The kindness of strangers

**CONTENT WARNNG**

 This episode discusses sexual abuse of a minor, suicide and mental health. 

This episode I spoke to Lora Devore. Lora is the author of the book darkness was my candle, an Odyssey of survival and grace. Whilst being a therapist and educator.

Lora is an abuse survivor having gone through a magnitude of traumatic events from a young age.

She candidly spoke to me about her childhood and what path and the influences of those she met along the way led her to choose love as oppose to hate and to be an advocate for trauma victims.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lora-DeVore/e/B09LR91CMK%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
https://www.loradevore.com/about
https://youtu.be/vWiXgSUMtmE
https://www.instagram.com/loradevoreauthor/
https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.157.6.1029
https://cmbm.org
https://www.hanford.gov
https://www.spiritualityandhealth.org/events/devore


Please note transcription accuracy may vary.

Music by - Neffex - don't want to let myself down 
Neffex - A year go
                        

Transcript

AO: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Chataholic. This episode I speak to Lora, just a pre-warning. This episode does discuss topics that might not be suitable for every listener because we do discuss sexual abuse of a minor mental health and suicide. So if you. Not comfortable, or these could be possible triggers, then I would suggest that maybe not listening to this one. Thank you. Hi, Lora, how are you?

Lora: 0:38

I'm good. Thank you. Honored to be on your show.

AO: 0:41

Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. Would you just tell me a bit about you? Anything that you are comfortable sharing?

Lora: 0:48

Okay, great. Thank you. So I do a number of things in the world. For the last 30 years I've been connected with an organization called The Center for Mind Body Medicine outta Washington, DC and we go into all kind of communities helping with trauma relief. So we worked with students down in Florida, in Broward. I've been to Haiti and Gaza and worked with firefighters after nine 11. And it's very deep transformative work. And then I also do some work for an organization in Minnesota called Prairie Care, primarily doing leadership development and mentoring for them and then do individual retreats and talks and workshops, as well as continuing to do a lot of book launch events.

AO: 1:31

Would you mind just saying what led you to choosing this path? why did you feel inside you that your purpose? Because when I speak to people, they mention knowing what their purpose is based on Experiences they've been on. What led you to wanting to help trauma victims? And I know you do a lot of work with children also,

Lora: 1:57

Absolutely. I suffered a lot of trauma myself growing up, so I understand from the inside out how a person can suffer once they've been traumatized, and particularly work with the Center for My Body Medicine, who, which was started by a psychiatrist named Dr. James Gordon, who's always worked outside the box, so to speak. all of our faculty have to learn about the neurobiology of stress and how these amazing bodies that we walk around in everyday work. We understand better how our cars work than we do these bodies. And so that work is incredibly empowering. It's been empowering for me and continued me in my own healing journey as well as I've watched so many people profoundly heal through that work without having to go on medication or into psychiatric care or any of that. I also passionately believe that trauma can be fully healed no matter what the trauma. And I'm a poster child myself for resilience and for proving that's true. Cuz I suffered so many multi factorial, multilayered kinds of trauma growing up. The other thing is I'm an author and I was writing a completely different book. And I was at my writing mentors in California about seven years ago. And she had asked me to come out there and to be a scribe for her cuz she writes a book every summer and she wanted me to be her driver. She's in her eighties. And to take notes for her and she was going to be interviewing elders on the Yakima reservation in Washington State and had hoped that we could get into Hanford nuclear site, which I'd never heard of. And a lot of people have never heard of it. And so I agreed to do that and I was doing research for her.

AO: 3:44

Sorry, because I haven't heard of it, so would you just explain to me please, if that's all right?

Lora: 3:50

yes, absolutely. Hanford nuclear site. It was originally land dedicated to the Yakima Reservation, but our government took parts, huge parts of their land away from them when they decided before, probably early on during World War II to build Hanford nuclear site. And that's where we mine, plutonium and uranium and built all that needed to go into making the Atom bomb. And it is probably the most toxic site on this continent at this point because a lot of the warships that hold nuclear reactors get buried there. And the land is poisoning the rivers and the salmon and any of the people who live down wind on farms as well as people on the Yakima reservation. The incident of cancer is astronomical.

AO: 4:39

Do you know it's because if someone says something and I find it really interesting, I then just have this desire to want to know more. What were you doing? How were you involved? And cuz I'm going to have a follow up to that one. Has it made any difference? Is this still going on? Is the government looking into it?

Lora: 4:59

No it is still going on. Han Hanford nuclear site is still there. All of that is still going on. The way I ended up getting involved is I was doing some research for Dina about that, some of those very things before we were to leave on our trip from Southern California to Washington state, and all of a sudden in the research. The name Elgin State Hospital came up on the screen and that was a piece of my past that was so startling to see. And then later in the day d asked me how the research was going and I said, it's okay, but it's hard to read. And she said, there's something more. What else is going on with you? She's got these eagle eyes and is very perceptive. And I said I saw a little pass of my past history on the screen in the research, and it really took me aback. She said, what part of your history? So I told her and she looked at me and she said, and why did I never hear that you had been in a state hospital? And I realized in those moments that I still held all the shame of that. All those years later, I was put in a state hospital and was the victim of government research in the sixties and still held that shame.

