ago. You know that's about. I wish she could just be here to see what I'm doing now. That's that's really. You know the extent of like I don't want to. I don't know if regret's the right word, but I just wish that she could be here to see what I was doing now. But yeah, I mean, she was tore up and she stays at the house and then we go to the hospital. Kind of a long story.

Speaker 2: 39:27

But I meet this officer who, kind of coincidentally enough, was married to one of my teachers from a few years prior. So this lady was my teacher. She was my teacher while I was being sexually abused, right Every single weekend of my life. And then I would end up meeting her husband, you know, four years later, and he would be the one who would handle my case. And so I just interviewed this guy too, and that interview was up on YouTube.

Speaker 2: 39:58

I just interviewed him 13 years after the fact and just to get his side of the story, because I never heard from him before. And so I sat down with him and I did his interview, and it's really cool to hear his side of how everything played out, but he went up and arrested the guy and he was able to get him to admit to everything and he wasn't under custody, so he wasn't under arrest. So he wasn't under arrest. So for those who don't understand that, that's really, really cool, because the guy could have gotten up and walked out at any time. He could have gotten up and walked away and he was not under arrest. And they told him that. You know, like, hey, you're not under arrest. If you want to leave, you can leave. We just want to talk to you about something that Seth said and the guy apparently like denies it at first and says I'm not gay and I'm not any of this, and that's a lie. And then he finally admits to convincing me to give him oral sex and a few other things kind of play out and they end up arresting him and then, a month later or so, he pleads guilty and the guy this was back in 2011, so he gets 10 years in prison for pleading guilty. And what's crazy about this, too, is he had at a minimum six years of pleasure with at a minimum two young boys um, probably closer to eight to 10 years, uh, of pleasure with, with his, with, with the other victims. Uh, I only know of one other victim, and this just gets even worse and worse.

Speaker 2: 41:22

He lived in a small town called Bluffton Ohio. Bluffton Ohio has 4,000 people in it. His mom lived on Main Street and his mom had a wraparound porch on two sides of the house big Victorian style house and every year on Halloween he would have a haunted house at his mom's house around the front porch. Every little kid in that little town would come through his haunted house and he'd be at the end handing every little kid candy. It's just like dude, this is like some shit. You see in a movie man, the guy who's running the famous haunted house is freaking, raping little boys Me and one of the kids the only victims that we know of and so he gets 10 years in prison and he'd be out today. You know he, he, he requested parole in 2019. He was denied and he would be out free today. He was denied parole in 2019. And then he died shortly after that in jail.

Speaker 2: 42:20

I'm trying to, I'm trying to get more, more details on all that. I don't know if they'll, let let me know, but I got a call when I was in afghanistan when I was in the 82nd, um still and um, I just got a call in there, you know, my wife let me know, like hey, you know, so-and-so died and at this point I was just kind of like yeah, whatever, like I don't give a fuck, like good for him, um, but yeah, he died in prison. So thankfully he didn't get out and get to walk this world and be a free man, you know, and all I can hope is that he had a bad time in prison. But nowadays there's so many freaking pedophiles they get their own damn wing, so yeah, it's.

Speaker 1: 42:59

It's a hard thing to understand, like trusting in God's plan. It is hard. It is absolutely one of the hardest things I had to understand and come to terms with. Like, hey, there's no justice on earth that I could ever, ever impart on this individual that would be as complete and as perfect as god's justice. And in the end, it's true, my predator's dead and he died and lived a horrible fucking existence and I didn't know it.

Speaker 1: 43:32

I spent a lot of time and a lot of energy hoping and praying just the most horrible things would happen. And it it got me nowhere closer to feeling free of it. Right, it wasn't until I got help and went through this, this, this healing journey, where I realized like, fuck this, like whatever, whatever he's going through, whatever, like why am I going to give over more energy and more of my mind hoping and praying that something happened? Now, fuck that, god's got something for him. Yeah, and man, I'm telling you, the justice that god imparted on that individual was perfectly executed. What he went through his last remaining years in life after the nightmare that he put us through was perfect.

