November 11, 2025 • 47 mins
Trigger warning: This episode contains a frank discussion of sexual molestation and drug overdose. Listener discretion advised.
After a lifetime of compounded trauma—childhood sexual abuse, relentless bullying, chronic illness, and consequently a two-decade opiate dependency—Brandon Densmore overdosed on heroin and flatlined. What happened next changed everything. In vivid detail, Brandon describes the presence he felt, the visions he was shown (including the unbearable image of his mother finding his body), and the deal he made to come back. This is a blunt, no-BS account of clawing out of addiction: medical detox and the radical, unsentimental forgiveness that finally let him drop the weight he’d carried for 20 years. He rebuilt a life—marriage, fatherhood, purpose—and then underwent a second awakening that reframed success as inner quiet over external hustle. It’s raw, direct, and ultimately hopeful. Listener discretion advised for references to sexual abuse, drug use, and overdose.
Download Branden’s free Quantum Forgiveness Starter Kit to start dissolving old emotional blocks and step into the life Spirit intended:
https://coach-branden-densmore.kit.com/quantum-foregivness-starter
Here’s a link to Brandon’s Facebook profile, where he posts ongoing reflections and resources
https://www.facebook.com/branden.densmore
Story Producer: Dan Bush
If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
My name is Brandon Densmore and in twenty fourteen, I
died from a heroin overdose. I had a near death
experience that totally transformed my life and since twenty fourteen,
my life has never been the same. I knew I
needed to take the opportunity to share some of these
things because I.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Know that people need to hear this.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
We see drug addicts, we see homeless people, and we
tend to judge them at face value. But what we
don't understand is there's reasons why people are the way
they are.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to Alive Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous account
of human fragility and resilience from people his lives were
forever altered after having almost died. These are first hand
accounts of near death experiences and more broadly, brushes with death.
Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share these stories
(01:16):
to remind us all of our shared human condition. Please
keep in mind these stories are true and maybe triggering
for some listener, and discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. My mom left
my dad before I was born. My dad had a
really bad temper, so she was trying to She wanted
to get me out of that kind of an atmosphere
and raise me in a better place. I was raised
(01:49):
as Jehovah's witness and developed a faith in God. The
concept and the Bible really fascinated me, especially things like
the Book of Revelation and the different visuals like the
monsters and things, the beasts, the multi headed dragon in
(02:12):
the Book of Revelation and the Book of Ezekiel. But
I mean I was learning about that kind of thing
like demons and angels and the spiritual realm from a
very young age. I have this memory of being I
don't know how old. I was maybe five in my
(02:34):
bed and I had this spiritual experience where it felt
like I was being attacked by something demonic. My bed
was like shaking, and I was half asleep.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
My bed was shaking.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I felt these like hands on me and they were
almost like tickling me or something like in my ribs, and.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I called out to Jehovah.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I said Jehovah like I could barely speak. I was
so terrified, but I said Jehovah, and then everything went
away and stopped and never happened again. Maybe it was
a dream, but it seemed very real to me at
the time.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I had faith that Jehovah was real.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I believed it, and I called on the power and
it resolved the issue immediately. But I was very much
sheltered as a child, and you know, contained in this religion,
and I learned a lot of values from the faith,
like not stealing, telling the truth, and even went out
(03:43):
in the field ministry, going door to door with my.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Mom quite often.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Around seven years old, my dad comes back into my
life and he fought for custody, and what ended up
happening was that he won the court case and was
given custody. So I would go and see him on
the weekends and I would say that like things were
(04:11):
good with my dad. But when I was eight years old,
I was brought over to one of his friend's houses
and they were getting ready. They were going to go
to a party that night. So I meet the people
there and one of them is this sixteen year old guy,
and he's really cool, right, like he took me under
(04:32):
his wing. He showed me like fireworks. And I had
been pretty sheltered up to this point, I'd never seen fireworks,
let alone held fireworks, and I thought they were fascinating
and fun. And we've set them off and he let
me light the fireworks and it was a great time.
I had like the best day of my life. Like
(04:57):
he let me light the fireworks and took me down
to a pond and we caught all these frogs and
had a ball and he laughed played with me, and
I felt really like privileged to be friends with this
sixteen year old guy. He's like double my age, right,
(05:19):
and I felt special, and I came to see him
as like a role model, Like this guy is just
really cool.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I looked up to him.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I thought, Wow, this guy is just awesome.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
He's like my new best friend. Dad.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Mom. They were getting ready and they were going out
with his parents. My step mom was putting on her makeup,
and they told me they weren't going to be back
till the next morning, so they all left. And then
that night I was molested.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
By this guy. I lasted for.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Hours and hours pretty much all night, on, off and on.
And this is the part that I've never really told anyone,
is that I was eight years old and this was
the first time that I'd ever had an erection, and
I remember not understanding what it was. He made me
(06:27):
promise not to tell anyone. It wasn't like I was
enjoying the process, but it was like, you know, the
erection is just when you're eight years old and you're
touched like that, It just happens.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
You don't have any control over it.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
I was just, you know, I had been very much sheltered,
and like anytime there was a sex scene on television
or like my mom would change the chaince or if
it was in a movie, she would fast forward the movie.
And it was not something that was talked about in
(07:07):
our family. It was very much associated with shame, being dirty.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
It's not right.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
So I remember I wasn't I didn't understand what was happening.
I didn't even know what that was, like why it
was the case. And I asked him to stop. I
knew that it didn't feel right, and I asked him
to stop over and over again, but he was persistent
(07:40):
and wouldn't stop and continued, and I couldn't protect myself.
So after this all happened, I didn't talk for three days.
My mom obviously knew something was wrong. My step mom
(08:01):
and Dad came back the next day and gave me
a ride home to my mom, and I didn't talk
and didn't talk for two days. After I got home
to see my mom. She knew something was wrong. She
was trying to figure it out. She was asking me
questions after question after question, and I just wouldn't talk.
(08:21):
And then she said did somebody did somebody touch you
in a sexual way? And I still didn't reply, and
then she said, touch my shoulder if somebody touched you,
and I reached up and touched her shoulder.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
I think I was just.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
In so much shock and pain that I could couldn't speak. Somebody,
somebody gets you to trust them and makes you feel
(09:02):
special and then just.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Crushes you.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Like you're a piece of garbage. That's how I felt.
I felt angry, betrayed, and couldn't speak about it with
anyone because my dad had just come back into my
life and I didn't feel totally comfortable with him, and
(09:31):
he wasn't there, you know, to guide me through this.
I couldn't speak about it with my mom because there
was this religious kind of stigma about sexuality. She got
me counselors and things like that, but I just didn't
feel comfortable opening up, and it was too painful for
me to comprehend or process, so I just kind of
(09:53):
stuffed it down and dealt with it the best I could,
tried to forget about it. I didn't feel comfortable in
my own skin. I saw the world as a dangerous place.
I no longer felt innocent, like care free. So I
(10:14):
carried this with me into school. And I don't know
if the children could pick up on that that I
was somehow damaged and they knew it. They maybe felt
that it was a weakness, or maybe it was that
I was different because I was a Jehovah's witness. I
didn't salute the flag. I didn't celebrate major holidays. Maybe
(10:35):
that stingled me out as different somehow, But I was
bullied horrendously. I think the molestation kind of shook my faith,
and I began to see the world as a place
(10:59):
that was not safe and.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
That I had to protect myself.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I think my own my personal relationship with Jehovah and
God was shaken and eliminated. Basically after the molestation, I
lost my faith. So I continued to grow up, and
(11:31):
I just I really wanted to be accepted. I saw
the popular kids, how they had camaraderie, friendship, they were
there to support each other, and I wanted that so bad.
I wanted to be popular, I wanted to be accepted.
