Elena Joy Thurston was a devout Mormon, and took her faith seriously. Then she fell in love with another woman, and found herself in punishing sessions of what's often called conversion therapy -- a process meant to turn gay people straight. Elena shares the story of how she handled that trauma, learned to accept herself and ultimately find love.
Back from Broken is a show about how we are all broken sometimes, and how we need help from time to time. If you’re struggling, you can seek help through a list of resources we've compiled.
Host: Vic Vela
Lead producer: Jo Erickson
Editor: Dennis Funk
Producers: Luis Antonio Perez, Rebekah Romberg
Music: Daniel Mescher, Brad Turner
Executive producers: Brad Turner, Rachel Estabrook
Thanks also to Hart van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Matt Herz, Martin Skavish, Kim Nguyen, Francie Swidler.
On Twitter: @VicVela1
Transcript
Vic Vela:
Hey, it's Vic with a quick note. This episode contains discussion of suicide and a sexual assault. Please be advised.
In three, two, one.
A lot of people get caught up on the American Dream journey to live a perfect life. Movies, TV shows, commercials, everywhere you look, you see happy families who seem to have it all. And for Elena Joy Thurston, this dream was a reality.
Elena Joy Thurston:
I lived in a beautiful home with four beautiful, incredible children and a great husband. And he drove the Tesla and I drove the minivan and tree-lined streets and white picket fence — like, literally all of the stuff. I knew how blessed I was.
Vic Vela:
As a Mormon, she strived for perfection in family life and with God, but a new friendship with a woman caused her to have doubts about her perfect life as the pair grew closer.
Elena Joy Thurston:
And then it also became, wow. My heart beats faster every time she texts me. This is kind of fun, you know? And then we finally got together for lunch and it was a three-hour lunch. And every time she looked at me, my heart kind of skipped a beat.
Vic Vela:
Elena felt trapped and confused. Everything she had worked so hard to achieve was telling her to stick with the plan. But her heart was saying something else. Her obsession with living a perfect life led her to a dark and dangerous place.
I'm Vic Vela. I'm a journalist, a storyteller and a recovering drug addict. And this is “Back from Broken” from Colorado Public Radio — stories about the highest highs, the darkest moments and what it takes to make a comeback.
Elena Thurston wasn't born into the Mormon faith. Living in Arizona, she spent a lot of her early teen years traveling between her divorced parents' homes. Elena had a difficult family life. Her mother had mental health issues and her dad drank a lot. So when Elena was introduced to the Mormon church, she was immediately drawn to the happy family image that was being sold. This is what she wanted more than ever. So she joined the church at the age of 16.
Elena Joy Thurston:
What I loved was that there was really concrete ways to access feeling like you're a good person. If you do A, B and C, you're a good person. If you do C, D and E, oh, God loves you. And if you're doing F, G and H you're going to heaven. So what I loved was having that checklist and knowing, like, knowing that I was a good person, I belonged to a community. So I really liked that kind of external feedback that was very concrete.
Vic Vela:
Well, I just think this is so fascinating because I just remember being, you know, 15, 16 years old myself and, and the last thing I wanted was to be good.
Elena Joy Thurston:
I had grown up with a feeling of I was intrinsically not good enough. And then I had a religion telling me, well, you're not supposed to be good enough right now. You're supposed to prove yourself. You're supposed to prove your worth. And so that resonated with me because they didn't have to convince me that I wasn't good enough. I felt that already.
Vic Vela:
Elena went to Arizona State University to study theater. Initially she wanted to become an actress, but she quickly realized that she wasn't very good.
Elena Joy Thurston:
I was going to be an actress. And I quickly realized my freshman year that I'm a horrible actress, because I can't lie. And if I think the script is crap, it comes out on my face. Or if I think the director is horrible, you can see it on my face. So I learned quickly, I could not act at all, but I could be a production manager.
Vic Vela:
The theater program proved to be a huge challenge for Elena. As a Mormon, she wasn't allowed to participate in productions that had adult content like nudity, profanity, or anything that addressed issues like gay rights. Elena was so enamored with the church that she would give up everything, even career opportunities. The Mormon community was her family now. And she loved the idea of belonging to a faith that would always take care of her. Elena wasn’t like the other students at ASU.
