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
15 episodes
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 f...
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...
E13. Hospital Records
Page by page, the records turn into personal proof that what happened was real, that the struggle was seen, and that family denial doesn’t get the last word.It’s a rare look at how child neglect can be described in official language, how sy...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...