But as I continued to grow up, I came to
be fourteen years old, and that's when I was diagnosed
(11:52):
with Crohn's disease and sacreliac spondylitis, which is basically arthritis
of the spine, and for those who don't know, Crohn's
disease is basically arthritis of the intestines. Both are autoimmune diseases,
so that's when I started the opiate journey. Looking back,
(12:21):
I wonder if those autoimmune conditions were actually caused by
the molestation. Maybe that I wasn't able to talk about
what happened, I wasn't able to process what happened. Maybe
that was somehow internalized and my body thought that it
was some kind of an invader and tried to fight it.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Off with the immune system.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I don't know if there's any scientific evidence to back
that up, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was that.
I started the opiates at age fourteen to treat the pain,
but I soon realized that the medication and not only
helped my physical pain, but it helped my emotional pain.
It helped me feel comfortable. It calmed down the disruptive
(13:10):
thoughts that I have about my past, about resentments toward
the guy who molested me, resentments toward my father, resentment
to the bullie, the desire for wanting to be popular,
for wanting to be comfortable, for wanting to have companionship.
It kind of calmed all of that down and allowed
me to feel comfortable in my own skin, and I
(13:32):
could go out into social situations and be relaxed, talk
to people, be happy. It just progressed over the years.
I would take more of the medication, they would prescribe
a more potent form of the medication. Then I would
increase my dosage on that the opiate use. The dependency
(14:00):
just continue to grow, and I just continue to need
more and more potent medications. The day that I overdosed,
I had been in withdrawals for about three days, and
I was stuck in this pattern of always using too
(14:20):
much of my medication and running out early, and then
I'd go three or four days without my prescription, and
that's when my body would just start to shut down.
My mind is out of control with anxiety. All the
stuff from the past that I hadn't processed would be
coming up. All of the feelings of being isolated, different,
(14:43):
not good enough, not good looking enough, not intelligent enough,
all of that would just start screaming in my mind.
I didn't like my life. My life wasn't what I
wanted it to be. I had all of these problems,
and I couldn't even sit still in the chair. I
couldn't think straight, and I'm in withdrawals.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
For three days.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I'm waiting for this guy to show up, and finally
he gets there.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
It was like the clock on the wall was just.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Ticking, and each tick was like an hour. Each second
felt like an hour waiting for this guy to show up,
and finally he gets there. Finally the nightmare is over.
Finally I can relax and I do some of the heroine,
and all of the the stress just evaporates off my
body like steam rolling off a hot lake. I laid
(15:32):
down on the couch and started feeling like I was sinking,
and it was like my breathing was getting shallow, and.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
I just felt like I.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Was sinking, sinking, And then It was like a moment
of blackness, and then there I am standing next to
my body, like looking at my body on the couch,
and I didn't feel weird. It didn't feel strange or
like wow, like I'm outside of my body looking at.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
My body on the couch. It was I was just there.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
And I was looking at my body, and I was
thinking to myself, what was the point of my life?
Like why did I have all of these experiences? Why
was I sexually molested, bullied, dropped out of school? When
on this educational journey discovered a love of learning, And
(16:32):
now this I'm standing here dead. What was the point
of the whole thing? Did I know I was dead
at the moment when I was looking at my body?
I think I did, But for some strange reason, it
didn't weird me out. It wasn't odd. It was just
like an everyday kind of event. I had two visions.
(17:05):
One was the life I saw that I could have
lived had I not been dead, all of these joyous experiences,
eating my wife, falling in love, getting married, having children,
achieving financial independence, buying a home, and all of these
(17:25):
people friends that I would have made the impact that
I could have had in people's lives, all of these
people that were there that I could have helped, that
I could have shown kindness to. Then I was shown
all of the people who were affected.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
By my death.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
The funeral where all of my family is, even the
people who are not Jehovah's witnesses, and my mother's there,
and my father is there, and all of my friends,
people that I used drugs with, people that I didn't
use drugs with, my brothers, all of the Jehoah's witnesses
that I had known growing up, and they were all
(18:05):
sharing their.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Thoughts about me.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
After I saw like this funeral, I was transported to another.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Vision where I was.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
My mother walked into the apartment where I was dead,
and she walks into the apartment, and this is the
part that really stands out to me. She walks into
the apartment and she sees me on the couch and
this puss running out of my mouth, and my skin
is all discolored, like a corpse, just dead, lifeless, and
(18:46):
she sees my body and it's like disbelief and shock,
and she starts saying my baby, my baby, Oh, my god, no,
my god, no, my.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Baby, my baby, and my baby null.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
My babe, and it just over and over again. I
could see her thoughts, feel her emotions about finding her
little baby dead on her couch, and she had all
of these memories raising me as a baby, all of
these tender memories of teaching me how to walk, of
(19:22):
feeding me different foods for the first time, and I
can feel her emotions how she's absolutely crushed. And that's
when I'm like, this can't be happening. And I'm like,
(19:43):
I start begging God, like, don't let me die, Like
send me back.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I can't let this happen.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I will do anything to overcome this addiction, to set
things right, so I can't let this happen to my mother.
I became aware of a presence in the room, and
I didn't see anyone or anything. I just felt like
something was watching me, like somebody was there in the
(20:12):
room with me. I could feel the thoughts and the
feelings of others as they discussed my life and how
they felt from my death, all the conversations between my
loved ones. But what stands out particularly is that memory
(20:34):
of my mother binding my body, and I just cried
out to God, please don't let me die. I will
do whatever needs to be done, to set things right,
to overcome this addiction. Send me back, Send me back,
send me back. And then that's when I heard a voice.
(20:57):
And the voice was plain. It wasn't loud, it wasn't quiet.
It was just like we're talking right now. And it said,
now your life is over and you wasted it. And
I just cried out, God, no, like, please send me back.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
I cannot let this happen.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And then that's when, all of a sudden, I was
back in my body, gasping for breath. It never identified itself,
but you might think of it as like a guide.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
It was.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
It was there, and it was I.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Believe, showing me these things, but kind of like leading
me through these different visions. It was always there with
me while I was having all of these visions, like
off to the side, even though I couldn't see what
it was. I don't know if you might think maybe
it was Jesus, maybe it was an angel, maybe.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
It was God.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I can't say with one hundred percent certainty. But whatever
it was, it was powerful, it was divine, and it
was showing me these things. For some reason, I promised
whatever presence that was, whether or not it was God,
an angel, Jesus, whatever it was that was showing.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Me these visions.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
It was there during my year that experience that if
you send me back, I will do anything to overcome
this addiction. And I had to really go within myself
and face the shadow like face the things that were
driving the addiction behind the scenes, the anger, the resentment,
the things that happened to me as a child. And
it wasn't pretty, it wasn't easy, it was painful, it
(22:42):
was anxiety provoking. But I promised that I would do
anything if it gave me another chance. Immediately when I
woke up, I'm thinking, what am I going to do,
Like I just had this unbelievable experience, and I know
(23:02):
that I need to do something or I'm not going
to make it.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
And my mom comes.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Home from being out in field service, and then we're
on the phone to crisis and counseling and calling hospitals
trying to get me into some kind of detox program.
So I ended up going to finding a hospital and
I went to the hospital for seven days, went through
(23:28):
a dtox from the opiates, and.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
It was like I had been on opiates.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
For decades, twenty years.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
I had been on opiates.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
So it was like I had to learn how to
tie my shoelaces again. My brain just was not working
and all of the emotional turmoil and everything like that
coming up. I went to an intensive outpatient clinic after
I was done with the hospital, where I were worked
(24:00):
with a counselor and other guys that were in the
corrections system some of them and others were just addicts
that needed help like me, and we're going through that process.
And that's where I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. And
I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous and the whole idea
(24:23):
that there's a spiritual solution. I worked the steps to
my best ability. Right, there's twelve steps and they're designed
to give you a spiritual awakening.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
That's the whole purpose.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
And the creator of Alcoholics Anonymous his name was Bill Wilson,
and he created Alcoholics Anonymous after having what he calls
a white light experience. So I worked these steps to
the best of my ability. I deal with the molestation
for the first time, like I'm able to confront that
(24:55):
and overcome that, and I did it through this process
of forgiveness. And I got a really good sponsor who
knew the steps inside and out.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
He was like a.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Hard nosed alcoholic who used the steps to overcome his alcoholism.
