Catching Up with Stephanie | Stephanie Rodriguez

Deana Brown Mitchell: Hello, everybody, it's Deana at the Realize Foundation. And today I get to catch up with Stephanie. She wrote in scars to stars, volume two. And she's back to have a conversation with me today about what's been going on since then. So welcome, Stephanie. And I'm so glad that we get to have a conversation today. I miss seeing you.

Thank you so much. I know it's been a while.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Yeah. Well, I just wanted to see like, what have you been up to? Since since the book came out? And it's been over a year, I think is since since your book came out. So I'm just wondering, like, you know, what have you been up to since then? And how has it helped you in anything else you're doing?

Well, let's see. So, when the book came out, I did post the, I got about 10, paper copies and posted them to my website, I sent them to all my family. And then I had a couple of friends that I sent them out to that I think really helped. And it was really cool, because, you know, I think it was just kind of a weird time in the world. When the book came out. And, you know, in different groups that I minister that I might be in on Facebook, I would occasionally see people talking about how, like, they just were so distraught with everything going on in the world. And, you know, I would be like, Hey, why don't you get this book, and I sent the links to so many people. And it was cool to have that tool to be able to help people with, you know, when they were having problems or issues.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Absolutely, I can't, I wish there was a better way to track the impact that our books have had, because I get so many messages over the last few years. Because if you're watching this, you don't know, we have three published skarsten, stars books, and they've all been bestsellers on Amazon. And they all have been purchased internationally. So there's, there's a lot of these books in the world. And the point of it is that, you know, someone can pick up one of these books and read a story and know that they are not alone in whatever they're going through. Because our stories are all about overcoming adversity. Some of them are specifically about suicide, and some of them are more about, you know, life's challenges. And it could be divorce, or abuse or addiction, or any of the any of those things that we all go through that are hard times. And so it's, it's really important to me, and I think, to everyone who's been involved, to get the message out that you are not alone. It's all about, you know, giving people hope. And, and I think that's what you're saying, Stephanie is that when you see somebody that's struggling, it's a tool to give, you know, to hand somebody a book that you meet somewhere random, or, or give them a link to get the Kindle version, that's just, you know, a few dollars or something where they can read something and know they're not alone. And it's, it's been very impactful. And I get messages from people who even had bought a book just to support us, maybe they read it, and then they, they just gave it to someone else that they thought could use it. And then they would they would maybe somebody did that and texted my mom and said I gave this book to so and so and they completely changed their life. Because they understand now that they're not, they're not alone. And they're not the only one that's ever gone through what they're going through. And so I've gotten so many messages like that over the years, from people who have either shared it or bought it and read it or, you know, come across it in a in a way, or maybe somebody sent them their chapter, you know, and we we hear back a lot of those kinds of stories. So I know it's helping people. And we're gonna keep doing this. We're gonna start our next one in July of 2024. And it'll come out in September for suicide prevention. So we're gonna keep this train going. And we have some other things in the works for this year that I'm excited to talk about soon. March is our fourth anniversary. It's crazy that we've been doing this for four years now. But I'm so excited about it. And so do you have any anybody specific that's given you feedback about the book you share?

I don't know that. There's been anybody like specifically. I mean, my mom did have some comments about it. She was I wrote about some things with her in the book. You know, she was very proud of the fact that I put my story out there and you know, it's really interesting with my mother, she's been trying to write hers. Story and put her story out there for a long time. And I was like, Hey, you should write for this book.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Absolutely.

So that, you know, could be a possibility. But she has a wild story that I think really needs to be shared and heard. And she's kind of had her book sort of on the backburner for so long that I would love to see some of that published with her. You know, so, but she was also really proud of me. And my kids were very proud of me. They were all mentioned in the book, you know, my oldest daughter was really funny. She, I talked to her probably three or four months ago. And she was like, Hey, I do finally like, understand, right? She's just got two kids now and kind of going through, you know, the same things with the same issues with the same things that happened to her. And now she's like, I get it, I finally get it. So, you know, it's kind of cool to see the kids grow up and understand kind of like, what happened.

Deana Brown Mitchell: That that's really true, because I think it's, it's really hard for us as kids to understand that our parents have gone through stuff that, that we think only we do as teenagers. And it's like, oh, my parents actually did this, too. Like, it's this weird realization when you get to be an adult, right. And sometimes it's hard for parents to understand why kids are going through what they're going through. It kind of maybe it closes that gap, you know, for for parents and kids. And, you know, a lot of people ask us to speak to teens, or in schools. And that is not something we do. Because we feel like our our books are very adult content. And but we do have two organizations that do talk to teens that we refer people to so if you're listening to this, and you have teens that you are looking for resources for just go to our website, and you can find one is bionic, which means Believe it or not, I care. And it's a program that Sandy Austin has started in schools for like school counselors and stuff so kids can do outreach for each other and things like that. It's really an awesome, awesome thing. And then Katie Miller has a. And Katie wrote in our book three, she has an organization called teen suicide prevention society. And they go by teaspoons, tsps. If you find them on the internet, and they do a lot of work with how to start conversations with teens, and between teens and questions to ask and stuff, it's really, it's really great content for teens that are struggling. So I just wanted to mention that because I think it's really important that we're also taking care of the younger generation, because I think they have it way worse than we did. And we saw ours was bad. High school is bad for everybody in some way. But these days, it's it's much more mental health stricken than I remember when I was I was growing up.

Yeah, same. I think we did have the mental health issues. We just no one talked about it. We just accepted it. Like that's what that's what we do.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Yeah, that's true. Well, it's definitely I'm gonna ask you, and the rest question about how being part of scar stars was, has impacted you personally, whether it was during the writing or during after it came out? Like what has it given you personally.

I think for me, it's really just given me sort of like catharsis, and it was sort of a way to kind of close that chapter in my life, which is really, it feels good to not have that be the thing that, you know, feels like it's driving me all the time. And I think this book really helps like, through the writing process, it was really hard. I cried almost the entire time to have this reading the story. And then once it was over, and the book was published, and I was able to kind of share and talk about it and help other people through this, the stuff that I went through. I feel like that's just really been a godsend for me, that's helped me so much. So I really appreciate it and want to thank you so much for you know, having me in the book because it really has been helpful, and I feel like it's probably like that for every writer.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Yeah, the thing I love about it is that first of all, we have a 12 week process where we hold your hand through the whole thing. So people aren't just writing on their own and then turning in a book and it's polis, like where a group were coming. Unity, we get to know each other, we get to spend time together and go through this process together. And I've had many people come back and tell me they've written in other books, and they did not have this good of an experience. And so I had somebody tell me that lately, that really made me feel good, because it's like, you know, I've written in a couple anthology books for business where I didn't have any community, I never met other people. And they didn't do any editing for me or anything. And so it's, it's really important to us that we do it in the right way. But I think to your point, people come into this project, saying, I'm going to write my story to help others. And what happens is, they do help others, but they also, they also get a lot of healing for themselves. And I think it's through writing your story and getting it out of your head. But I think it's also the community around what we're doing and how the conversations we have and the fact that we're able to talk about these things in a safe space with people who care is part of it as well. And so I'm super excited to hear what impact it had on you. Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you so much for being here today. Stephanie in nope, lady. We'll see your mom next time. By now. Oh, I'll tell her. Awesome, awesome. Well, if, if you're watching this or listening to this, you can find our website at realize foundation.org And you can find resources there you can find how to how to apply to be on one of our books. You can find our podcast, you can find all kinds of things there. So look us up and we hope to see you soon.

All right, thank you so much.