Elena Joy Thurston:
I was just on a different planet than they were. [LAUGHING] I got married my senior year. I was the only one married. I was 20 years old and married. And all of a sudden, my last name changed and I've got a diamond on my finger. And these kids are like, what are you doing?
Vic Vela:
Wow.
In her last year at college, Elena married a guy named Chad, a Mormon missionary. They met through her best friend, Michelle. Chad was charming, attractive and would do anything to please Elena. So when he proposed, she didn't have a reason to say no. So they got married, and after a fun and beautiful reception, Elena and Chad shared a bed for the very first time.
Elena Joy Thurston:
I haven't thought about that night in a long time.
Vic Vela:
How were you feeling?
Elena Joy Thurston:
It was just like, wow, this isn't very fun, but we're— neither of us are good at this. Both of us are virgins. And so maybe we'll figure it out. I'm sure no Mormon knows what they're doing on their wedding night, right? And so it sets up that mindset of, “We’ll figure it out. This is normal. This is okay. We'll figure it out.” And then we moved up to BYU. He had a full scholarship at BYU. So I graduated from ASU. We moved up there. And we were living in married student housing, which is very old, crappy dorms. And the walls are paper thin. And within the year it was quite obvious that other couples had figured it out. [LAUGHING] And that they were enjoying themselves and us not so much.
Vic Vela:
Oh my gosh.
Elena Joy Thurston:
Those were the first hints that something was not quite right.
Vic Vela:
Well, did you— okay, did you love him?
Elena Joy Thurston:
Absolutely.
Vic Vela:
Okay. But it did not, it just did not carry over into the bedroom.
Elena Joy Thurston:
That's the best way to describe it. Absolutely loved him. Absolutely respected him, loved hanging out with him, but he would hug me and I would cringe and he would hold my hand and I would cringe. And if he walked up behind me while I was doing dishes and gave me a hug, I'd probably kick him.
Vic Vela:
You had a good friend in the Mormon church named Michelle. Did you talk to Michelle about the sexual problems you were having?
Elena Joy Thurston:
She would say, okay, well, you know, if we weren't Mormon, you should probably masturbate to figure out what you like, but we can't do that. And other people would probably drink a glass of wine and kind of relax and maybe see if that's your problem, but we can't do that. So I remember I found a friend that— people were popping out babies all the time up at BYU. And I would find one that had been given a pain reliever after she'd had a baby, right. Like a Vicodin or something. And I remember taking that before trying to have sex, like hoping this will relax me. This will get me in the mood, you know? And it never did, but probably once every five years I would really try to fix it somehow. And it never worked, but I kept trying.
Vic Vela:
You kept trying, but you still were able to have children, that was important to you. Right?
Elena Joy Thurston:
That was important to what I needed to do. It was another checklist item. Now I'm not saying I don't enjoy having my children. I love my children, but I was not a woman who grew up like, “I am going to be a mom and I'm going to have four kids and I'm going to drive a minivan.” Like there are some women who grew up looking forward to that. And I just wasn't one of them and that's not good or bad. But once I joined the church, it was clear that my next steps were to get married and to have kids. So I was— and you know, like when you struggle with something in life, you look for something else to fill that hole. So I was looking forward to having children because it was getting kind of really obvious that things weren't great just between Chad and I. So why don't we get a move on and have some kids.
Vic Vela:
Elena knew something was wrong in her life, but she couldn't put her finger on it. When her youngest child went off to school, her fears and anxieties grew. Suddenly she realized how unhappy she was, but she couldn't face reality. So she threw herself into various hobbies, anything to take her mind off her problems.
Elena Joy Thurston:
Because of who I am, I didn't join the gym on the corner and take a few classes a week. I jumped in, both feet, joined a CrossFit gym, started working out six days a week. And my weight was dropping, like I could chart it all, you know? And I could see all this again, this external feedback. I am in control. I am a really good person.
Vic Vela:
You went hardcore. Anything to take your mind away from the bad thoughts you were having.
Elena Joy Thurston:
Literally. Yes. And when the thoughts were still really persistent, I would go on these very long runs and feel peace. And it was amazing because when you're gasping for air, you can't hear your thoughts anymore. So literally running away from my life.
Vic Vela:
Elena's unhappiness drove her to fill every minute of the day. She was desperate to find more hobbies and courses. Then a friend recommended fly-fishing, of all things. And surprisingly, the sport became a great source of calm in her life. She loved being in nature and she was starting to enjoy the company of the only other woman in the fly-fishing course she was taking. Her name was Kristen. And at first, Elena thought her fondness for this woman was just part of their close friendship.