Speaker 1: 44:20

And then I understood like that fine, when they and it it sucks when they say forgive, because the last thing I want to do, or any survivor wants to do, is fucking forgive. That's right, but forgiveness doesn't do anything for that person. I don't have to forgive. This is freeing me from it. It's freeing me from having to relive that and holding on to that and letting it go. Finally, right, it's not. You're not, uh, absolving the person, right? You're just freeing yourself from the hatred, from the, that constant feeling that you have to control what happens. Like no man, what all of us go through, every child, every individual that suffers this pain, that final thing that we all have to do is just forgive and let go of it and let it go. God's got it, it's not in our hands. Yeah, man, the line it's so fucking hard, dude, it's so fucking hard. But like going back to my faith and understanding that part and seeing the, the reality of it's like, okay, I can let go of this, like I don't have to hold on to it.

Speaker 2: 45:23

Yeah dude, I, I was gonna say, uh, when it happened, you know, I had already been through so much shit in my life that I was just kind of like, and this was 10 years ago, well, this was like 13, 14 years ago now. But, um, I didn't like see crime victim services. I didn't like get any treatment, no therapy, nothing. They were just kind of like thanks, and then nobody followed up with me. So I just kind of left, went home and then I didn't have any plans that weekend. Like I was like, okay, well, now, what the fuck am I going to do? And that was like the extent of I mean, I woke up the next day and I was just kind of like, okay, you know, like it, it really didn't hit me until I was I was about to get out of the army, actually, oddly enough, and that's kind of when I started, like man, I was going through some shit. Well, I tell you what I was getting out.

Speaker 2: 46:13

I was like you know, that's a stressful time and we just got back from Afghanistan and I was married, had two kids and I didn't know what the fuck I was going to do. I knew I was going to be successful. Like I'm like a hard freaking driven person. I knew I was going to do something right, but I but you just start freaking out, man, and then you know your whole command is like wanting you to reenlist and they're telling you that you're going to fail and that you're not going to make money and all this shit, and you're just like man, what the fuck? So you know, and actually what really triggered everything for me is I watched the R Kelly documentary. And the R Kelly documentary he's got a fucked up story too, where Dude, I couldn't get through that documentary man.

Speaker 2: 46:54

Yeah, dude, it's. So I'm not defending the guy, right, but what happened to him is tragic, man, because he, if I remember correctly, he was having sex with grown women when he was like 12, 13, 14 years old, something like that. And so when the time came for him to be of age and he was still having sex with these younger women who were 17, 18, whatever they were 16, he was doing what was normal to him and unfortunately, you know, he didn't have the guidance to get him out of that place. And it sucks, man, because that could have very easily been me.

Speaker 2: 47:29

I was just on another show last week and I was telling him I was very sexually motivated man when I was freaking 15, 16 years old and I finally reported that guy, every girl that I encountered after that, I was very, very motivated by sex.

Speaker 2: 47:43

Like I was just like, yeah, we gotta have sex, we gotta have sex.

Speaker 2: 47:44

You know, like we hang out, we gotta have sex, and so, um, I was very handsy and touchy and you know, um, I mean I could have very, very, very well been a statistic of, you know, boy rapes, girl kind of situation and, um, you know, that's one thing that I kind of want to get into schools and colleges to speak to the boys and speak to the men to let them know that, look, man, this shit is not okay, right, if you are hanging out with a girl and she does not want to do anything, like just fucking back off, you know, back off, because I think that a lot of times kids get in those situations and it's just like the girls, just like a guy, or like me as a kid, who just didn't want to say no or is too scared to back out, and then the next thing, you know, you end up freaking, catching a case for just some, just some, just some mistakes or some miscommunication or whatever.

Speaker 2: 48:45

Um, you know. So I kind of do want to talk to some schools and and and kind of talk to the guys and be like, look man, um, you know, just you need to understand how to be a gentleman, right, and just kind of back off and and I wish, I wish I would've had that Like I never had a father, I never had anybody to tell me, like look, you're 16. You don't need to be worrying about banging every girl in high school or whatever, right, like it's not, it's not that big of a deal, so yeah, Casual sex has become such a normal thing that we have to address.

Speaker 1: 49:13

It's like why is it such a it? It shouldn't be something that's normalized, it shouldn't. And when you're a victim and you experience sexual abuse, it's been normalized. It's something that you were. It became something that was normal to you and nobody was there. You didn't have a backstop to tell you like hey, you went through this trauma, let's put you through a program so you can understand that. Like hey, this isn't a normal thing. These aren't normal interactions should be having like nobody takes that time right, nobody takes that time. That, uh, and especially now we're in the age of only fans, we're in the age of, yeah, constant, yeah, sexual, like it's. I saw a meme where it's like having sex is the first base nowadays. We shouldn't normalize that. We shouldn't be promoting that idea. It was something that you went through and you didn't have somebody to help you navigate it Right. Luckily, by the grace of God, you made it through that period in life.