AO: 6:14

I will ask what led to you being put in there? I know, but I just want to be able to share that with other people. Why did you feel shame? Because I know what happened and I know what you've been through, but none of that was ever your fault. So why did you feel shame?

Lora: 6:35

I think that it's normal to feel shame. I felt like I must have done something wrong to get myself in there. And it took, and it was a lot of years before I understood that I had been a research subject and that my being put there wasn't because I was mentally ill or I was psychotic, despite the fact they had me on a lot of different antipsychotic drugs. It was because they were doing research. But I didn't know that at that time. So I, being a young 18 year old, the freshman or the summer after my freshman year in college, I thought it was there was something really wrong with me that I just didn't understand or could see and Elgin the state hospital and being thrown away by the state really broke me. And so I think I was still holding some of that. And I, as I've talked all over the country, I've met a lot of people who've had family members in state hospitals and they hold the shame for their family members cuz those were shameful places. They were shameful places back in the sixties and earlier. And we didn't understand mental health and people were called lunatic and. They weren't treated well as, I wasn't treated well in Elgin State Hospital, and in part it was people's fear. It was another way that we have always othered people and marginalized certain people. There's actually records that I came across that helped me also to begin to understand that a lot of what was happening in the state hospitals was based on the eugenics movement, which was very robust in our country at one point. And I write about that this towards the end of my book and all the research I discovered, and eugenics wasn't just about sterilization of people, that we didn't want to continue to have babies. It was about the belief that some people are called less desirables. And of course we still see remnants of that in this country.

AO: 8:35

Yes. I don't hear about it so much in the United Kingdom. not saying it doesn't go on in United Kingdom, but I know in America, When I watch documentaries, it still goes on today. I don't know if it's just, now we are just more conscious of what goes on, so we are more able to call out the system, but the fact that it still goes on all these years later, actually, it blows my mind.

Lora: 9:05

what I discovered is there was a point in history in which we had robust eugenics movements as did the United Kingdom. Both countries did, and Germany actually created. What they did in the concentration camps from our playbook. So they learned about eugenics from us. From US and the United Kingdom. And there was a time in history in which eugenics thinking was taught in every, I just have to say, at White privileged University and in prep schools, and then after World War ii, because people were so horrified when they were listening to the Nuremberg Trials. What happened is it went underground, but it's still very much in our society, at least here in the United States And people will often ask me why I wrote my book. Something woke up in me when I was with Dina that day, and by the end of our trip I had become so much more conscious and conscientious about things that I'd never understood. And I realized that the fact that I lived through Elgin when thousands of others died, and later I found a document this thick that talked about people who had bowel obstructions and then, died of sepsis from their bowels bursting because of Thorazine. Which was one of many medications I was on, but I ended up feeling like I had to write the book as an act of love and to speak for those who never had a voice. And because this is so much part of our collective unconscious, it's not just about me, it's about thousands of others. And about, the fact that we're in a time and history in which everything which has been hidden is coming up, that has to be looked at both individually as well as collectively. And so having the courage to write the book really became an act of love for humanity as well as for myself and a way to honor myself and what I had been through.

AO: 11:03

When I looked to your website and looked at your bio, one of the things that came into my mind was, your story is actually quite magnificent. When I say the word magnificent, it is a story that should be heard, and I don't really say that often, but your story it is though. You've been through so much from such a young age.

Lora: 11:30

The book has not even been out a full year yet. and it's gaining a lot of traction, but I think that's what you're speaking to and more and more people are hearing it And I've been able to do a number of talks in universities and in large organizations, not just on podcast or radio and so forth. And the book is actually doing so well that publisher who had hired a PR team extended the contract and added PR for movie rights. And I've actually talked to one producer who's very interested in making the book into a movie

AO: 12:06

Actually, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised because I don't know your journey. And I know I keep saying your journey and people listening are going to be thinking, okay, but what is her journey? Would you? It's only because I get really excited, so I just want to speak to people, which is selfish cuz there's people listening. Would you start at the beginning of where did it start for you? I know, but would you sh do you mind sharing that?