And he helped me come to this place of forgiveness
towards the guy who molested me all that time ago, Right,
And I went back and forgave the beliefs. I was
filled with hate. It was like the hate and the
(25:28):
resentment had become strongly embedded in my identity because I
had lived with the resentment and with the hate for
so long that it was just entrenched. And that was
actually what was fueling the addiction, because I would use
(25:51):
the opiates to try to numb that hate out, to
numb that resentment down. But I told my sponsor what
happened with the molestation, and he said, that's terrible, Brandon.
A child should never have to go through anything like that.
And I'm so sorry that that happened to you. But Brandon,
(26:14):
it's been how many years since that molestation happened?
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Okay? It's been that long? Really okay?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
And you've been holding onto this resentment for that long?
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I said yeah, And he.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Said, well, did you ever imagine that maybe something had
happened to him as a child that was like this epiphany.
I had never in that many years of holding onto
this resentment, wondered if something similar had happened to him.
(26:49):
And it gave me some distance to put, like I
was able to kind of separate myself from the event
and look at it like, well, maybe this person the
reason why he felt comfortable molesting me.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
And I'm sure that he felt.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
It was wrong because he got me to trust him
and everything first, so he knew that what he was
doing probably wasn't right. But anyways, he had been molested
as a child, probably.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
And I wouldn't wish. I wouldn't wish.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
That any child have that kind of thing happened to them, right,
so I could feel compassion for him. The forgiveness was
like an awakening, and it was the I was able
to draw the bags that I'd been carrying for twenty years.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
The weight.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
It was like this huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
It was like I carried that around for so many
years and just like a sigh of relief just letting
it go. There were a lot of different synchronicities that
have happened over the ten years since this happened, Like,
(28:05):
for instance, I met my wife through a dating app
and we ended up meeting under the full moon, and
it was like all of these synchronicities happened. At the
time where I met this woman, I didn't know that
we were going to get married and have children, but
I met her on a dating app under.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
The full moon and we just clicked.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
But it was like destiny, like something brought us together
and we were just the right match. It matched the
premonitions I was shown. And it wasn't like something that
was said to me when I was having the vision.
It was just like I just knew it, but I
(28:50):
just know that I was shown the woman that I
would marry. I was shown the children that i'd have,
the people that I was going to affect, and it
feels really good. And that was something that I saw
in my vision. There were all of these roadblocks, like
all of these beliefs about myself, beliefs about money, beliefs
about love that I had to be overcome, you know,
(29:14):
in order to bring that vision that I saw during
that near death experience to fruition. It's like a quantum leap,
like moving from one reality into a completely different reality.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
I got married.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I got married to the love of my life. I
recently had a baby, he just turned two, and I've
created a successful online business. Recently, I've been going through
a kind of second spiritual awakening. Whereas the first one
(29:59):
was in that near death experience and going through the
steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and then practicing that right over
the past ten years. Now I'm going through another major
spiritual awakening where I'm of value just being me. I'm
(30:23):
not becoming the person that I want to become. I
am the person I wanted to become, like I'm being
the person that I always wanted to be. And this set,
with this second awakening, it's like no more striving and
(30:44):
no more trying to prove myself. That's what it's been
like with this creating a online business, right is I'm
trying to get more followers, I'm trying to attract more customers,
I'm trying to get more views on live videos.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Like that's all over now. It's about.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Simplification, letting go of my of my plans, and simplifying
my life.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
So I used to see myself as a victim.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
For most of my life. Now I don't see myself
as a victim. I wouldn't change anything that's happened because
it's turned me into the person that I am now.
And even those dark experiences and things that I've done
wrong in my past, I've forgiven myself and forgiven all
(31:45):
others who have been, are, or even will be a
part of my experience. I've had faith following this vision
right and trying to develop myself and let and heal
from the past, and it's.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Required a great deal of faith.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
The feeling of wholeness isn't through these accomplishments. It is
through experiencing the presence of God in this moment, being
content with what I have and enjoying what I have,
and cultivating the sense of inner peace and inner quiet
and simplicity.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
And maybe that is faith.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Welcome back, this is Alive again. Joining me for a
conversation about today's story. Are my other Alive Against story
producers Louren Vogelbaum and Brent Die and I'm your host,
Dan Bush. So talking about Brandon, his story was very
hard to listen to. Whenever I see somebody who's struggling,
(33:10):
or somebody who has an addiction issue, or somebody who's
even suffering homelessness. You know, my new thought now is
what happened, you know, what was the trauma that led
to this person being broken to the point where they
are at.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
This is where they are.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
This is a story about somebody who went to all
the way to the edge, harbored this this trauma, and
then had this near death experience where the pronounced message
that came to him through that experience was you've wasted
your life. Sorry, you blew it. It kind of was
the takeaway from his near death experience. And so he
came back into his life, not simply. I mean, sure,
(33:50):
he started to do all the things that you do
as as a recovering addict and you go to AA
and you start to do all of the steps, but
something really interesting happened with him that was beyond the
sort of normal things that one would do. It can
become a thing where when you've become recovered, that becomes
your identity and you're like, okay, I'm a recovered addict
and that's your identity. And with Brandon, he even went
(34:12):
beyond that. He's like, you know what, I'm done being
the recovered guy. Now I've got a new narrative. And
you know it's not that I am the recovered Brandon,
It's that he just was. He just is, and he
somehow came into an acceptance of everything that had happened
to him, which allowed him this whole new understanding and
(34:33):
this whole new sort of ability to rebuild and to
accept a new identity that was beyond all of that
in a weird way. And I just thought that was
so hopeful and so cool. But yeah, it's it did
make me think, like, of all the people that I
see struggling, and the folks who I see who are
experiencing homelessness, or the folks my thought these days is,
(34:54):
you know, have what adversity have they faced?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Right?
Speaker 5 (34:57):
How did society fail this human person particular?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
And much like we heard you know Manuel in one
of our earlier shows, and how he have found forgiveness
for his torturers because.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
He saw it.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
He saw that this the systemic, you know, state sponsored violence,
and he said, you know, I lost my dignity, but they,
the people who did this to me, they lost their humanity.
And he talked about a river of blood and if
he could just follow the violence back and back and
back and follow it in this idea of following the
trauma back and back and back. So how could we
not look at this and also go the guy who
(35:33):
did this to him, the young adolescent or young man
who abused and sexually abused him when he was a child.
That led to a whole entire life of dealing with
that trauma, like what happened to that guy?
Speaker 4 (35:48):
You know?
Speaker 1 (35:48):
And I don't know the answer. I have no idea,
but it makes me wonder, like, you know, zero trauma,
how do we start to heal these wounds? How do
we go back and back and back? How can we?
Because I don't know. I mean, we were all babies
at one point, you know.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
I mean I think that's why forgiveness is such a
core message of so many of our great religions is
you can't you can't go back and back and back.
You know, one wrong doesn't make a right, whether it's
physical violence, sexual violence, whatever, and you've just got to
find a place like he did, like Brandon did, to say,
I don't know what you went through, but I'm not
(36:23):
going to carry this weight with me any longer.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
You know it.
Speaker 6 (36:26):
It's not necessarily absolving the person and what they did,
but it's freeing yourself of having to carry that hate
for them.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah, right, what do they say, you know, hating somebody
and carrying that hate. It's like it's like drinking poisons
and expecting the other person to get sick. Right, it's not.