Speaker 2: 50:24

Yeah, man, it was dude, it was tough man. You know, like I said, it would probably take me close to eight to 10 hours to really detail everything that was happening between my mom and this guy and all these different, uh different parts of my life. But you know, what I'm trying to do now is is I actually have a event next week. I'm going to and I'm speaking to a bunch of kids and you know my message now is like dude, like you still belong, there's a place, it doesn't matter what happened to you, there's a place in this world where you belong. Right, I felt probably the most welcome when I was in the army, because you're just around a bunch of shit bags and you know you're just freaking a bunch of knuckleheads, you know, and and you.

Speaker 1: 51:08

Just the thing is like when and I'm you know, I I hold my associate's degree in uh infantryman warfare.

Speaker 1: 51:15

If I'm a member of the 82nd. Uh, shout out to the second of the 504. Um. Member of the 82nd. Shout out to the second of the 504.

Speaker 1: 51:24

In this project, I realized that combat arms attracts individuals like us because we know what it's like to not have any power, we know what it's like to be a victim and we desperately want to be a protector. We desperately want to go somewhere and make a difference. And what greater calling than going to combat, yeah, and what greater calling than being part of, you know, the greatest profession on earth, combat arms? Um, that's where I found myself. That's where I found myself going and then going into special operations afterwards, because it's like, okay, like I got my associate's degree and being a protector, let's go get a master's degree in this shit.

Speaker 1: 52:03

And the same individual, I found the same type of individuals and we never talked about it, but you can feel, you can see the same sort of drive and it's like fuck, like now that you reflect back and look how many of them, how many of my brothers, were suffering with the same trauma, the same pain, and it turns out a lot of us and it's fucking heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to realize that we are not this anomaly. There are more of us than we know. Yeah, some of us are still suffering silently and if you're out there.

Speaker 1: 52:36

It doesn't take anything away from you. It does not make you any less of a fucking man. Like it's not your fault that you went through this. You have no control over it. Like you deserve to be free of this, get help, be willing to talk to somebody and, when you're able to, when you finally find what works for you in your mental health journey, be willing to advocate for others, be willing to stand up, because that's what brings awareness to this, that's what brings more light to this and that's what combats the fucking idiots right now on social media, on ted talks, on capitol hill, championing the cause to make fucking pedophiles a gender ideology. They're not. They're. They're criminals to the highest degree and they should all be fucking executed. Sorry, I'll put a warning indicator to podcast description I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 53:35

The most vulnerable people deserve the most protection, and that's our children and I'm sorry, the don't.

Speaker 1: 53:41

They don't belong to a community. Children don't belong to a fucking greater part of our society. They belong to fucking parents. Parents hold. Unless the parents are predators, then you have all the rights to take care of them however you see fit. In my idea, we should be able to take care of them with a 25 cent, 22 round Again, a warning for violence. But I will say this there is dangerous rhetoric right now and we all have to be aware and listen to it, because if I see one more video with one more ignorant individual claiming that pedophilia needs to be normalized and accepted, I'm going to lose my shit. That is absolutely wrong. There's no room for it in our society, and the individuals who are found guilty of doing this shit need to be held accountable, man, because they don't deserve to be out here living freely. And there's so many people that are championing this idea that it's I'm losing my mind just every time I see it, man. It's so wrong, dude.

Speaker 2: 54:46

Yeah, man, I told somebody the other day, you know, I've got a son. Well, I've got a five-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. And my son is, you know, he's a beautiful little blue eye, blonde hair boy. Right, I mean, if I put him on the internet today he would sell for $100,000. And they would ship him all around the world and do to a three-year-old child, to a little boy who just wants to freaking play with his cars. They would hook him on drugs and do horrendous things to him, horrible, nightmarish things. Right, and it's happening. I mean it's happening. I mean it's happening right now. It's 652 in atlanta. It's happening right now, probably within 10 miles of my house. It's happening all over the world. Man, and and and for people to like freaking, just, you know, yeah, it's happening and and and there's these. You know, I don't know we're never going to stop it, I don't think.