Lora: 12:31

In some ways it, of course it starts with our parents and our grandparents and there's all the ancestral work. and I haven't done a lot of ancestry work except for I know a lot about my mother's history, so I'll start there. My mother, when she was three years old, she and her siblings lived on a farm in northern Wisconsin, and it was during the worst part of the Great Depression, and her father froze to death in a blizzard, and her mother just shut down. and didn't talk or was able to go to the bathroom or feed herself for years and years. My mother was three years old. There was a new baby, two other female siblings, then two boys, and then another much older sibling, my Aunt Ethel. And years ago in graduate school I had to find out something about family history and I never reported it all in class cuz I, it was just too painful to report. But it was through my Aunt Ethel. I actually tape recorded her that I got a lot of, information about my mother's history. And the way I see it is, what happened is my Aunt Ethel ended up walking into town and getting a job, or they would've starved, which led the care of everybody to the two boys. Who were, junior high kids, they couldn't take care of themselves, let alone little kids. So I always think of that English book that many of us have had to read called The Lord of the Flies, where kids put on their own just decompensate and they become very feral, just outta survival needs. And that's what happened in my mother's family. So there was rampant physical abuse and sexual abuse. They were often starving and fighting over food. And my mother got her first pair of shoes at age 12 when she called out a window and went to a neighboring farm and had sex with a farm hand. And she had already been being sexually abused for many years. And I believe that started her life of prostitution. And I believe for my mom, it was a way of surviving. And I think also, it was a way for her to feel like she had some power. If she could get a man to desire her. And so it almost became a game with her. and I think it was also about trauma reenactment. And when I learned her full history, I ended up having tremendous compassion for her. But I was born outta wedlock. We don't know who my father was, but there's a good chance it was my uncle, cuz my mother's older brother and her were always sexually intimate. And after he had gone to work into World War II, he came back and they lived for a period of time as husband and wife, and she convinced him that I was his. Although it could have been any number of men at that point that she'd been picking up and. On a Thanksgiving day, he shot himself in front of my mother and I. He'd come back from World War ii, incredibly wounded and just a mess. And I can remember him pulling out a gun frequently and screaming at us to get on the floor cuz there were jabs all around the house. So I know that he had post-traumatic stress disorder, although it wasn't called that back then. So he shot himself on Thanksgiving day. And then my mother went berserk and beat me and left me upstairs in the crib. I was still sleeping in. I had just turned three. And so the side rails were down so I could get in and out of the bed and she left the house. Later that afternoon, my aunt came to the house because she was angry cuz we hadn't shown up for Thanksgiving dinner. And she saw my uncle's body went halfway up the stairwell and yelled out. But, nobody answered. So she assumed my uncle and my mom had a fight, and that my mother had fled and taken me with her. And she called the coroner and the sheriff, and they came and they removed his body. But since she said she'd searched the house, they didn't go upstairs. So they didn't know that I was up there. So I was in the house alone for three days and there was a raging blizzard at that point. And three days later, my mother stumbled drunk into the memorial service and everyone wanted to know where I was and she couldn't remember. And so then they ran, they came back to the house and they found me. But during that time, I actually managed to get out of bed. I was really hungry and I didn't know of course, that I'd been injured, although I knew I was in a lot of pain. I had a dislocated shoulder and a broken collarbone. But I scooted downstairs and I was able to get bread off the kitchen table, and then was sitting in the living room just sobbing and sucking my thumb. And all of a sudden I saw literally an ethereal presence who quietly told me to go back up the stairs on my bottom so I wouldn't fall and to get back into the bed and cover up as good as I could, and told me she would be watching over me. And it, it feels like that's the foundation of my life, the opening the door as well as being a spiritual seeker and know, and knowing that there's something more out there because that vision to this day is real in my life. and so that, My beginnings. And then I lived for a while with my with an aunt. And then my mother came back about a year and a half later and got me and her life was one of prostitution. She eventually sold me for the first time at age nine and then continued to sell me. I was taken away from her by the courts when I was almost 13, after a near fatal, suicide attempt. And then this was pre-trial protection years. So they on, they didn't have what we call certified foster homes at the time. So they often didn't know what, where to place me cuz I was overseeing through the Justice department. Juvenile officers oversaw the case and I went through a number of placements. I was homeless for the, month before I graduated from high school. And one of the things that. Is in and out of my story. The story of my life is the kindness of strangers. So I will, I'll, I'd like to share a couple of those events. so the social worker decided when the last foster home had fallen apart, that I should go back to my mother. And of course, nothing had changed and I fell asleep. My mother went out, she came back and there was a suddenly a man on top of me raping me that she had sold me to. So now I'm 17 years old and I knew that I was capable of murder in those moments. He had a billy club, a metal club that had black. Tape around it. And I picked it up and I, I literally lifted it. He had passed out after he raped me and I wanted to bash him in the head. And I knew if I started, I'd kill my mother as well as him. And I threw it down and got my clothes on and got dressed and walked around town all night and then went to the drug store and got three or four bottles of Salmon ex and fell asleep under some bushes in a park. And was only discovered, because I'd vomited all over myself and was rushed to the hospital. So I woke up days later and they were gonna take me back to my mother's. The court worker said, you're not gonna manipulate me, young lady. You're going back there whether you like it or not. And I tore out all the IV tubing and tried to strangle myself. And so now I'm days in, in restraints. And the physician who was the head of the county hospital, a dear man named Dr. Callahan, came in and he sat by the side of my bed and he said, I'm not gonna ask you why you're trying to hurt yourself. Cause you probably won't tell me, and it's not any of my business, but my nurses tell me, you're a bright girl that's supposed to go to college in the fall, but if we don't get you outta here, that's not gonna happen. So I've thought of a little plan and if you'll promise me you won't run away or try to hurt yourself, Connie, my head nurse is gonna come and we're gonna walk up and down the hall so you get some blood flowing in your legs. And I'll tell you about my plan. And what his plan was is if I could pull myself together and get through school and bring in my graduation certificate, he would hire me as a nursing assistant that summer and I could live in this little cottage out back at the hospital rent free. And so I agreed. And then part of the deal was I was supposed to call Connie once a week and check in with her. So I was homeless during that time. The court worker picked me up, took me back to my mother's, and just dropped me off in front of her apartment building. And I just grabbed the bag of stuff I had and took it to the bus station and put it in a locker and then was homeless. And the day that I graduated from high school, I took the bus across town and no one had been at my graduation. Some friends of course, but no family or anyone. And I walked into the nurse's station and the nurse's station was filled with banners and balloons and a graduation cake and a bunch of small gifts. And to this day, I tear up when I remember that kindness and so that became a bridge so that I could get through that summer and then go off to college.

