The Fearless Happyness Podcast Episode 103 with Sandy Phillips Kirkham

From Darkness to Healing with Sandy Phillips Kirkham Survivor, advocate, and author of "Let Me Prey Upon You," Sandy Phillips Kirkham, works with survivors all around the world conducting victim support conferences and is a guest presenter/speaker at major events on clergy abuse, including the Hope & Healing Conference, sharing her perspective from the non-Catholic point of view.  Her story is one of overcoming significant trauma to find hope and healing.   At 16, Sandy suffered the ultimate betrayal when her charismatic youth pastor slowly and methodically turned a sacred relationship into one of abuse: sexual, emotional, and physical. The abuse would continue for the next five years until he was discovered and moved to another church. Left feeling broken, betrayed, and shattered, Sandy will go on to find herself the one being blamed and forced from the church she loved. But, unfortunately, she would also later discover that she was not his first or last victim. Despite having a successful and happy life as a wife, mother, and friend for 27 years, Sandy concealed her abuse until a trigger forced her to face the truth and overcome the trauma she went through as a young girl. Now the wife, mother, and grandmother continue to use her voice to help other clergy abuse victims be heard and heal from their trauma. She currently serves on the board of the Council Against Child Abuse. In addition, she has spoken before the Ohio Senate and a Maryland court and appeared on a local television show in Boston. Listen in as Sandy and I discuss the abuse she went through, the aftermath of such trauma, and how she overcame it all to heal and find a life of FEARLESS HAPPYNESS!