Today is a first for me. I have never interviewed anyone on this podcast before, and I will be honest with you, I was nervous. Now that it is done, I am really proud of myself.

My guest is Karyn Harvey, a psychologist who has spent about 40 years working alongside people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. That is her resume. Who she is to me is a friend, a mentor, and the person who helped me put a name to what I had been carrying my whole life.

This is part three of the series, and it turned out so big I split it in two. Part one is about one thing: what trauma actually is, and the relief that comes when someone finally tells you it was not your fault.

Karyn talks about being told early on that you cannot do therapy with people with IDD, and going back to school anyway. About what happens in a group when someone realizes they are not the only one. About people in their sixties and seventies only just learning that the weight they had been carrying was put there by something done to them.

For me it was simpler than that. I wasn't being naughty. It was trauma, and nobody had ever told me.

Next time, Karyn and I go somewhere harder. We go back to the piece of gum.

Until then, hold onto this: behavior is communication.

Last week I told you the story — the school, the piece of gum, the dark room. This week I want to take you somewhere quieter.

This is the part I don't usually say out loud. What it's actually like to carry this. How it came rushing back the first night I spent in a nursing home, decades later, until it felt like I was four years old again being left behind. How a presentation about Holocaust survivors made me realize I'm not alone, and I'm not crazy for feeling the way I feel. And how, for most of my life, I believed I was bullheaded and stubborn — until someone taught me the word was actually determined.

I also tell you what I'd say now to that little girl in the dark room. And why, to this day, I never sleep without a light on.

Healing, for me, isn't a finish line. It's daily. Some days I catch myself, take a breath, and give myself grace. Some days I don't. I'm still figuring out the difference between an explanation and an excuse. I don't have it all worked out, and I decided to be honest about that here.

If you've ever been called difficult, or too much, and never had a word for why — this one is for you.

Next time, I'm bringing you Karyn, the psychologist who sat with me through all of it.

I answer every email: [email protected]

Same as before — that pastes into Spotify as plain text with no markdown. Want a shorter preview-blurb version too, or is this good to drop in?

This is a hard one for me to share, and I want to be honest about that upfront.

I was born with cerebral palsy in 1959. When I was four years old, my parents were told the best place for me was a school a hundred and eighty miles from home — so that's where they left me. Back then, that's what parents of disabled children were encouraged to do. So this is my story, but it isn't only mine.

In this episode I tell you about a piece of gum my mother once gave me, what happened when I dropped it, and why that small moment has stayed with me my whole life. I also talk about the TRIAD grant — the program that finally helped me understand that what I carried all those years wasn't something wrong with me. It was trauma. And my feelings were valid.

I'm sharing this now because this work needs to keep going. There are people still carrying this quietly, who have never once been told that what happened to them wasn't their fault.

This is Part 1. Next week, I go deeper — into what it's like to carry this, and what healing has actually looked like for me.

And if you take one thing from today: the next time someone's reactions don't make sense to you, instead of asking "what's wrong with this person," try asking "what happened to this person." It changes everything.

I answer every email: [email protected]

I didn't know much about service animals going into this one. Not the cost, not the training, not what it actually takes for someone to get one. I'll be honest about that upfront.

I also want to tell you about a moment I'm not proud of — passing a woman in a grocery store with a small dog in her cart, hearing her say it was her service animal, and quietly wondering why. I had to catch myself. I only see what's on the outside. I don't know what someone else is carrying.

That's what got me thinking about Gracie.

Gracie is my cat. She's partially sighted, she's ten years old, and she's officially my support animal — paperwork and all. In this episode I tell you how she came into my life, what she actually does for me on the hard days, and something I don't say very often: sometimes I feel a little guilty about calling her my support animal at all.

This isn't the deep dive into service animals I originally planned. That conversation is still coming — my friend Dave, who used a guide dog for years, will join me soon to talk about what a trained partnership really looks like. This one is just mine to tell first.

Unfiltered Resilience is advocacy, lived experience, and honest conversation for anyone who has ever been told independence is a privilege, not a right.

I answer every email: [email protected]

Most people hear the word "transportation" and think of buses and schedules. I hear it and think of freedom. Or the lack of it.

In this episode I talk about what accessible transportation actually means for people with disabilities — and what it costs when the system fails. I tell you about an ADA meeting where my mom started keeping a tally of how many times the directors said "can't." I tell you about sitting in a cold hallway watching out a window, fingers crossed, afraid to look away because if I miss the bus I don't get a second chance. I tell you about a last-minute job interview I almost couldn't get to — and what I had to do to make it work.

I also talk about the holidays. About never being able to visit the cemetery on Memorial Day because there's no transit. About the days that are supposed to bring communities together becoming some of the most isolating days of the year.

And I tell you about the moment I hopped on a train in Washington D.C. and said out loud — free at last. Because for one moment, I was just a person going somewhere. Like anyone else.

This episode is not about complaining. It's about helping people understand that transportation is not a luxury. It is a pathway to independence. And until it works for everyone, it doesn't really work at all.

Unfiltered Resilience — advocacy, lived experience, and honest conversation for everyone who has been told independence is a privilege, not a right.

I answer every email: [email protected]

In my last episode, I talked about the word "can't" — that earthquake feeling when a system slams the door in your face. Today I want to talk about the complete opposite. Two words that have opened more doors in my life than almost anything else: just try.