AO: 21:36

And they didn't know what you had been through. but they still showed you kindness.

Lora: 21:40

They knew that I must have been through something awful, but they didn't pry, which I'm so grateful for cuz when a girl or a child or a woman has been raped, there is shame because it's a shameful thing that's being done to them. And because we human beings don't like feeling powerless, we tend to second guess ourselves. What did I do that, that led them to believe that they could do that to me, et cetera. Because if we think we can figure out why it happened, then maybe we can prevent such a thing from ever happening again. And that's just normal. That's just what we do as women in a society in which often we're vulnerable. And Their support and their kindness and literally love was invaluable, but they never cried. And frankly, years later, I was seeing a therapist. I'd been seeing a therapist as a kid that I was court ordered to see. I saw two different ones, but this was the second one. And her name was Dr roots and I called her as an adult and I said, do you know what was happening to me? And she said, I suspected. I said, didn't we ever talk about it? And she only saw me when I was a junior and senior in high school. And she said, you were so vulnerable. You were like a kid on a balance beam. I felt like I, just needed to help you build some ego strength and get through high school and that you just weren't at a place where you could have talked about any of it. And I think that was wise on her part. The other person who, there were many people who changed my life, but one of them was a neighbor who I only knew for about a month who'd been very kind to me. And the day she was leaving, I just fell apart and started sobbing. Cuz I didn't know any adults that even liked children, let alone that were kind to them. I'd had my first suicide attempt after the first time my mom sold me. And when she was about to leave, I fell apart and I'm, I was sobbing, begging her not to leave and said, I just found you. You can't leave. I won't survive if you leave me. And she pulled me into her arms and was just holding and rocking me and rubbing my back and wiping my tears and all those motherly kinds of things. And I had never had that happen to me, ever. My mother was very resentful of my birth and very resentful of me. I believe she really did hate me and she was developmentally arrested at age three. She had, you can't give what you've never, ever gotten. And in those moments, as Dale was saying, I love you. You're a good girl. I could feel that love was a living thing. And I remember as a nine year old thinking, that's why I'm here. I'm here to learn how to give love and learn how to receive it. And I believe that's why we're all really here. And the other thing she did besides wake me up to love is she looked me in the eyes and she said, you're a really good girl, but you've got to. Learn to take better care of yourself because your mother's too sick and can't care for you, which gave me the message that what was happening was not my fault. And then she made me absolutely promise that no matter what, I would be willing to let other people help me and reach out to others.

AO: 24:48

That is something that you then took on board.

Lora: 24:50

Absolutely. Absolutely. And then many years later, I found Dale after I wrote a short story that was published about her, she was working as a cleaning woman, in a very poor part of southern part of Illinois. And she'd never forgotten me. And shortly after my first visit I saw her again and she had this racking cough and I said, Dale, you've gotta go to the doctor. And cuz he'd had it for several months and she said, I can't, I don't have insurance or any money. So I took her to the. and she was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and then she was in and out of the hospital with palliative radiation just to help with the pain and the discomfort, but nothing that would cure her. And one day on one of my visits, to see her, I started to cry and I said, Dale, I'm so sorry it took me so long to find you. We've missed so many years together. And she said, don't be sorry cuz now I'm not afraid to die. I know I did one good thing in my life. Just look at you. You're like a ripple that goes out. Then she asked me if she needed me, if I would come when she was dying. And I said, of course I would. And one night I dreamt all night long she was calling me and I tried calling her house first thing in the morning. There was no answer. So I called the hospital, she'd been in and out of her palliative radiation. She was actively dying. And the nurse said She's terrified and we're short of staff, and I'm leaving on vacation, or I'd do a double shift, but she's really terrified and I can't find anyone to be with her. And I said, tell her that I heard her calling and I'm on my way. So I got to go I got there around noon and she didn't die until about three or four in the morning and got to be with her and her dying, which was such a gift.