Elena Joy Thurston:
It was gradual and all-at-once at the same time. What was gradual was, wow. I really love talking to you because you're not married and you don't have kids and you're not Mormon. So this is really fun to have conversations that I never have with anyone else. And a few weeks later, there was a musical happening at my kid's school. And so she came with me to help me wrangle the kids. And as we're sitting there in the bleachers, the crowd is filling in. I get really anxious and my leg starts to like jump up and down, you know, like twitchy, and probably annoying everyone around us. And she's sitting right next to me. And so she puts her hand on my knee to calm me down. And it was like electricity from my toes to my head. I had never felt that. And it was so weird and out of left field that it was like, gosh, I wonder what that was. And then a little while later, the crowd came in more and she had to squish closer. So we were touching, like shoulder to shoulder, and it was again, this massive electrical current. And then it was like, Oh crap. Oh no. Oh no.
Vic Vela:
I mean, you're describing how really any of us feel when that tingling sensation, when you really are in love. But you said it perfectly: Oh no. Because you couldn't feel like that with her.
Elena Joy Thurston:
No, no. You know, I'm laying in bed that night trying to sleep. And of course I can't and I know I'm married, no one had to tell me. I know I'm married and I know that this is not good. Additionally, I know I'm Mormon. And I know that everything I've done until that point will be negated if I engage in a same-sex relationship. And then the third part of it, that was the ultimate scariness was that she was the only source of happiness in my life at that time. Like everything else felt not right. And she felt right. And so if I said something to her, that I was attracted to her, I couldn't conceive of the idea that she would be attracted back to me. So I just thought the minute I say something, she's out, like, talk about ruining a friendship. “Hey, you want to go make out?” Like, no, we're not going to be friends if I say something and I can't risk that. I can't risk that.
Vic Vela:
It sounds like torture. And the only way I can empathize is, you know, cause I'm gay and before it was more widely accepted, I was closeted. And it was the hardest thing in the world when you're hanging out with your best friend who you have deep feelings for. Oh my gosh. I was in love with my best friend. And I could not tell anyone, especially him. And you’re in that same situation. But then there's that added layer of all this work you put into checking the boxes is going to go away if you do anything on this. Did you have anyone to talk to? How did you process these emotions?
Elena Joy Thurston:
I ran. That night, I made a deal with myself: Tomorrow morning you're going to get up and you're going to run until you don't feel this way anymore. And I ran eight miles and I ran 10 miles and I ran 13 miles and my toes were bleeding out through my shoes at that point. And that's when I stopped, so disgusted with myself that I couldn't get rid of the feelings.
Vic Vela:
Oh no, Elena. That's an awful image. It's a heartbreaking image.
Elena Joy Thurston:
Yeah, I agree.
Vic Vela:
So you're having all these thoughts and desires. You couldn't tell anyone about it. Now I know this is going to be super heavy. Tell me why you decided to try something called conversion therapy.
Elena Joy Thurston:
It did not take long. It took about three weeks for my husband to figure out what was going on.
Vic Vela:
Oh, he figured it out?
Elena Joy Thurston:
Oh, yeah. Again, horrible actress. I can't lie to save my life. And we had been together for 17 years, like he knew me really well. He knew that something was off, that I was grossed out even more than usual to share a bed with him. And he's not an idiot. He saw something was going on. So it took about three weeks. We had a horrible, long, terrible, awful discussion in the middle of the night. And then that next night, I was in my bishop's office, starting the repentance process.
Vic Vela:
After the break, Elena talks about finding the strength to stand up to the church and how she recovered from conversion therapy. After admitting that she had feelings for women to her husband, Elena Joy Thurston felt overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and shame. She spoke to the bishop of her chapter, a man who controlled her role in the Mormon church and even her path to God. Hearing her out, the bishop decided to strip Elena of everything she knew and loved.
Elena Joy Thurston:
He tells me I'm not allowed to pray in public anymore because I'm not worthy. I'm not allowed to take the sacrament on Sundays. I'm not allowed to teach a Sunday school class to five-year-olds. I'm released from my Cub Scout duties. I'm not worthy anymore. It all gets taken away and it won't be reinstated until he feels like I have fulfilled the repentance process.