Speaker 2: 55:44

But what I want to be able to do is to show people that they still freaking belong. Man Like I show up to a corporate America kind of job, working in an office with a bunch of people who probably grew up with mom and dad and have everything they want. They've never had a bad day or a flat tire or spilled coffee in their life, and so they just don't understand how tough life can be. But for the people who do, I want them to know that you freaking belong man, and I have one. So I've jumped out of planes, I've served in the 82nd Airborne. I freaking went to Afghanistan. I've been all over the world Africa, europe, freaking Dominican Republic. I got out of the Army. I made a lot of money. I went to Las Vegas. I won a National Construction Awards. I was the number one construction manager at a company, one of the biggest construction companies in America.

Speaker 2: 56:36

And I say all that not to brag, but to tell people that they freaking belong. And I say all that not to brag, but to tell people that they freaking belong. And when I was on that freaking stage in Las Vegas, speaking to a room full of millionaires, not a damn person in that room could relate to me, not a single one of them. I know it, I know it to be true, and there's no way in hell they would believe or maybe not believe, but understand where I had come from and why that award.

Speaker 2: 56:59

It probably doesn't mean much to anybody because nobody knows what that award is. If I told you what it was. You wouldn't know what it is, and that's okay. So that award probably doesn't mean as much to people as it does to me, because if I could go back to my 12 year old self and just tell him to, fricking, hang on, man, it's going to be okay, don't kill yourself, just keep fighting man. Just you, just keep fighting you. One day you will find a place and you will belong and you'll have a beautiful family. You have two kids to love and protect. You know that's that's my message now is that, despite the bullshit, man like there was a place for you in this world, you just got to hang on and just keep fighting and it's.

Speaker 1: 57:35

It's hard, but that's what you got to do, absolutely, absolutely, brother. That's the fucking truth. Hard, but that's what you gotta do, fucking, literally, absolutely, brother, that's the fucking truth. I, I, I feel the same fucking way.

Speaker 1: 57:44

I look back at that young kid that was struggling to live day by day and thinking of not having any dreams, not having any aspirations, not just thinking like, hey, tomorrow could be it, yep, tomorrow could be the end of my fucking life. Like no dreams, no hopes. And here I am, like successful, being able to understand that and realizing that, man, there's so many kids out there. They just it's going to be okay, trust in god's plan, trust in god's plan. And I didn't, I didn't want to believe it.

Speaker 1: 58:16

But I look back now and it's like all those years, all that pain, all that trauma, all of that, there was a plan for it. I didn't understand it, I couldn't see it and I couldn't control it. But that's okay, because I made it through it. I made it through that and I know that I'm making a difference. I know that people like us being able to give a voice and a face to what it looks like it changes the fucking game, because everybody sees that face of a young girl. Everybody sees the face of maybe a child from a different country, but when the face is a bearded guy that serves in the military, that lets everybody fucking know that it can happen to any single individual and that we all need to be aware of it. We all need to be able to be sensors around our community and understand that children deserve protection. Seth.

Speaker 1: 59:15

I can't thank you enough for being here, man, for being vulnerable enough and sharing your story. Dude, I cannot wait for your book. I can't wait to sit down and have more talks, because like this is how we bring change, this is how we're able to empower others, and there's so many of us out there, and we just need to be able to meet and bring everybody along in this journey of success, because for every every one of us, there's five or six who are still in pain and still struggling, and we have to be that beacon of hope. Man, yeah, so thank you for what you're doing. Do you have a website or anything we can plug?

Speaker 2: 59:49

I don't have a website yet. The only thing is just, right now I'm just working off an Instagram. As things come out, as things progress with the book, I'll have a website built and I'll have things specifically tailored for my book. But, um, my Instagram right now is just, uh, it's it's at go beyond the shadows. Um, potential title for my book is strength beyond the shadows. So that's kind of where that comes from. And and um, if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see me kind of talk about these things and talk about what I'm doing and trying to save the world, man, one person at a time.

Speaker 1: 1:00:23

Oh yeah, brother, that's that's what we're here for again. Uh, thank you for being here, man. Uh, for the listeners out there, uh, I hope that you're able to listen through and, uh, forgive me for my violent rhetoric, but that's how I feel, and if you don't like it, don't tune in anymore. But, yeah, there's no hope to compromise when it comes to our kids. So, thank you so much, seth, and we'll see you all next time. Take care, if you like what we're doing and you enjoying the show, don't forget to share us. Like us, subscribe and head on over to our patreon, where you can be part of our community and get access to all of our episodes as soon as they drop. And remember we get through this together, take care.