AO: 26:32

I'm a believer in sometimes you connect with someone when you need to and then you then lose that connection. You don't see them for whatever reason, but if you are meant to connect with them again, You do and she did something so lovely for you, and I know you didn't feel you had to repay her, but when she needed someone, you were there for her.

Lora: 27:02

Which was such a gift to me that I could be, cuz I had never forgotten her. And what happened is when she, those moments when she held me and cradled me, something woke up in me that was so powerful. That love created a hunger. And for years I felt like I had a mother hole, the size of an ocean inside of me. And she had filled it for a short while and then left and opened me to something I didn't even know I'd had, cuz I didn't know what I was missing until her. And I think that actually bore me in good stead because then I took risks and reached out to people and asked for help and took the help that was offered.

AO: 27:43

you say, for people not to be angry with your mum because you understand why she was how she was. You don't just say that, you actually do mean that, don't you?

Lora: 27:58

I do. It took me a lot of years to get there. That certainly wasn't always the case. Especially after at 18 or 17 when she sold me to another man, I really believed that I was in danger if I ever saw her. And that my life depended on never seeing her again, and that I hated her. And then that came to a place of healing in me as well, in a, kind of an interesting way. And that began to shift everything as well as then later when I learned her story.

AO: 28:29

At any point in time, did she ever come looking for you

Lora: 28:33

later in life I did reconnect with her. She had ovarian cancer and had coded on the table four times and I didn't think she would survive. My son was brand new, I think he was two months old, and I remember going into the intensive care unit and putting him in her arms and tears flowed down her cheeks and I didn't know if I'd ever see her after that moment. She did survive she stopped drinking and doing drugs after that. But because she'd had so many electrolyte imbalances cuz she never ate. All she did was drink. Her brain was pretty, fried she was in her forties and she was much like someone with advanced Alzheimer's who couldn't remember things. So I had compassion for her and periodically I'd see her and I'd take my son to see her. And then she was later, about three years later, diagnosed with throat cancer and that's what she died from. And my son was playing with cars on her bed one day at the hospital. I said, Dave, we gotta go. And he says, no, I don't wanna go. My grandma's gonna die and I won't be, I won't be able to see her again. And she said, Davy, grandpa, grandma isn't gonna die right now. You can come back tomorrow. And we did. And the next day my son fell asleep next to her curled up in her arms, and then I just climbed on the other side of the bed and curled up around her with my arms. So we're, the three of us are sandwiched together. David is in the front of her and I'm in the back of her. It was just a precious moment and I just whispered assuming she was asleep. I love you, mom, and she whispered back, I love you too. So I don't know if it was the process of dying that brought her to that and she had probably months before sent me a letter and in it there was one line and it said, I'm sorry you had such an awful childhood. And I think that's the best she could do.

AO: 30:30

I don't feel I'm entitled to have an opinion because this is your experience and you got to a place of peace with her. And I know that some people might listen and completely disagree with me but actually, No it warms my heart that actually she did say sorry, because I think that means a lot.

Lora: 30:50

And at this point, she wasn't able to say a whole lot that was very meaningful just because of her brain being so ad from having been on drugs and alcohol for so many years. So it felt significant to me. And even though it didn't seem like a lot, it also seemed like more than enough.

AO: 31:07

You are very much about mindfulness and our mind in our bodies being connected and being able to, Heal from trauma, and that is a big part of what you do. I say this to people sometimes, depending on their experience, not everyone would've gone down the path that you went down, you must be aware of that. Why are you different? Why did you choose to go down the path of healing and trying to help others as opposed to following a path that, because you could have easier followed another path