You know, at the very least, you can stop the
stop the cycle within yourself. It doesn't mean you have
to like help that other person. It doesn't mean that
(36:56):
that other person who did this to you isn't still
you know, a monster out there working in the in
the universe. But if you can stop the hate within yourself,
then you're not going to repeat it. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
The only thing, the only person you can be responsible
for is yourself. And a lot of this is intergenerational
chain after chain after chain, and if you can break
that link and then one place to do it as yourself.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, so that's what forgivesness says, it's not about the
other person at all.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
Oh no, yeah, I mean, end of the day, I
screw that other person, but you. But you don't have
to carry you don't have to re traumatize yourself about it.
There are ways to break out of that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
And I think there's value to go you know, maybe
there is a reason that maybe they suffered the same
trauma I did, sure, you know, I think there might
be value to that, but it doesn't absolve them most
of what they've done.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
I do think that part of why this one was
so hard to listen to was that Brandon is clearly
a person who feels deeply and is incredibly expressive. He's
a very dynamic storyteller, and I think why he is
is because of what he chose to do with these
life experiences and how he healed from them. And I
(38:13):
think it's that's like a really powerful way to make
sense of the shit that we go through as human
people on this planet, figuring out ways to connect with
other people over it, rather than disappearing into it to.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Become to become a bodhisot fha. Maybe there's a certain
vantage point on what's happened to you in the adversity,
that's happened to you which led you to a point
of being able to help others. Yeah, and not that
that's why that happened to you, but if it gave
you purpose and if you if you've found a route
to this, I mean, you know, I just think that
first of all, overcoming your own trauma is nothing short
(38:48):
of heroic, Absolutely it's that in itself as a revolutionary
act in a way of like finding within yourself the
capacity to forgive yourself, but then to stay with it
and to not just be like, Okay, I'm good. No,
then you turn and you see the suffering in the
world and you begin to help others. Yeah, and he's
done that. Brandon has done that and does that. I
think another component of this story, as somebody who has
(39:10):
not experienced this, is to have empathy for those who
have had experiences that you haven't had, and to hear them.
When I was in college, I was walking across the
parking lot and his car pulled up and the window
was down, and the guy asked me, where's Meyers Hall,
which is as a dormitory on the University of Georgia campus.
Speaker 6 (39:31):
And I leaned in the windows. I couldn't hear him,
and he had his pants down around his ankles and
was masturbating. And it freaked me out so bad. And
for the next two weeks walking around, I didn't get
a good look at the guy. I just kept looking around,
going is that the guy? Could it be that guy?
The guy didn't touch me, he didn't do anything to me,
(39:54):
but I was so violated by that, and I thought,
I haven't been raped, nobody touched me. I'm twenty three
years old, I'm a grown man. I should be able
to handle this. And I thought, if it did that
much to me just witnessing that, just experiencing that, imagine
what a ten year old boy or a nine year
(40:16):
old girl what it does to them for the rest
of their life. And it just you got to hear
people when they say they went through something, whether it's
racism or sexism or sexual abuse. Listen to people, hear
what they've been through.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Yeah, and try to understand why it's so dehumanizing, and especially.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
If they have the bravery to speak about it, right
then God damn listen. Yeah, right, Like so much of
the trauma we all just harbor inside of ourselves, and
we have the self hatred, that self loathing, that sort
of that we don't even know where it comes from,
and there is no basis for it other than, you know,
this dehumanizing experience that we've had.
Speaker 6 (40:59):
When I think maybe a certain amount of that too,
is distigmatizing it to the point that somebody who has
those impulses that they want to act on another person
can seek help, because if you're feeling that way, you
should probably get that addressed, you know, before you harm
somebody the way Brandon was harmed or the way Matt
Fortune was harmed in another one of our stories, you know,
(41:19):
and it led him to a life of homelessness and
drug addiction.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
And he had the same sort of backstory as Brandon. Yeah,
there's gonna be different ways that people compensate for that
the adversity that they've faced.
Speaker 6 (41:30):
And well, I think we can also stop at looking
at homelessness and drug addiction as moral failings and weaknesses
and go, maybe there's a vet who came back from
a traumatic situation overseas and he's suffering postraumatic stress. Maybe
there was somebody who's sexually abused as a child. Maybe
there's somebody who simply couldn't keep paying the bills.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, can we look at that person who instead of
seeing somebody who's a failed human, can we look at
them with love and you know, see the divinity in
them and see that they are a mirror of ourselves,
in a mirror of our society, instead of being thinking, oh,
we're removed from it, and that's that's not my story,
that's their narrative and there's something wrong with that person. Well,
you know, there's something wrong with all of us if
(42:12):
that's you know, a recurring situation, and it is it
is apparently you know, everywhere.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
And also it speaks to the kind of invisible illnesses
that a lot of people do have where you might
look at someone and go like, oh, they're able bodied,
why why are they on the street, But you don't
know when someone has, for example, arthritis of their spine
and that they've been dealing with that kind of chronic
(42:38):
pain for so long, and that that is that is
a hecker, that that kind of dealing with that kind
of pain day in and day out and just wanting
to find a small amount of relief. So like looking
at someone and going like, oh, why can't they get
off drugs? Man? Like, they're just trying to have a
slightly easier time in this life. And we don't have
(43:00):
a lot of don't We scientifically don't have a lot
of good things that we can do. And also as
a society we're just like, uh, I guess they're worthless.
Leave them there, step over them, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I heard something recently somebody said that pain and suffering
are two different things. Pain is pain is pain, it's pain.
Speaker 5 (43:18):
It's paint.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Suffering is the story we tell ourselves about the pain. Yeah,
you know, if you can start to break that narrative
and understand it differently. But Brandon's story is a reminder
that these awakenings they don't just they don't just return
us to a life. They invite us to have a whole,
an entirely different life. They invite us to recreate ourselves
(43:41):
and to change the narrative. And I think that that.
I think anybody who can do that, it's it's nothing
short of he roic. Yeah, so, especially especially in this
culture we live in, where it's not you don't have
a lot of help.
Speaker 6 (43:53):
His story kind of ties in with Aaron Ralston's where
his NDE was a vision of what his life could be,
and true he does it. He moves forward by by
freeing himself from drug addiction and finding a place where
he could forgive his abuser and help others and help others.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Can you imagine dying? And then once you get to
the other side, somebody's.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Like, man, you really good job.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah. Yeah, And considering.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
Considering the way the cars are stacked against him by
his none of his owndoing as well. Well you know
what I mean, Like it's like it's not like he stop,
but somebody put this poison in his head and then, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
He suffers the result of that. And it was a
slow It's funny because it was a slippery slope. It
wasn't like he was like destroyed inside and then ran
off and you know, just became dysfunctional. It was this slow,
slippery slope of a million micro decisions that eventually led
to you know, his everdens. Yeah, anyway, I think I
(44:57):
think we can all do better by identifying with in
trying to see the people that are surrounding us who
are suffering.
Speaker 6 (45:05):
Yeah, I think this is the first NDE where somebody
got graded on their job performance. But yeah, it does
break the question what are we here for? And what
should we do with our lives?
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Next time I'm Alive Again, our producer Nick Tukoski takes
us on a harrowing journey that began with a violent
tumble down the Colorado mountainside. In the years since, he's
been forced to reckon with a chilling truth, someone close
to him might not have wanted him to survive.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
Bill saw an opportunity that he would never get again.
If he found me and my neck wasn't broken, he
had an opportunity to break it. Nobody gets out of
their childhood completely unscathed.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
You know.
Speaker 7 (45:50):
Trauma tends to stay in your body. And I didn't
want to drag another human being into this world just
to mess them up myself. But I just try to
be for her who I needed when I was a kid.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Our story producers are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die,
Nicholas Dakoski, and Lauren Vogelbah music by Ben Lovett, additional
music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our executive producers are Matthew Frederick
and Trevor Young. Special thanks to Alexander Williams for additional
production support. Our studio engineers are Rima El Kali and
(46:30):
Nomes Griffin. Today's episode was edited by Mike w Anderson,
mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander Rodriguez. I'm your host
Dan Bush. A special thanks to Brandon Dinsmore for joining
us and sharing his powerful story of transformation and purpose.