And so when you have your entire identity hinging on these roles or these labels, and you've given someone else the power to take them away, well then I felt like, who am I anymore? It just became this massive identity crisis. And it was scary. And it was really hard. And I was on this emotional roller coaster. And at that point I was reaching out to friends and I'm saying, “I'm really struggling. I don't know who I am. I don't know how to get back to God.” And one of them says, “There's a guy in town and he fixes this. You should call him.” So I call him and he says, “Yeah, I've been doing this for decades. I can absolutely help you. It usually takes about a month or two if you're willing to work hard. So why don't you come in Thursday.” And oh my gosh, that just felt like an answer from heaven. Of course, there's a Mormon therapist out there that can fix me, of course.
Vic Vela:
You weren’t skeptical.
Elena Joy Thurston:
Not at all. And looking back and I think Elena, you do more research on the bath towels you buy off Amazon than you did about contracting with that guy. I didn't Google his name. I didn't, I didn't do anything. I took him at his word because I was that desperate. There was so much at stake. I needed there to be a solution.
Vic Vela:
Okay. And he talks about how he could fix you, you know, like you're a radiator or something, right? Like it's just go in the shop for a month and you're back to normal.
Elena Joy Thurston:
Right?
Vic Vela:
Talk to me, then— Okay. Talk about conversion therapy. What was that like? What was, what is involved with that treatment?
Elena Joy Thurston:
What he said was, something probably happened to you when you were a kid, some kind of trauma that is now rearing its ugly head and makes you think that you're not attracted to men. So what we need to do is go back in your memories, find that event, heal it, and then you're not going to be attracted to women anymore. And that sounded legit. So that was his process. It was four days a week, two hours a day. He would use a specific breathing technique so that your memories would come back really strong. Like they weren't new memories for me. I think other people probably experienced new memories, but for me it was memories that I've always had. But all of a sudden I remembered what I was wearing that day and that it was raining that day. And I remember things that people said, and I remember how I felt and everything just came back really clear.
And the first two months went by and you know, I had grown up with a crazy family. So I had a lot of family issues and that felt really good to get out. And I resolved a lot of the issues I had with my mom. Like I was feeling pretty good in that respect, but I was still, you know, dreaming about Kristen every night. So two months had gone by, and this is the scary thing about conversion therapy is it doesn't work. But if you don't know that and months go by and your family members are spending thousands of dollars on it and you're not getting fixed, well, it must be you, Elena. You must not be working hard enough. I must be beyond repair. I must be too broken.
Vic Vela:
I want to warn listeners right now that Elena describes an assault in her life that may be difficult for you to hear. We rejoin the conversation as Elena talks about how her therapist used a deep breathing technique that helped her recall lost memories. He then found a very disturbing moment from her past.
Elena Joy Thurston:
So two months have gone by and nothing was working, and he says, there must be something you're not telling me. And there was. There was an assault I had gone through when I was 15 years old and I had never told anyone. I hadn't told my parents, the police. I hadn't told my husband of 17 years. I'd never told Michelle. I had told no one. That assault happened in one night. I shut it down. I never thought about it again. Here I am in this incredibly desperate situation. And I'm combing my memories. Like, what am I not thinking of? What could there be? What is there? And here's this guy sitting across from me saying there must be something you're not telling me. And so I put words to it and I say, this happened. And he was like, Oh, this is it. This is it. This is what happened that made you think you're attracted to women. Now, now it's easy. Now we just have to heal this and you're going to be fine.
Vic Vela:
Elena, what happened with the assault?
Elena Joy Thurston:
I was 15. I was riding home from school on the school bus. And there was this guy who was a senior. I was a sophomore. And he was like, he was one of those big guys on campus, right? Like really well known, really smooth, really well liked. And he was like, yeah, you should come over and hang out after school today. He was only one street away from me. When I got there, there were two other guys there that I knew from school that I didn't realize would be there, but I was like, whatever, more for me. Right? Like more attention on me, 15 year old girl — again, probably a huge red flag that I did not see because I was 15. And we walked in and we were all hanging out. I'm sitting on the beanbag and chit-chatting, not realizing it was an ambush. And I remember leaving when it was over and it was dark outside. And I was trying to get home through the backyards because that was the quickest way. And I can hear them laughing. And I just thought, never happened. Never happened, never happened. And by the time I got to my front porch, I had convinced myself that didn't happen. I went inside, took a shower, went to bed, never spoke about it. Not until I was 37 years old, talking to that guy in therapy.
