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Ivy Pochoda’s women are not here to be easy to forgive, easy to understand, or easy to root for—and that is exactly the point.

During tornado power outages, I found myself reading through These Women, Sing Her Down, and Ecstasy: three books that linger in violence, survival, rage, womanhood, and the pressure to turn pain into something palatable for everyone else. In this episode, I’m talking about what Pochoda’s work reveals about the “good victim” myth: the expectation that women must be soft, grateful, innocent, and emotionally convenient in order for their hurt to count.

We get into the women society overlooks, the difference between being harmed and being powerless, the fear of female anger, and why a survivor does not need to become sweet, forgiving, or morally uncomplicated in order to deserve belief.

Because you can be hurt and still be angry. You can be healing and still be complicated. And sometimes the most threatening thing about a woman is not her rage—it is the moment she stops asking permission to name what happened to her.

These Women centers the people most affected by violence rather than glamorizing its perpetrator, while Sing Her Down pushes into violence by, against, and within women; Ecstasy reimagines Greek tragedy through female freedom, repression, and horror.

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After a much-needed pause for mental health, I’m finally back with a new episode — and I’m coming back to a story that’s been grounding me in more ways than one. In this episode, I revisit the Harry Potter series through a deeper psychological and mythic lens, exploring how stories like this help us make sense of suffering, identity, and the process of becoming whole. Drawing loosely from the ideas of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Jordan Peterson, I reflect on why these narratives continue to resonate, especially when life feels heavy, uncertain, or in transition.

This is a conversation about more than magic. It’s about growth, meaning, and the strange way a familiar story can reveal something new when you need it most.

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In this short solo episode of 515, I sit down after a brutal morning in divorce court and talk about what happens when the systems that are supposed to protect you… rewrite your story instead.

No kids, no house to fight over, no request for money. On paper, it should be a simple divorce. But the petition that was filed in my name says something else entirely: that I’m unemployed, that I’m chasing maintenance and attorney’s fees, that I’m more helpless than I am.

I walk through how that language ended up in my paperwork over my objections, how it felt to be confronted by a judge reading a version of me I don’t recognize, and what it means to push back—by filing complaints and reclaiming my narrative—while still protecting my bandwidth as a survivor of intimate partner abuse.

This is an episode about trust, professional gaslighting, money as a second abuser, and why “being exhausted” is not the same thing as giving consent. It’s also a reminder that paper can lie about you, systems can misquote you, and you still get to decide who you are.

Audio note: I recorded this on the fly and couldn’t find my lapel mics, so the sound is a little rough around the edges. Think of it as a voice memo from the trenches, right before we head back to the golf course for “Fairways & Battlefields: Ladies of the Garden Club” in the next episode.

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• https://www.talesfromadivebar.com/ (Check out 515 on TFADB)

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Today’s episode of 515 takes you out onto the golf course for a charity outing with Mission 22, an organization created to confront the heartbreaking reality that veterans are dying by suicide at alarming rates, even as overall numbers have begun to shift in recent years.

Raven sits down with Mission 22 Senior Ambassador Red Earles IV to talk about life after deployment, the war within, and how programs like working ranches and equine therapy are giving veterans and their families a chance to reset without the barrier of cost.

Out on the fairway, we also meet Angelo, a 95-year-old Korean War veteran and course ranger, who shares how he’s wrestled with faith, moral injury, and staying active in a world that kept moving long after the ceasefire.

This episode holds space for veterans while also recognizing that trauma and complex PTSD don’t only belong to the battlefield, but that all forms of pain deserve acknowledgment, support, and community.

If you or someone you love is struggling, you can call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or visit 988lifeline.org for immediate support. Veterans and service members can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and pressing 1, or by texting 838255 any time, day or night.

Stay tuned as we continue our adventure across the course, meeting more people and uncovering the stories tucked between the tees and the greens.

Support Mission 22: https://mission22.org

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In the first-ever Surface Tension session, Raven sits down with Jason (aka Chad from Episode 9) for a late‑night, red‑envelope conversation that goes wherever the questions take them.