To connect with Brandon and learn more about his mission
to help people fearlessly manifest their dreams. Visit his website.
(46:53):
You can find him at Facebook dot com. Slash coach Brandon.
Alive Again is a production of i Art Radio and
Gopia Pictures. If you have a transformative near death experience
to share, we'd love to hear your story. Please email
us at a Live Again Project at gmail dot com.
That's a l I v e A g A I
(47:14):
N P R O j E C T at gmail
dot com.
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
My name is Brandon Densmore and in twenty fourteen, I
died from a heroin overdose. I had a near death
experience that totally transformed my life and since twenty fourteen,
my life has never been the same. I knew I
needed to take the opportunity to share some of these
things because I.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Know that people need to hear this.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
We see drug addicts, we see homeless people, and we
tend to judge them at face value. But what we
don't understand is there's reasons why people are the way
they are.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to Alive Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous account
of human fragility and resilience from people his lives were
forever altered after having almost died. These are first hand
accounts of near death experiences and more broadly, brushes with death.
Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share these stories
(01:16):
to remind us all of our shared human condition. Please
keep in mind these stories are true and maybe triggering
for some listener, and discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. My mom left
my dad before I was born. My dad had a
really bad temper, so she was trying to She wanted
to get me out of that kind of an atmosphere
and raise me in a better place. I was raised
(01:49):
as Jehovah's witness and developed a faith in God. The
concept and the Bible really fascinated me, especially things like
the Book of Revelation and the different visuals like the
monsters and things, the beasts, the multi headed dragon in
(02:12):
the Book of Revelation and the Book of Ezekiel. But
I mean I was learning about that kind of thing
like demons and angels and the spiritual realm from a
very young age. I have this memory of being I
don't know how old. I was maybe five in my
(02:34):
bed and I had this spiritual experience where it felt
like I was being attacked by something demonic. My bed
was like shaking, and I was half asleep.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
My bed was shaking.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I felt these like hands on me and they were
almost like tickling me or something like in my ribs, and.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I called out to Jehovah.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I said Jehovah like I could barely speak. I was
so terrified, but I said Jehovah, and then everything went
away and stopped and never happened again. Maybe it was
a dream, but it seemed very real to me at
the time.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I had faith that Jehovah was real.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I believed it, and I called on the power and
it resolved the issue immediately. But I was very much
sheltered as a child, and you know, contained in this religion,
and I learned a lot of values from the faith,
like not stealing, telling the truth, and even went out
(03:43):
in the field ministry, going door to door with my.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Mom quite often.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Around seven years old, my dad comes back into my
life and he fought for custody, and what ended up
happening was that he won the court case and was
given custody. So I would go and see him on
the weekends and I would say that like things were
(04:11):
good with my dad. But when I was eight years old,
I was brought over to one of his friend's houses
and they were getting ready. They were going to go
to a party that night. So I meet the people
there and one of them is this sixteen year old guy,
and he's really cool, right, like he took me under
(04:32):
his wing. He showed me like fireworks. And I had
been pretty sheltered up to this point, I'd never seen fireworks,
let alone held fireworks, and I thought they were fascinating
and fun. And we've set them off and he let
me light the fireworks and it was a great time.
I had like the best day of my life. Like
(04:57):
he let me light the fireworks and took me down
to a pond and we caught all these frogs and
had a ball and he laughed played with me, and
I felt really like privileged to be friends with this
sixteen year old guy. He's like double my age, right,
(05:19):
and I felt special, and I came to see him
as like a role model, Like this guy is just
really cool.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I looked up to him.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I thought, Wow, this guy is just awesome.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
He's like my new best friend. Dad.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Mom. They were getting ready and they were going out
with his parents. My step mom was putting on her makeup,
and they told me they weren't going to be back
till the next morning, so they all left. And then
that night I was molested.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
By this guy. I lasted for.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Hours and hours pretty much all night, on, off and on.
And this is the part that I've never really told anyone,
is that I was eight years old and this was
the first time that I'd ever had an erection, and
I remember not understanding what it was. He made me
(06:27):
promise not to tell anyone. It wasn't like I was
enjoying the process, but it was like, you know, the
erection is just when you're eight years old and you're
touched like that, It just happens.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
You don't have any control over it.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
I was just, you know, I had been very much sheltered,
and like anytime there was a sex scene on television
or like my mom would change the chaince or if
it was in a movie, she would fast forward the movie.
And it was not something that was talked about in
(07:07):
our family. It was very much associated with shame, being dirty.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
It's not right.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
So I remember I wasn't I didn't understand what was happening.
I didn't even know what that was, like why it
was the case. And I asked him to stop. I
knew that it didn't feel right, and I asked him
to stop over and over again, but he was persistent
(07:40):
and wouldn't stop and continued, and I couldn't protect myself.
So after this all happened, I didn't talk for three days.
My mom obviously knew something was wrong. My step mom
(08:01):
and Dad came back the next day and gave me
a ride home to my mom, and I didn't talk
and didn't talk for two days. After I got home
to see my mom. She knew something was wrong. She
was trying to figure it out. She was asking me
questions after question after question, and I just wouldn't talk.
(08:21):
And then she said did somebody did somebody touch you
in a sexual way? And I still didn't reply, and
then she said, touch my shoulder if somebody touched you,
and I reached up and touched her shoulder.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
I think I was just.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
In so much shock and pain that I could couldn't speak. Somebody,
somebody gets you to trust them and makes you feel
(09:02):
special and then just.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Crushes you.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Like you're a piece of garbage. That's how I felt.
I felt angry, betrayed, and couldn't speak about it with
anyone because my dad had just come back into my
life and I didn't feel totally comfortable with him, and
(09:31):
he wasn't there, you know, to guide me through this.
I couldn't speak about it with my mom because there
was this religious kind of stigma about sexuality. She got
me counselors and things like that, but I just didn't
feel comfortable opening up, and it was too painful for
me to comprehend or process, so I just kind of
(09:53):
stuffed it down and dealt with it the best I could,
tried to forget about it. I didn't feel comfortable in
my own skin. I saw the world as a dangerous place.
I no longer felt innocent, like care free. So I
(10:14):
carried this with me into school. And I don't know
if the children could pick up on that that I
was somehow damaged and they knew it. They maybe felt
that it was a weakness, or maybe it was that
I was different because I was a Jehovah's witness. I
didn't salute the flag. I didn't celebrate major holidays. Maybe
(10:35):
that stingled me out as different somehow, But I was
bullied horrendously. I think the molestation kind of shook my faith,
and I began to see the world as a place
(10:59):
that was not safe and.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
That I had to protect myself.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I think my own my personal relationship with Jehovah and
God was shaken and eliminated. Basically after the molestation, I
lost my faith. So I continued to grow up, and
(11:31):
I just I really wanted to be accepted. I saw
the popular kids, how they had camaraderie, friendship, they were
there to support each other, and I wanted that so bad.
I wanted to be popular, I wanted to be accepted.
But as I continued to grow up, I came to
be fourteen years old, and that's when I was diagnosed
(11:52):
with Crohn's disease and sacreliac spondylitis, which is basically arthritis
of the spine, and for those who don't know, Crohn's
disease is basically arthritis of the intestines. Both are autoimmune diseases,
so that's when I started the opiate journey. Looking back,
(12:21):
I wonder if those autoimmune conditions were actually caused by
the molestation. Maybe that I wasn't able to talk about
what happened, I wasn't able to process what happened. Maybe
that was somehow internalized and my body thought that it
was some kind of an invader and tried to fight it.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Off with the immune system.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I don't know if there's any scientific evidence to back
that up, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was that.
I started the opiates at age fourteen to treat the pain,
but I soon realized that the medication and not only
helped my physical pain, but it helped my emotional pain.