Lora: 31:49

Yes. Again, I think in part because of so many people who touched my life throughout, in fact, the book is probably as much about that as anything. And I'll tell you a couple quick stories. One was we lived in this awful apartment there was no lock on the bathroom door. So whoever was there would come in and I was always getting caught and then being fondled or pushed up against a wall. So there was a nearby hotel called the Karcher Hotel. It still stands today. I saw it not long ago. although it's artist Lofts now. So it's not a hotel any longer. It's in Waukegan, Illinois. So I would go walking and it was a very ritzy hotel with red velvet everywhere, et cetera. And I would go walking the halls of the Karcher Hotel if it was cold out and just as a way, and I pretend like I lived there. I just engage in make believe play. And one day I noticed that the bathrooms were right off the hall cause there was a bathroom door that had left, been left a jar and there was a bathtub and towels. And so I went in and I took a bath. So I started going to the Karcher Hotel to take baths and one day I'm going out and the maid stops me and she says, are you living here in the hotel with the your family? And I said, no. She said, why are you taking baths here then? obviously she figured that out. And I said because it's not safe at my house cuz there's not a lock on the door. And men come in and out. So she took me aside, she says, honey, you come with me. So we went in the bathroom, we had a little conversation and she told me her name was Rosie. And she told me that every time I needed to take a bathroom now on, I needed to come on the days that she was working cuz she didn't want me to get in trouble. And she started leaving bubble bath in the bathroom for me and all kinds and sometimes chocolate, all kinds of sweet things. And then I used to steal spinach from the local grocery store because Popeye was. Popular back then, and I knew that it had to be healthy and iron was important, so I would steal Kansas spinach. And one day I went to the grocery store and I was, sneaking around, was gonna get some spinach. My mom hadn't been home for three or four days and I was starving. And the owner of the grocery store says, I know you're stealing my spinach. You can't get anything by me. He says, I've been letting it go, but I'm afraid you're gonna be having a pretty bad conscience if you keep this up. And I nodded, yes, course I did have a bad conscience I didn't believe in stealing. And he said, I'll make a deal with you. You can have as much spinach as you want. If every time you come in the store, you'll tell me and you'll do a little sweeping up the floor or maybe put some groceries on the shelves for me. So we made a deal. It was like small kindnesses like that just wove through my life, small and large kindnesses. There was something after Dale that made me wanna help others. So I remember, to the grocery store and just standing in front and looking for people who looked a little frail or elderly and asking if I could carry their groceries home for me. And they might say, I don't have any money to give you, but I would frequently then say, I don't want money. I just wanna be kind and nice to you. And so I was already doing that kind of stuff at that age. So I think it was something that got planted deep inside me because of Dale. So that's in part why I wanted to help people. And then I think the other reason why is after I got outta the state hospital, I was working at a different state hospital on the children's unit, and there was a woman who had worked there for 30 years or more, named Ms foster. It was from the deep South and had this deep accent, and she was so amazing with these kids. I worked on the kids unit. I can't even tell you what I learned from her. One day this boy was sitting on my lap and drooling all over me because of the medication he was on. And I'm squirming and every time I'm squirming, Arthur would say, but I love you, And Ms. Foster came back, came by and she says, honey, you just sit still. Let that baby love on you. You can always wash your shirt or I can give you something to wear and put over you, but you just let that baby love on you and she was just so kind to these kids. And I saw it made such a difference. And these were kids in a state hospital, many of which were very ill kids. And some of which. Might not have been as ill as they were because the medications they were on. But there was something about her demeanor and the way she was able to be kind and not just kind, loving, with these kids was such a role model for me. So I had that kind of reinforcement as well, and I think I'd learned pretty early on that it feels good to be kind and feels like I have something to give.

AO: 36:30

it does feel good to be kind. I live in the world, haven't said this for a long time, where people will say to me, it's not all unicorn and rainbows. And I say, I'm not stupid. I know that. But imagine if everyone was just kind all the time. And I know it's not realistic. I'm not living in a different world, but everywhere would be better in my world, and I think that's actually okay, and I no longer apologize for wanting that.

Lora: 37:02

That's right. I'll tell you two quick stories. One is my favorite coffee shop in Minnesota and I'd go through the drive-through window frequently. I would always try to be kind to whoever was serving me and one day that was this young woman who had just started, who was in near tears. And by the end of our conversation, she reached out and she said, can I hold your hand? I said, sure you can. And I reached in and gave her as much of a hug as you can through two windows. And she says, thank you. I think you've changed my day. And I just encouraged her and I said, everybody has a first day and I'd be feeling crazy if I were behind that window with all the things you have to learn and master. And then later another day, I was there and the supervisor was in the window, a man named Joe. He says, I just wanna thank you for how kind you are to all of our young people. When you come through the window, they talk about you make their day. And he said, who are you? And my book had just come out. So I talked a little bit about who I was and I said, I just wrote a book. And he said, what's the name of it? So I told him and he said, I'm gonna get it. And about a month later I went through and Joe says, we've gotta talk. We've really got a talk. And I said, sure, Joe. So we set up a time to talk. And he told me something he had never told anyone other than his lawyer and his wife, he had been sexually abused in the Boy Scouts from the time he was in first grade through until junior high when he ended up quitting Boy Scouts. And he had never told anyone and still held all that shame. And he told me that my book had given him the courage to share that with me, and he was gonna stop blaming himself because of my book. It gave him hope that he could fully recover. So see how one One Kind act led to another kind act that led to an opening in someone, and we just never know how it's gonna impact people.

AO: 38:49

No, we, we don't because You could be mean and you don't know what else is going on in their life and how even if it was really small, whatever you said you don't know what's going on in someone's life.

Lora: 39:02

And it doesn't take a lot. It can be a kind smile or,a sincere thank you. Or complimenting someone on their hair or their eyes or whatever it is.

AO: 39:13

Will you tell me about Sydney please? I ask because no one else will know why I'm asking until you say, but I think the reason I really wanted to ask about her is because I saw the clip on YouTube of when you went to see her, and it really touched me.