In this episode I share what those words actually feel like — not the logic of it, but the feeling. The sunrise. The light at the end of a tunnel I wasn't sure had an end. And then I get honest about something most people don't talk about — that "just try" isn't always clean or comfortable. Sometimes the person trying still makes you feel like a burden. And that changes everything.

I take you into a physical therapy gym four years ago where nobody was sure what was going to happen. I tell you about a taxi driver who made me feel like a little child being scolded, right in the middle of something that was supposed to feel like progress. I talk about a lawyer who didn't promise me success but was willing to try everything under the sun anyway. And I share two personal stories — one involving a Honda Pilot parked on a hill, and one involving my shower — that remind me that the most important "just try" moments are often the ones nobody else sees.

This one is for anyone who has already decided something won't work before they've actually tried.

Resilience isn't always about having the answer. Sometimes it's simply having the courage to say — I don't know if this is going to work, but let's try.

Reach me at [email protected] — I answer every email.

"We can't do that."

I have heard those words more times than I can count — in transportation meetings, in therapy rooms, from systems that were supposed to help me. And every single time, it lights a fire in me.

In this episode, I get honest about the word "can't" — what it feels like, what it really means, and why I believe most "can'ts" are just "won'ts" in disguise. I share real stories, I draw the line between a genuine limitation and plain laziness, and I have something to say to every young person already hearing "can't" from a system that should know better.

Spoiler: I graduated from BYU anyway.

Unfiltered Resilience — because independence is a right, not a privilege.

Reach me at [email protected] — I read every single one.

A year ago, I almost didn't do this.

I thought a podcast was too much. That I didn't have enough to say. That nobody would want to listen to one more person share their story. I was terrified — and honestly, I almost let that fear win.

I'm glad I didn't.

Unfiltered Resilience is officially over a year old, and in this anniversary episode, I want to be honest with you about something. This podcast is changing. Not because I planned it that way — but because life pushed me here, and I've learned that when life pushes you hard enough in a direction, you listen.

What started as my personal story — a diary of life in a power wheelchair with cerebral palsy — has become something I didn't expect. It has become a mission.

Because somewhere over the last year, I stopped seeing my struggles as personal problems and started seeing them for what they really are — systemic ones. The financial traps, the Medicaid rules, the impossible choices that disabled people are forced to make just to survive — these are not accidents. They are built into the system. And once I understood that, I knew this podcast could not stay only about me.

In this episode I talk about what it felt like to start this show terrified and grow into it. I talk about the friend who looked at my situation and told me the truth — that the system is designed to keep people like me poor, not help us thrive. I talk about the book I still want to write someday, and the painful reality attached to that dream. And I talk about who I am really doing all of this for — because it is not for me anymore.

I started this podcast to share my story. I kept going because I realized it wasn't just mine.

Unfiltered Resilience is advocacy, lived experience, and honest conversation — for every person who has ever been told by a broken system that independence is a privilege, not a right.

The next chapter starts now.

📧 [email protected]

Last episode, I told you about the reality of living with cerebral palsy and trying to stay in my own home — the 30% gross income rule, the attorney I hired, and the hope that didn't pan out.

This episode is the next chapter.

This is what happens after the hope runs out and you keep fighting anyway.

I'm pulling back the curtain on what navigating the Medicaid system actually looks like from the inside — the asset spend-down rules that forced me to spend $30,000 I wanted to save, the legal tool that should have been available to me but wasn't because of my age, and the real cost of fighting back that nobody puts in a policy document. Not just the money. The energy. The emotional toll. The depression and despair that come from doing everything right and still feeling like you're losing.

I also talk about what freedom really means when you live with a disability — and why the nursing home isn't just a financial question for me. It's a question of identity, dignity, and everything I have spent my life fighting to protect.

Because my life started in an institution. And I have spent every year since making sure it doesn't end in one.

This isn't just my story. It's a window into what millions of people with disabilities and their families are navigating right now — quietly, exhaustedly, and mostly alone.

But not anymore.

If you are a parent, a sibling, a friend, or a neighbor of someone living with a disability — this episode is for you too. Because awareness without action is just a ribbon. And it's time to act.

I need your help. I cannot do this alone. Listen, share, and reach out — because every voice added to this fight makes the sound harder to ignore.

📧 [email protected]

This isn’t about awareness anymore.

Last month, we talked about why visibility matters. Why speaking up matters. Why making noise matters. And I meant all of that. But this episode is about what comes after that. Because awareness without action doesn’t change anything.

This is the reality behind the ribbon.

In this episode, I’m walking you through what it actually costs to live independently as you age with a disability. Not just financially, but emotionally and personally. What it means to rely on a system that makes it harder, not easier, to stay in your own home. What it feels like to do everything right and still end up back at square one.

I’m sharing what’s happening in my life right now—navigating Medicaid, losing support after 65, facing decisions that no one should have to make. Decisions between independence and survival. Between staying in your home or being pushed into a system that was never built with you in mind.

This is not a polished story. This is the real one.

And I’m not sharing this for sympathy. I’m sharing it because something has to change. And change doesn’t happen quietly.

If this resonates with you, don’t just listen—share it. Start the conversation. Ask the questions.

Because we deserve more than awareness.

We deserve to live on our own terms.