It helped me feel comfortable. It calmed down the disruptive
(13:10):
thoughts that I have about my past, about resentments toward
the guy who molested me, resentments toward my father, resentment
to the bullie, the desire for wanting to be popular,
for wanting to be comfortable, for wanting to have companionship.
It kind of calmed all of that down and allowed
me to feel comfortable in my own skin, and I
(13:32):
could go out into social situations and be relaxed, talk
to people, be happy. It just progressed over the years.
I would take more of the medication, they would prescribe
a more potent form of the medication. Then I would
increase my dosage on that the opiate use. The dependency
(14:00):
just continue to grow, and I just continue to need
more and more potent medications. The day that I overdosed,
I had been in withdrawals for about three days, and
I was stuck in this pattern of always using too
(14:20):
much of my medication and running out early, and then
I'd go three or four days without my prescription, and
that's when my body would just start to shut down.
My mind is out of control with anxiety. All the
stuff from the past that I hadn't processed would be
coming up. All of the feelings of being isolated, different,
(14:43):
not good enough, not good looking enough, not intelligent enough,
all of that would just start screaming in my mind.
I didn't like my life. My life wasn't what I
wanted it to be. I had all of these problems,
and I couldn't even sit still in the chair. I
couldn't think straight, and I'm in withdrawals.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
For three days.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I'm waiting for this guy to show up, and finally
he gets there.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
It was like the clock on the wall was just.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Ticking, and each tick was like an hour. Each second
felt like an hour waiting for this guy to show up,
and finally he gets there. Finally the nightmare is over.
Finally I can relax and I do some of the heroine,
and all of the the stress just evaporates off my
body like steam rolling off a hot lake. I laid
(15:32):
down on the couch and started feeling like I was sinking,
and it was like my breathing was getting shallow, and.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
I just felt like I.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Was sinking, sinking, And then It was like a moment
of blackness, and then there I am standing next to
my body, like looking at my body on the couch,
and I didn't feel weird. It didn't feel strange or
like wow, like I'm outside of my body looking at.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
My body on the couch. It was I was just there.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
And I was looking at my body, and I was
thinking to myself, what was the point of my life?
Like why did I have all of these experiences? Why
was I sexually molested, bullied, dropped out of school? When
on this educational journey discovered a love of learning, And
(16:32):
now this I'm standing here dead. What was the point
of the whole thing? Did I know I was dead
at the moment when I was looking at my body?
I think I did, But for some strange reason, it
didn't weird me out. It wasn't odd. It was just
like an everyday kind of event. I had two visions.
(17:05):
One was the life I saw that I could have
lived had I not been dead, all of these joyous experiences,
eating my wife, falling in love, getting married, having children,
achieving financial independence, buying a home, and all of these
(17:25):
people friends that I would have made the impact that
I could have had in people's lives, all of these
people that were there that I could have helped, that
I could have shown kindness to. Then I was shown
all of the people who were affected.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
By my death.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
The funeral where all of my family is, even the
people who are not Jehovah's witnesses, and my mother's there,
and my father is there, and all of my friends,
people that I used drugs with, people that I didn't
use drugs with, my brothers, all of the Jehoah's witnesses
that I had known growing up, and they were all
(18:05):
sharing their.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Thoughts about me.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
After I saw like this funeral, I was transported to another.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Vision where I was.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
My mother walked into the apartment where I was dead,
and she walks into the apartment, and this is the
part that really stands out to me. She walks into
the apartment and she sees me on the couch and
this puss running out of my mouth, and my skin
is all discolored, like a corpse, just dead, lifeless, and
(18:46):
she sees my body and it's like disbelief and shock,
and she starts saying my baby, my baby, Oh, my god, no,
my god, no, my.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Baby, my baby, and my baby null.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
My babe, and it just over and over again. I
could see her thoughts, feel her emotions about finding her
little baby dead on her couch, and she had all
of these memories raising me as a baby, all of
these tender memories of teaching me how to walk, of
(19:22):
feeding me different foods for the first time, and I
can feel her emotions how she's absolutely crushed. And that's
when I'm like, this can't be happening. And I'm like,
(19:43):
I start begging God, like, don't let me die, Like
send me back.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I can't let this happen.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I will do anything to overcome this addiction, to set
things right, so I can't let this happen to my mother.
I became aware of a presence in the room, and
I didn't see anyone or anything. I just felt like
something was watching me, like somebody was there in the
(20:12):
room with me. I could feel the thoughts and the
feelings of others as they discussed my life and how
they felt from my death, all the conversations between my
loved ones. But what stands out particularly is that memory
(20:34):
of my mother binding my body, and I just cried
out to God, please don't let me die. I will
do whatever needs to be done, to set things right,
to overcome this addiction. Send me back, Send me back,
send me back. And then that's when I heard a voice.
(20:57):
And the voice was plain. It wasn't loud, it wasn't quiet.
It was just like we're talking right now. And it said,
now your life is over and you wasted it. And
I just cried out, God, no, like, please send me back.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
I cannot let this happen.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And then that's when, all of a sudden, I was
back in my body, gasping for breath. It never identified itself,
but you might think of it as like a guide.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
It was.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
It was there, and it was I.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Believe, showing me these things, but kind of like leading
me through these different visions. It was always there with
me while I was having all of these visions, like
off to the side, even though I couldn't see what
it was. I don't know if you might think maybe
it was Jesus, maybe it was an angel, maybe.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
It was God.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I can't say with one hundred percent certainty. But whatever
it was, it was powerful, it was divine, and it
was showing me these things. For some reason, I promised
whatever presence that was, whether or not it was God,
an angel, Jesus, whatever it was that was showing.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Me these visions.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
It was there during my year that experience that if
you send me back, I will do anything to overcome
this addiction. And I had to really go within myself
and face the shadow like face the things that were
driving the addiction behind the scenes, the anger, the resentment,
the things that happened to me as a child. And
it wasn't pretty, it wasn't easy, it was painful, it
(22:42):
was anxiety provoking. But I promised that I would do
anything if it gave me another chance. Immediately when I
woke up, I'm thinking, what am I going to do,
Like I just had this unbelievable experience, and I know
(23:02):
that I need to do something or I'm not going
to make it.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
And my mom comes.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Home from being out in field service, and then we're
on the phone to crisis and counseling and calling hospitals
trying to get me into some kind of detox program.
So I ended up going to finding a hospital and
I went to the hospital for seven days, went through
(23:28):
a dtox from the opiates, and.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
It was like I had been on opiates.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
For decades, twenty years.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
I had been on opiates.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
So it was like I had to learn how to
tie my shoelaces again. My brain just was not working
and all of the emotional turmoil and everything like that
coming up. I went to an intensive outpatient clinic after
I was done with the hospital, where I were worked
(24:00):
with a counselor and other guys that were in the
corrections system some of them and others were just addicts
that needed help like me, and we're going through that process.
And that's where I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. And
I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous and the whole idea
(24:23):
that there's a spiritual solution. I worked the steps to
my best ability. Right, there's twelve steps and they're designed
to give you a spiritual awakening.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
That's the whole purpose.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
And the creator of Alcoholics Anonymous his name was Bill Wilson,
and he created Alcoholics Anonymous after having what he calls
a white light experience. So I worked these steps to
the best of my ability. I deal with the molestation
for the first time, like I'm able to confront that
(24:55):
and overcome that, and I did it through this process
of forgiveness. And I got a really good sponsor who
knew the steps inside and out.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
He was like a.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Hard nosed alcoholic who used the steps to overcome his alcoholism.
And he helped me come to this place of forgiveness
towards the guy who molested me all that time ago, Right,
And I went back and forgave the beliefs. I was
filled with hate. It was like the hate and the
(25:28):
resentment had become strongly embedded in my identity because I
had lived with the resentment and with the hate for
so long that it was just entrenched. And that was
actually what was fueling the addiction, because I would use
(25:51):
the opiates to try to numb that hate out, to
numb that resentment down. But I told my sponsor what
happened with the molestation, and he said, that's terrible, Brandon.