Vic Vela:
After Elena shared this painful experience, her therapist began to change her memory of the assault. He guided her to create false memories.
Elena Joy Thurston:
How you quote-unquote heal the memory is you, you know, you imagine different scenarios. If I had had a gun with me, what would I have done? If I had had a cell phone with me and called the cops, what would have happened? You rehash all these things and basically numbing yourself out to the experience, to where it's just not that painful anymore. And I would do that for two hours and then I'd come home and get the kids home from school and do homework and do laundry and make dinner and do dishes and put them to bed. And then I would have to read the reading assignments that he gave me and I would journal and I would process. And then I would finally fall asleep in the middle of the night to dream about Kristen for a few hours and then wake up and do it all over again. Four months into that, I was losing my mind.
Vic Vela:
I bet.
Elena Joy Thurston:
And I had voices in my head telling me you're worth nothing. Why don't you do everyone a favor and finish this. Had a great big plan and kept fighting it because I knew I didn't want my life to end. I wanted the pain to end. But those two seemed like they were totally connected. And my husband walks in one morning and says, I want a divorce. And I say, hell no. Do you know how hard I am working to keep this together? And he says, no, I don't. All I see is that you're spending a lot of money on therapy. I don't see you trying. So I want a divorce. And so I immediately called Michelle because she knew us both so well. I mean, she had known us for so long and I was like, he wants a divorce, please help us. And so she came over and kind of arbitrated for us, I guess, and made sure we both felt heard. And he restated that he felt like I wasn't trying at all. And it just fell out of my mouth. I said, I can't, the voices are too loud. All I can do is ignore them. That's the only way I'm going to stay alive. I can't read my scriptures. The voices get too loud. I can't pray. The voices get too loud. Like I need to just focus on staying alive. Don't you want me to stay alive? And the room kind of went silent. And Michelle said, you're hearing voices? And she turned to Chad and she said, divorce is off the table. We're dealing with a mental illness. We need to get her help.
Vic Vela:
Elena got an emergency appointment with a local psychiatrist. She was immediately put on medications and released into Michelle's care. Elena's doctor believed her suicidal thoughts were brought on by hormonal imbalance and depression and anxiety.
Elena Joy Thurston:
She said when the hormones that cause anxiety and depression peak at the same time, one thing that can happen is you can hear voices, and those voices will always tell you to either hurt yourself or hurt someone else. And so she's like, literally, I'm going to put you on these meds. And those voices are going to go away, because you're going to start stabilizing the chemicals in your brain. And it did. It worked very quickly for me — again, another privilege. Most people have to cycle through a med or two or three to find the one that works with their chemistry. I was very lucky that I got drugs that worked for me right away. So that was great. But the other part of it was that they helped me sleep for the first time in a really long time. And every time I woke up, things were more clear. And what was happening at the same time was the Me Too Movement starting, Gwyneth Paltrow tells her story. And then every woman in America tells her story. And we realized that 75% of American women have been assaulted at some point in their life. And that's when I finally connected the dots. 75% of American women are not gay.
Vic Vela:
Right.
Elena Joy Thurston:
Like not even close. This does not correlate. I am not gay because of what happened to me at 15.
Vic Vela:
What the conversion therapist was telling Elena was not adding up. Those moments from her past just weren't connecting to her present feelings. And then she made another life-changing decision.
Elena Joy Thurston:
That's it. I am, I am done living for heaven. I just want to be alive here, now, with my children. I would rather my children have a gay mom than a dead mom, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to stay alive.
Vic Vela:
Good for you. How did you move forward in your recovery, your personal recovery, being okay with being a gay mom?
Elena Joy Thurston:
I took things very, very, very slowly, really one issue at a time. And the first issue wasn't even my sexuality. The first issue was realizing, Oh, this marriage is not fair. It's not fair to Chad, obviously. It's not fair to me, obviously. And it's also really not fair to our children. Okay. Find a lawyer, filed for divorce. Okay. What's the next step. Okay. It's time to move out on my own. For the first time ever, I need to go live by myself. And so then it was finding a rental, selling the family home, getting moved, getting settled. And then it was, okay, Elena, time to figure out how to be a lesbian. [LAUGHING] And that was really weird. You know, luckily there's social media. It's very helpful when you're trying to learn how to be part of a new community. But after a few months, I started to realize, Oh, geez, Elena, you're doing it again. Like just like how I had figured out how to be the perfect Mormon. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to be the perfect lesbian. Ridiculous, right? They don't exist! So, yeah. So that's when I really started to delve into, who am I really? And, and how about I figure that out first, before I figure out what community I want to belong to. So that started a whole journey of self-awareness and healing and yeah.