Lora: 39:31

Absolutely. So I went off to college, as and then I, had a really hard first year that culminated with, I was being stalked by the respiratory therapist at the local community hospital that I was working at as a nursing assistant on weekends. A man who was in his fifties and he was literally stalking me. He'd showed up in the halls at school and then one night he showed up at the bottom of my L station track, L station. And tried to pull me into his car, but a businessman scared him off. So I quit my job and I went into quite a funk. It just brought up the old trauma around men. And a note came under my door and it was just reminding, I think, all of us in the dormitory that they were closing the door in a week and I had to be out of there. And I had, now I had no money and nowhere to go. And so I, Took a handful of, I think it was probably aspirin. It was an old childhood default when I felt totally trapped and had nowhere to go. It was a trauma reaction. And then I immediately said, wait a minute, I don't wanna kill myself. That was really stupid and I made myself throw up, but I went and told the dorm mother who said she could help me figure it out, and there were a lot of jobs in the city over the summer, but she was gonna put me in a taxi and send me across town to get checked out medically, and I could come back and we'd figure it out. And so I was checked out in the er. I was fine medically, but they said they were gonna send me across town to a place called Illinois State Psychiatric Institute. And to just, I'd only be there for a couple of days. It was there that, where they were doing drug research and they wouldn't let me out and I spit out the drug I eventually ran away. They took me to court and they had me committed to the worst state hospital in the system. And the day I was committed, this young nurse who only worked Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings came in and she said, my shift ends at 11 and I am gonna come in and sit with you till dawn, if that's what it takes for you to let yourself have some feelings, because otherwise you're not gonna make it where you're going. And I had come back from court and I felt like I was in shock. I couldn't eat, I couldn't go to the bathroom. I just sat, couldn't move. So I'd gone just like that from a college student to being locked in this hospital being drugged, to now being thrown away by the system. And in those days, they put people away forever. And so Sydney came in. She sat with me till Dawn and I finally broke down and wept. And she told me that what had happened to me was not my fault, and that she thought it was wrong and probably illegal, and that she would do everything in her power to get me out. And the next morning I was taken by bus to the state hospital. Because the state hospital is so far away from the city and where Sydney lived, it would've been a three and a half hour drive cuz there were no freeways then out to see me and she was married to a Lutheran minister and had two preschoolers and one kindergartner. And the only day off was Sunday. And Sunday would come and she would say to herself, she was a smart college student, I can't imagine that she's still there. And after a while, nine months had passed. And she said she felt like I was haunting her. And so she, she finally drove she called to make sure I still wasn't there and was horrified to discover I was, and then came to the hospital. And after that she really became my ally and fought for my release. And so I was finally released 15 months later. And the story of how she did that is all in the book. And then, We stayed connected after that for quite a while. She actually came to my graduate school graduation ceremony and then we lost track of each other probably cuz of cell phones and both of us moving, et cetera. And when I was writing the book, I was determined to find her and I was, I remembered her daughter's names and I was able to find them through one of her daughters. And it was then I went to Kansas to see her and then she told me the backstory, the reason they knew that I wasn't taking the drugs is cuz they were doing urine analysis and blood tests twice a week to see where the drugs were landing in your body. And then she told me that all the, that the whole place was a research hospital that worked with different kinds of people and that I was on a floor for young adults who had no family, which meant I had no one to look out for me

AO: 43:54

so they could do, basically, they could do whatever they want and no one was going to contend it.

Lora: 44:01

And the hospital had sent out, Bulletins to all of the ERs looking for certain kind of research candidates. So that's why I was sent there. And so she did everything she could then to get me out of Elgin. And then we eventually reconnected through her daughter and we went back to Elgin. I had a need to go back and visit, and she said, then I'm coming with you. And so we went back and we went to the Springfield, Missouri, to the archival library and did a lot of research. And she had by then two doctorates. So she knew what she was doing, and she saved my life. And she had incredible moral courage. I once said to the owner of the publishing company, Steven Sederberg, who's a YOUNGIAN analyst. I said, in this day and age she would've lost her license. He said she would've lost her license back then. And been accused of having poor boundaries. And he said, but the problem is it's, we've forgotten why we have codes of ethics and we talk about how important boundaries are in mental health. He says it's to always remember who you are in relationship to the patient and to always keep the patient's needs front and center. And she, he said, as far as I know, she was the only one that was looking out for your needs. And I don't call that a boundary invasion. And as you probably saw in the video, she teared up at that point.

AO: 45:25

She did when you told her that she was really touched by it.

Lora: 45:29

Yeah. And she tended to be a pretty stoic person. And she'd been in the military, she was in the Air Force Reserves and jumping out a helicopters in and out of Vietnam. And she was an amazing woman and a very strong woman. So that's about Sydney.

AO: 45:44

Thank you for the YouTube clip because I will put that on the show notes because it really touched me. And then at the end she said okay, come back soon. Then it was sad

Lora: 45:56

Yes. What was interesting is I this feeling shortly before Thanksgiving. She was in a rehab center, she'd had a bad fall and I called my friend Sandra, who does my website and is best friend for years. And I said, what are you doing the day after Thanksgiving? And she said, nothing. Why? I said, I would really love it if you'd be willing to go with me, and we could somehow get Sydney on videotape. And she. Fine by me. I'd love to. And I called Sidney and asked her about it and she said, yes, come. And she started to cry and she said, and bring me a copy of the book. And I said, Sidney, I just have the manuscript. It's not out yet. Why don't you wait till you actually have the actual book out? She said, you never know how much time I have. Please just bring the manuscript. And she died two weeks after we had gotten her on video. And so I'm so glad I listened to my intuition cuz it felt really important. And she told everyone that I was her legacy, the people at the facility she was staying at as well as her daughters. And I think she needed that. I think she needed to hear those words that I repeated from Steven Sederberg. It was very validating for her. So thank you. for noticing that watching that.