A child should never have to go through anything like that.
And I'm so sorry that that happened to you. But Brandon,
(26:14):
it's been how many years since that molestation happened?
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Okay? It's been that long? Really okay?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
And you've been holding onto this resentment for that long?
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I said yeah, And he.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Said, well, did you ever imagine that maybe something had
happened to him as a child that was like this epiphany.
I had never in that many years of holding onto
this resentment, wondered if something similar had happened to him.
(26:49):
And it gave me some distance to put, like I
was able to kind of separate myself from the event
and look at it like, well, maybe this person the
reason why he felt comfortable molesting me.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
And I'm sure that he felt.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
It was wrong because he got me to trust him
and everything first, so he knew that what he was
doing probably wasn't right. But anyways, he had been molested
as a child, probably.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
And I wouldn't wish. I wouldn't wish.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
That any child have that kind of thing happened to them, right,
so I could feel compassion for him. The forgiveness was
like an awakening, and it was the I was able
to draw the bags that I'd been carrying for twenty years.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
The weight.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
It was like this huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
It was like I carried that around for so many
years and just like a sigh of relief just letting
it go. There were a lot of different synchronicities that
have happened over the ten years since this happened, Like,
(28:05):
for instance, I met my wife through a dating app
and we ended up meeting under the full moon, and
it was like all of these synchronicities happened. At the
time where I met this woman, I didn't know that
we were going to get married and have children, but
I met her on a dating app under.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
The full moon and we just clicked.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
But it was like destiny, like something brought us together
and we were just the right match. It matched the
premonitions I was shown. And it wasn't like something that
was said to me when I was having the vision.
It was just like I just knew it, but I
(28:50):
just know that I was shown the woman that I
would marry. I was shown the children that i'd have,
the people that I was going to affect, and it
feels really good. And that was something that I saw
in my vision. There were all of these roadblocks, like
all of these beliefs about myself, beliefs about money, beliefs
about love that I had to be overcome, you know,
(29:14):
in order to bring that vision that I saw during
that near death experience to fruition. It's like a quantum leap,
like moving from one reality into a completely different reality.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
I got married.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I got married to the love of my life. I
recently had a baby, he just turned two, and I've
created a successful online business. Recently, I've been going through
a kind of second spiritual awakening. Whereas the first one
(29:59):
was in that near death experience and going through the
steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and then practicing that right over
the past ten years. Now I'm going through another major
spiritual awakening where I'm of value just being me. I'm
(30:23):
not becoming the person that I want to become. I
am the person I wanted to become, like I'm being
the person that I always wanted to be. And this set,
with this second awakening, it's like no more striving and
(30:44):
no more trying to prove myself. That's what it's been
like with this creating a online business, right is I'm
trying to get more followers, I'm trying to attract more customers,
I'm trying to get more views on live videos.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Like that's all over now. It's about.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Simplification, letting go of my of my plans, and simplifying
my life.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
So I used to see myself as a victim.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
For most of my life. Now I don't see myself
as a victim. I wouldn't change anything that's happened because
it's turned me into the person that I am now.
And even those dark experiences and things that I've done
wrong in my past, I've forgiven myself and forgiven all
(31:45):
others who have been, are, or even will be a
part of my experience. I've had faith following this vision
right and trying to develop myself and let and heal
from the past, and it's.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Required a great deal of faith.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
The feeling of wholeness isn't through these accomplishments. It is
through experiencing the presence of God in this moment, being
content with what I have and enjoying what I have,
and cultivating the sense of inner peace and inner quiet
and simplicity.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
And maybe that is faith.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Welcome back, this is Alive again. Joining me for a
conversation about today's story. Are my other Alive Against story
producers Louren Vogelbaum and Brent Die and I'm your host,
Dan Bush. So talking about Brandon, his story was very
hard to listen to. Whenever I see somebody who's struggling,
(33:10):
or somebody who has an addiction issue, or somebody who's
even suffering homelessness. You know, my new thought now is
what happened, you know, what was the trauma that led
to this person being broken to the point where they
are at.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
This is where they are.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
This is a story about somebody who went to all
the way to the edge, harbored this this trauma, and
then had this near death experience where the pronounced message
that came to him through that experience was you've wasted
your life. Sorry, you blew it. It kind of was
the takeaway from his near death experience. And so he
came back into his life, not simply. I mean, sure,
(33:50):
he started to do all the things that you do
as as a recovering addict and you go to AA
and you start to do all of the steps, but
something really interesting happened with him that was beyond the
sort of normal things that one would do. It can
become a thing where when you've become recovered, that becomes
your identity and you're like, okay, I'm a recovered addict
and that's your identity. And with Brandon, he even went
(34:12):
beyond that. He's like, you know what, I'm done being
the recovered guy. Now I've got a new narrative. And
you know it's not that I am the recovered Brandon,
It's that he just was. He just is, and he
somehow came into an acceptance of everything that had happened
to him, which allowed him this whole new understanding and
(34:33):
this whole new sort of ability to rebuild and to
accept a new identity that was beyond all of that
in a weird way. And I just thought that was
so hopeful and so cool. But yeah, it's it did
make me think, like, of all the people that I
see struggling, and the folks who I see who are
experiencing homelessness, or the folks my thought these days is,
(34:54):
you know, have what adversity have they faced?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Right?
Speaker 5 (34:57):
How did society fail this human person particular?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
And much like we heard you know Manuel in one
of our earlier shows, and how he have found forgiveness
for his torturers because.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
He saw it.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
He saw that this the systemic, you know, state sponsored violence,
and he said, you know, I lost my dignity, but they,
the people who did this to me, they lost their humanity.
And he talked about a river of blood and if
he could just follow the violence back and back and
back and follow it in this idea of following the
trauma back and back and back. So how could we
not look at this and also go the guy who
(35:33):
did this to him, the young adolescent or young man
who abused and sexually abused him when he was a child.
That led to a whole entire life of dealing with
that trauma, like what happened to that guy?
Speaker 4 (35:48):
You know?
Speaker 1 (35:48):
And I don't know the answer. I have no idea,
but it makes me wonder, like, you know, zero trauma,
how do we start to heal these wounds? How do
we go back and back and back? How can we?
Because I don't know. I mean, we were all babies
at one point, you know.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
I mean I think that's why forgiveness is such a
core message of so many of our great religions is
you can't you can't go back and back and back.
You know, one wrong doesn't make a right, whether it's
physical violence, sexual violence, whatever, and you've just got to
find a place like he did, like Brandon did, to say,
I don't know what you went through, but I'm not
(36:23):
going to carry this weight with me any longer.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
You know it.
Speaker 6 (36:26):
It's not necessarily absolving the person and what they did,
but it's freeing yourself of having to carry that hate
for them.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah, right, what do they say, you know, hating somebody
and carrying that hate. It's like it's like drinking poisons
and expecting the other person to get sick. Right, it's not.
You know, at the very least, you can stop the
stop the cycle within yourself. It doesn't mean you have
to like help that other person. It doesn't mean that
(36:56):
that other person who did this to you isn't still
you know, a monster out there working in the in
the universe. But if you can stop the hate within yourself,
then you're not going to repeat it. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
The only thing, the only person you can be responsible
for is yourself. And a lot of this is intergenerational
chain after chain after chain, and if you can break
that link and then one place to do it as yourself.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, so that's what forgivesness says, it's not about the
other person at all.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
Oh no, yeah, I mean, end of the day, I
screw that other person, but you. But you don't have
to carry you don't have to re traumatize yourself about it.
