The Sadie Green Story.
What are the repercussions of abuse? This podcast tells my story of childhood degradation and survival. Each episode features a conversation between me and my longtime friend, Pam Colby, and includes excerpts from a memoir that I wrote when I was younger. We share this in an attempt to understand how early trauma can affect a lifetime. Thank you for listening.
Episodes
22 episodes
E1. Why Now?
“People loved my mother. She nearly killed me.” With that stark paradox, we open a story that refuses easy answers. Sadie Green grew up in rural Minnesota with a cleft palate that required surgeries and a mother who was celebrated by neighbors ...
E2. Looking Back
A single sentence on a phone call—“We only have one daughter”—can divide a life in two. We sit down with Sadie to follow the arc from being erased by her family’s story to authoring her own during a winter spent alone in a Wisconsin cabin: a wo...
E3. Hunger and Hiding
A cold November garage, a basement chair, and a girl counting footsteps—that’s where Sadie’s story begins. We walk through the fear along with the stubborn spark of imagination: a belief that somewhere else this would not be happening. The narr...
E4. The Teacher and The Schoolhouse
A clean green shoebox of sugar donuts sits on a teacher’s desk, and a hungry girl can’t stop staring. From that memory, we follow Sadie back to a one-room schoolhouse in rural Minnesota, sneaking in from the woods, wearing someone el...
E5. Better Memories
A pink bedroom, a potbellied stove, and a snowfall that turns a farmyard into a fairytale—Sadie walks us through a time when tenderness and harm lived side by side. She characterizes trauma echoing across a lifetime.Along the way, Sadie hon...
E6 A Tiny Bible, and Milk
A child learns the rules of a house long before anyone writes them down. The story isn’t told for shock; it’s told to understand how a nervous system adapts when home becomes a surveillance state, and love looks like control.We unpack h...
E7. My Father Mainly
Out by the barn, Johnny Cash echoes through the night, and a girl finds comfort in the stars and the soft nose of a cow. Nature remains a refuge where family is not.Sadie’s story reveals how abuse hides in plain sight, how families demand s...
E8. Grandma
A storm can terrify, or it can set you free. Lightning, thunder, and summer rain can offer comfort when one is unwelcome indoors. A sense of belonging can be built from safe spaces, safe creatures, and the ebb and flow of Mother Nature.
E9. Grandma Continued
A cup of coffee overflows onto a saucer, while birds gather on a shelf to peck at suet. A grandmother puts on her best and decides to act without knowing the full story. Sadie takes us into the fields and the woods that served as her s...
E10. Montana
What follows is the bravest move in the story—Grandma, hat tied and heart heavy, rides to welfare to name what no one in the family would admit, paying for Sadie's safety with her own exile.Sadie shares how fear stayed in her body long ...
E11. Welfare Visit and Jr High
We follow Sadie from a staged welfare visit to the crowded halls of junior high, where shame and silence meet people who finally notice. School staff and a young social worker push past appearances and help move her toward safety. T...
E12. Junior High and Courthouse
We return to Sadie’s junior high, where shame and hunger shape the days. A simple lunch ticket becomes a symbol of belonging. The story turns to school staff, a juvenile courtroom, and a social service system that finally pushes back. A medical...
E13. Hospital Records
Page by page, the records become personal proof that what happened was real, that the struggle was witnessed, and that family denial doesn’t have the last word.It’s a rare look at how child neglect can be described in official language, how...
E14. More Docs and Psych Ward
Pam and Sadie dig into hospital records written when Sadie was 14, reading what doctors and psychiatrists recorded and what they only hinted at. Medical notes describe red scaly skin and scratched extremities. Psyche notes flag learned isol...
E15. More Psych Ward
We return to Station 64 as Sadie remembers the joys of a locked psychiatric ward, where clothes, movies, and music become a lifeline. Outside the hospital walls, on the University of Minnesota campus, protest, freedom, and the ...
E16. Home Visits and Food
We follow Sadie’s memories of how fear and disassociation can erase days, even as the record still claims everything went “great.” We connect the dots between childhood trauma, secrecy, and a lifelong struggle with food, trust, and self-protect...
E17. Secret Out and Foster home
Together, we talk about how early trauma shapes memory, safety, and identity, and why a child can learn to survive by guarding the biggest family rule: Never, never tell! In this episode, a favorite staffer sits beside her on a porch ...
E18. The Foster Family
Safety can be a roof, a routine, and a full refrigerator, and yet feel like you are still holding your breath. One can learn that being “easy” is the price of peace. The story turns toward personal ways that trauma can show up: hiding food, sta...
E19. Stevie
Here, we introduce Stevie, the foster guardian who changes everything by simply offering clear expectations and real freedom. The details feel small until you realize they are the building blocks of safety, attachment, and a life that finally b...
E20. Stevie Interview
Today, we’re joined by Stevie, Sadie’s former foster mother, to retrace the unlikely beginning of their bond. Stevie reflects on her own struggles with drinking and the choice to get sober, while Sadie shares memories of those years that still ...
E21. Numbing Conversation
A life can look solid on the outside while feeling insecure inside. Is this universal? Is keeping oneself busy and useful an avoidance of pain and joy? Sadie shares how retirement, the end of a long relationship, and returning to therapy helped...