AO: 47:10

Thank you so much for the privilege of actually being able to see her and with your manuscript there. Would you please just tell me for people listening, where would they be able to find a copy of the book?

Lora: 47:23

sure. Here's the book, and this is me at age seven. The picture on the cover and the book is called Darkness, was My Candle and Odyssey of Survival and Grace by Lorra Devore and Barnes and Noble. Amazon. Just about any place you can order it through there's many books in stock. So just about any place. But Barnes and Noble and Amazon are probably the two top places. And you can also order directly through the publisher confer C That's right. You're in Europe.

AO: 47:53

Perfect. I don't think we have Barnes and Noble. but we've got Amazon. I always put the links on of where people can find things. Amazon's always the easiest one.

Lora: 48:03

And my publisher is in the UK in know that, don't you?

AO: 48:06

Oh, really? I did not know that.

Lora: 48:08

Yes. So Steven Berg bought a, publishing company that had been around for a hundred years and had been the premier publisher for the psychiatric world as for psychology books and psychiatric books. And he believed this book could become a form of truth and reconciliation for the psychiatric community. And I went with them as a publisher because I believed that could be true, and that if I went with a local publisher who wasn't used to doing books for the mental health community, it was less likely to be seen by that community. So I'm their first crossover book, which means a book that's been written for the general public as well as the psychiatric world, and the first launch in the United States.

AO: 48:55

That is amazing because you just want to help people. You just want people to benefit from what you've learned because of your experiences.

Lora: 49:05

Yes the other thing that I think I'd like to say is that no matter, we all go through seasons in our life. We all go through dark nights of the soul. And no matter that season, we're gonna suffer during that time, cuz that's the nature of the season of darkness in our lives. But we can always make a choice where we're gonna put our attention. So we can either just choose to grit our teeth and get through it. And fall into feeling awful all the time. Or we can choose to say, I'm gonna make a difference when I'm through this and cuz I'm gonna grow through it instead of just get through it. And that, that has been my modus operandi or the way I operate in the world for a very long time. And it has always born me in good stead and I always come out with so much more than I had when I haven't had to go through those dark times. So I had covid and I was in the hospital for well over a month and went home and was told I'd likely never get off oxygen and was in a wheelchair. And here I am. I'm doing great. I just came back from driving to northern and southern California, cross country, all by myself. So I feel like my health is robust, et cetera. And it's, our attitude makes such a difference, as well as the way in which we talk to ourself. I was afraid, I was literally worried when the book was first coming out. I didn't realize that I was unconsciously scaring myself. So I would say to myself, I'm gonna feel so exposed. that is not helpful. And one day I looked at the word exposed and I wrote it down and I thought, I need another word. I need to stop talking to myself like that. And so the word that came to me was reveal. And the sentence that came to me is I choose to reveal myself as loving presence in every moment and every situation. And that changed everything. And I suddenly wasn't afraid of interviews because I'm revealing myself and it's a choice as opposed to feeling like I'm being exposed. So the way we talk to ourself makes such a difference and I wanna teach people that and how to fully heal from any kind of trauma.

AO: 51:19

I usually say to people, my ending is always, and if you've got any words of positivity that you want to just leave listeners with, and I didn't need to do that with you I didn't need to prompt you to do that. Oh, you are everything that I feel like people should be. Thank you. Honestly, I'm so grateful because I was really worried when I read your bio and everything you'd been through. I was a worried. I thought she's been through so much. I don't know. Is it too much? And I also have a habit of crying, so I thought, am I going to cry? No, just something about you. So thank you so much. Take care of yourself bye

Lora: 52:03

You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Take care. Bye.

AO: 52:07

Thank you so much for listening to another episode. I don't really have anything except please click on the show notes. There is Sydney's video, which that did actually make me cry the first time I watched it because it is moving. I do recommend people just watching it. I for once, because I know. When I spoke to Lora. I just wanted to, I just listened. I listened because she is amazing. There's something about her that makes you feel so at ease and. She has something that makes you want to share things that ordinarily you probably wouldn't be comfortable sharing with a stranger or someone you don't know. But it wasn't like that. She is just kind, so kind. So I guess if I'm going to end it with anything, Because I've been wanting to say this for ages and I haven't really had the guest yet whose episode I felt would be appropriate to say on Be Kind In a world where so many horrible things happen all the time. If we can be anything, we should just be kind to ourselves and to one another. And that's it. I will be back next week. Thank you.