There are ways to break out of that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
And I think there's value to go you know, maybe
there is a reason that maybe they suffered the same
trauma I did, sure, you know, I think there might
be value to that, but it doesn't absolve them most
of what they've done.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
I do think that part of why this one was
so hard to listen to was that Brandon is clearly
a person who feels deeply and is incredibly expressive. He's
a very dynamic storyteller, and I think why he is
is because of what he chose to do with these
life experiences and how he healed from them. And I
(38:13):
think it's that's like a really powerful way to make
sense of the shit that we go through as human
people on this planet, figuring out ways to connect with
other people over it, rather than disappearing into it to.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Become to become a bodhisot fha. Maybe there's a certain
vantage point on what's happened to you in the adversity,
that's happened to you which led you to a point
of being able to help others. Yeah, and not that
that's why that happened to you, but if it gave
you purpose and if you if you've found a route
to this, I mean, you know, I just think that
first of all, overcoming your own trauma is nothing short
(38:48):
of heroic, Absolutely it's that in itself as a revolutionary
act in a way of like finding within yourself the
capacity to forgive yourself, but then to stay with it
and to not just be like, Okay, I'm good. No,
then you turn and you see the suffering in the
world and you begin to help others. Yeah, and he's
done that. Brandon has done that and does that. I
think another component of this story, as somebody who has
(39:10):
not experienced this, is to have empathy for those who
have had experiences that you haven't had, and to hear them.
When I was in college, I was walking across the
parking lot and his car pulled up and the window
was down, and the guy asked me, where's Meyers Hall,
which is as a dormitory on the University of Georgia campus.
Speaker 6 (39:31):
And I leaned in the windows. I couldn't hear him,
and he had his pants down around his ankles and
was masturbating. And it freaked me out so bad. And
for the next two weeks walking around, I didn't get
a good look at the guy. I just kept looking around,
going is that the guy? Could it be that guy?
The guy didn't touch me, he didn't do anything to me,
(39:54):
but I was so violated by that, and I thought,
I haven't been raped, nobody touched me. I'm twenty three
years old, I'm a grown man. I should be able
to handle this. And I thought, if it did that
much to me just witnessing that, just experiencing that, imagine
what a ten year old boy or a nine year
(40:16):
old girl what it does to them for the rest
of their life. And it just you got to hear
people when they say they went through something, whether it's
racism or sexism or sexual abuse. Listen to people, hear
what they've been through.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Yeah, and try to understand why it's so dehumanizing, and especially.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
If they have the bravery to speak about it, right
then God damn listen. Yeah, right, Like so much of
the trauma we all just harbor inside of ourselves, and
we have the self hatred, that self loathing, that sort
of that we don't even know where it comes from,
and there is no basis for it other than, you know,
this dehumanizing experience that we've had.
Speaker 6 (40:59):
When I think maybe a certain amount of that too,
is distigmatizing it to the point that somebody who has
those impulses that they want to act on another person
can seek help, because if you're feeling that way, you
should probably get that addressed, you know, before you harm
somebody the way Brandon was harmed or the way Matt
Fortune was harmed in another one of our stories, you know,
(41:19):
and it led him to a life of homelessness and
drug addiction.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
And he had the same sort of backstory as Brandon. Yeah,
there's gonna be different ways that people compensate for that
the adversity that they've faced.
Speaker 6 (41:30):
And well, I think we can also stop at looking
at homelessness and drug addiction as moral failings and weaknesses
and go, maybe there's a vet who came back from
a traumatic situation overseas and he's suffering postraumatic stress. Maybe
there was somebody who's sexually abused as a child. Maybe
there's somebody who simply couldn't keep paying the bills.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, can we look at that person who instead of
seeing somebody who's a failed human, can we look at
them with love and you know, see the divinity in
them and see that they are a mirror of ourselves,
in a mirror of our society, instead of being thinking, oh,
we're removed from it, and that's that's not my story,
that's their narrative and there's something wrong with that person. Well,
you know, there's something wrong with all of us if
(42:12):
that's you know, a recurring situation, and it is it
is apparently you know, everywhere.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
And also it speaks to the kind of invisible illnesses
that a lot of people do have where you might
look at someone and go like, oh, they're able bodied,
why why are they on the street, But you don't
know when someone has, for example, arthritis of their spine
and that they've been dealing with that kind of chronic
(42:38):
pain for so long, and that that is that is
a hecker, that that kind of dealing with that kind
of pain day in and day out and just wanting
to find a small amount of relief. So like looking
at someone and going like, oh, why can't they get
off drugs? Man? Like, they're just trying to have a
slightly easier time in this life. And we don't have
(43:00):
a lot of don't We scientifically don't have a lot
of good things that we can do. And also as
a society we're just like, uh, I guess they're worthless.
Leave them there, step over them, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I heard something recently somebody said that pain and suffering
are two different things. Pain is pain is pain, it's pain.
Speaker 5 (43:18):
It's paint.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Suffering is the story we tell ourselves about the pain. Yeah,
you know, if you can start to break that narrative
and understand it differently. But Brandon's story is a reminder
that these awakenings they don't just they don't just return
us to a life. They invite us to have a whole,
an entirely different life. They invite us to recreate ourselves
(43:41):
and to change the narrative. And I think that that.
I think anybody who can do that, it's it's nothing
short of he roic. Yeah, so, especially especially in this
culture we live in, where it's not you don't have
a lot of help.
Speaker 6 (43:53):
His story kind of ties in with Aaron Ralston's where
his NDE was a vision of what his life could be,
and true he does it. He moves forward by by
freeing himself from drug addiction and finding a place where
he could forgive his abuser and help others and help others.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Can you imagine dying? And then once you get to
the other side, somebody's.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Like, man, you really good job.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah. Yeah, And considering.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
Considering the way the cars are stacked against him by
his none of his owndoing as well. Well you know
what I mean, Like it's like it's not like he stop,
but somebody put this poison in his head and then, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
He suffers the result of that. And it was a
slow It's funny because it was a slippery slope. It
wasn't like he was like destroyed inside and then ran
off and you know, just became dysfunctional. It was this slow,
slippery slope of a million micro decisions that eventually led
to you know, his everdens. Yeah, anyway, I think I
(44:57):
think we can all do better by identifying with in
trying to see the people that are surrounding us who
are suffering.
Speaker 6 (45:05):
Yeah, I think this is the first NDE where somebody
got graded on their job performance. But yeah, it does
break the question what are we here for? And what
should we do with our lives?
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Next time I'm Alive Again, our producer Nick Tukoski takes
us on a harrowing journey that began with a violent
tumble down the Colorado mountainside. In the years since, he's
been forced to reckon with a chilling truth, someone close
to him might not have wanted him to survive.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
Bill saw an opportunity that he would never get again.
If he found me and my neck wasn't broken, he
had an opportunity to break it. Nobody gets out of
their childhood completely unscathed.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
You know.
Speaker 7 (45:50):
Trauma tends to stay in your body. And I didn't
want to drag another human being into this world just
to mess them up myself. But I just try to
be for her who I needed when I was a kid.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Our story producers are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die,
Nicholas Dakoski, and Lauren Vogelbah music by Ben Lovett, additional
music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our executive producers are Matthew Frederick
and Trevor Young. Special thanks to Alexander Williams for additional
production support. Our studio engineers are Rima El Kali and
(46:30):
Nomes Griffin. Today's episode was edited by Mike w Anderson,
mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander Rodriguez. I'm your host
Dan Bush. A special thanks to Brandon Dinsmore for joining
us and sharing his powerful story of transformation and purpose.
To connect with Brandon and learn more about his mission
to help people fearlessly manifest their dreams. Visit his website.
(46:53):
You can find him at Facebook dot com. Slash coach Brandon.
Alive Again is a production of i Art Radio and
Gopia Pictures. If you have a transformative near death experience
to share, we'd love to hear your story. Please email
us at a Live Again Project at gmail dot com.
That's a l I v e A g A I
(47:14):
N P R O j E C T at gmail
dot com.
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