They start with music and inner teenagers, then spill into hallucinogenic grief rituals, anxiety, and what it means when your body reacts before your mind can catch up. Along the way, they unpack men’s objectification, external validation, and why the “not all men” conversation so often misses the point when the reality for many women is “a man.”

Expect stories about mushrooms and grandmothers, Snapchat creeps, the weirdness of modern dating, and the ways patriarchy and trauma shape how we relate to ourselves and each other. It’s raw, imperfect, and honest—exactly what Surface Tension is meant to hold.

~ If you want a great convo between Jason and Raven on toxic relationships, visit Jason's podcast Tales From A Dive Bar: https://www.talesfromadivebar.com/raven-and-jd-talk-about-toxic-relationships/

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In this episode, I talk about how watching the latest Wuthering Heights adaptation wrecked me in the best and worst ways—and why it felt less like a classic and more like watching my past with “Chad” on screen. I break down the difference between epic, painful love and a trauma bond: intensity versus safety, chaos versus consistency, and self‑abandonment versus self‑respect. I share how things with “Chad” became grotesque, how my nervous system learned to equate intensity with importance, and why those wounds still sting even though we’re just friends now.

We’ll also look at how my marriage to my ex-husband was a different kind of harm—slow, patterned erosion instead of explosive passion—and how stories like Wuthering Heights can shift from aspirational romance to cautionary tale once you see the pattern. If you’ve ever watched a fictional couple and thought, “That feels uncomfortably like my life,” this episode is your invitation to ask: Is this love, or is this my old trauma bond talking?

**I use the pseudonym “Chad” lightly here. It is part-truth, but his name is also a nickname with his first initial, so I had to come up with something else. 

Demand justice. Sign and share the Voiceless Justice Act, a federal initiative to recognize narcissistic abuse as psychological homicide and criminalize it accordingly. Every signature is another voice against silence.
www.change.org/Voicelessjusticeact

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If you are ready to burn the “good girl” and “cool girl” roles to the ground, this episode will meet you there. If you are not ready, but your body leans in anyway, you are still welcome here. You get to listen at your own pace, pause when your nervous system says stop, and come back when you are ready.

I am not here to fix you, diagnose you, or tell you what you should do with your relationship. I am here to say out loud what many of us were trained to swallow. I am here to talk about consequences, self-protection, grief, and the exact moment you stop existing as an emotional crutch and start existing as a whole person again.

If you are still in it, on the fence, or already out, trying to make sense of the rubble, you belong in this conversation. You don't need to be ready to leave to deserve clarity. You do not have to be “healed” to deserve safety. You only have to be willing to hear the truth of your own experience and let that truth matter.

****Listen to episode 2 to get the full arc here, but you definitely do not have to. Thank you for listening, sharing, and advocating for our cause. <3****

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An Open Letter to My Ex-Husband’s Next Victim” is a raw, explicit warning written for the woman who comes after me and has no idea what she is walking into. Using my own notes, timelines, and recorded calls, I spell out how my ex-husband twists words, disputes reality, and turns empathy into a weapon, and I name the sexual, emotional, and psychological patterns he is likely to repeat with you.

This is not a theory or a diagnosis. This is live data. If you find this one day and parts of your relationship sound like what I describe, or if you end up meeting my ex-husband in the wild, I want you to have the language I did not have soon enough, so you can trust yourself, set consequences, and get out before you are reduced to an emotional crutch with your reality rewritten in his voice.

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• https://www.talesfromadivebar.com/ (Check out 515 on TFADB)

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Support the show

Links:

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• https://515fitnessinc.com
• https://www.tiktok.com/@515alchemy
• https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61585497002747
• https://www.talesfromadivebar.com/ (Check out 515 on TFADB)

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This episode focuses on gratitude as a mental health tool, grounded in data and lived experience. Raven explains what studies report about gratitude, anxiety, and depression, how repeated gratitude practices shape brain function over time, and how listeners can experiment with small, honest practices that respect their circumstances. HELO, her chihuahua-miniature pinscher named after a Battlestar Galactica character, makes a few bark cameos that keep the conversation firmly rooted in everyday life.

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• https://www.talesfromadivebar.com/ (Check out 515 on TFADB)