Vic Vela:
And how was Kristen involved in all that?
Elena Joy Thurston:
Well, I hadn't really spoken to her since that horrible night that Chad figured everything out. There were secret phone calls here and there when I just couldn't handle it anymore, but they would last like a couple minutes and that was it. And she was at that time trying to decide, you know, Elena's back with her family, you know, she was trying to figure out her life. So we really didn't see each other very much until I moved into the rental and kind of got myself together.
Vic Vela:
Okay.
Elena Joy Thurston:
And then it was, okay, let's try dating.
Vic Vela:
Okay. Yeah. What did that look like? Because you had gone your whole adult life— I mean, you're just learning this for the first time ever.
Elena Joy Thurston:
Luckily she didn't have very high expectations of me.
Vic Vela:
That’s good.
Elena Joy Thurston:
So that was good. Imagine a 14-year-old boy. That's how I acted. Like I was giddy in love with her, giddy to hold her hand, giddy to get a kiss from her. Like it was just so much emotion physically, mentally. Yeah. It was all new.
Vic Vela:
As Elena's relationship with Kristen grew, she knew she had to tell her children about her sexuality and about her new partner.
Elena Joy Thurston:
The last small step that I took — or big step, I guess — the last one was coming out to my kids. I was so scared. I had taught them homosexuality was bad. It was going to keep you from God. Like we love homosexuals, but we mostly pity them because they're not going to return to God. You know, I was the one that taught my boys, if you masturbate, it'll turn you gay. Like I was the one that did that. So now I'm the one that has to tell these four kids what I taught was evil.
So telling my girls — they were eight and 10 at the time — that went really well actually. It was bedtime and we're cuddling, and I’m like, okay guys, you know how daddy has a new girlfriend and he's happy and we're happy for him. Mommy has a girlfriend, too. It's Kristen. And they were like, yeah, we know she's a girl. She's your friend. I’m like, you guys, go to bed. They kind of figured it out in the next week or so when they would see us like holding hands and cuddling on the couch and doing those couple things that I had never done with their dad. They started to kind of figure it out.
Vic Vela:
What does your son think about his mom being gay?
Elena Joy Thurston:
He loves me. I know he does. And he knows he does. He doesn't know how it's all going to work out. I do feel like this generation of Mormons, they are pinning their hopes on the current prophets dying, basically. And the rules being changed. Like these 16-, 18-year-old kids, you don't have to teach them homosexuality is bad or good. They know that it's just how life happens. Why are we in such a big deal about it? But they also are trying to be good people. And if they're being told, you're a good person if you're straight, they're trying to figure out how to reconcile that.
Vic Vela:
Part of the reason you became a Mormon was because your family was dysfunctional. How has your understanding of what a functional family is changed through all of this?
Elena Joy Thurston:
My concept of a functional family has to do with the safety in asking questions. A family is functional to me if anyone can ask any question at any time of themselves and of other people, and they're not told to just shut it down, turn it off. You know, like, if you can ask, what if I am gay and the people around you can say, I don’t know, how does that feel to you? Then you have a functional family.
Vic Vela:
Today Elena has made a new life with Kristen and her two girls. It's been a long and difficult journey, but she's found peace along the way. Now, Elena helps others. She's the executive director of the Pride and Joy Foundation, an inspirational speaker and a writer who uses her experiences to help others see their own journey.
“Back from Broken” is a show about how we're all broken sometimes and how we need help from time to time. If you're struggling with coming out or recovering from conversion therapy, you can find a list of resources at our website backfrombroken.org. Thanks for listening to “Back from Broken.” Please review the show on Apple Podcasts. It really helps other people find it. “Back from Broken” is hosted by me, Vic Vela. It's a production of Colorado Public Radio's Audio Innovations Studio and CPR News. Our lead producer today was Jo Erickson. This podcast is made possible by Colorado Public Radio members. Learn more about supporting “Back from Broken” at cpr.org.
