Trauma, Healing, and Advocacy with Alana Stott: An Inspiring Journey on AMY IS SHOW | EP 3 - QNAMY

Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
I am literally obsessed with you. Okay, I'll take it.
And welcome to the Amy ish show. Thank you. Alana Stott,
MBE, which I had to write this down because I wasn't gonna remember it. So,
member of the order of the British Empire. I can't remember either.
So for those of you that don't know, that is a very high order that
is bestowed, showed upon Miss Alana here, because she earned it through

(00:30):
helping vulnerable women and your efforts around mental
health. And that's really amazing.
That's literally the premise of my show is just, like, mental health, helping other people
out. But obviously, being a woman, coming
from the military, my upbringing, the whole nine yards, we have
such a crazy similarity in our paths

(00:52):
and some of the traumas and things that we've been through. So the fact that
you have overcome all of these
crazy things in your life, like, you have one of the most wild stories. For
those of you that don't know who Alana is, you need to run and get
this book. She who dares. Alana Stott. It
just was launched last year, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's a new book. She's also

(01:13):
got. If you. You're gonna go down rabbit holes and want all of her information,
but how to ask for money is her other book here. She is just
an incredible expert on fundraising,
charitable initiatives, connecting people
together, running businesses, literally, like,
from concept to fruition. I mean, she's amazing. So go check her

(01:34):
out. She's got her own podcast show. Your
guys podcast is called what now? It's like, behind the scenes. Behind the scenes.
And then she's been a nutritionist on so many
initiatives. You helped your husband achieve two Guinness World
records. She's the nutritionist behind the new show
that's now out toughest forces on earth, where there's three

(01:57):
incredible former military service members that go all around the world
and test out different trainings for
different military forces all over the world. She's incredible. Go check her out. Run.
And I'm gonna hyperlink everything below on this episode so you can
go find her. But starting at the beginning
of your journey, I was reading your book, and when I tell you, I was

(02:20):
in tears. I was laying in bed by myself reading your book,
and I was just sobbing because it's so rare
to find I've never found anyone that has
had almost the same journey as me.
So I don't know if you knew this about me or not, but I was
born in England. I'm from Nottingham. My parents divorced when

(02:41):
I was, like, three months old. So I've always had, like, a split household.
When I was really young, my mom moved to the United States. I think she
was like, I was like five or six at the time she moved to the
United States. I originally came with her because she met in
America, married him. But then I was going back and forth my whole life and
I was kind of, to be honest, on my own most of my time. I

(03:02):
left home. I think I was like, 14 or something. I have
not lived with my parents since I was 14 years old. And
you share some things in your book that are just so mind
blowing that no child should ever have to go through.
You lost your mom at a really young age.
You grew up in an environment where it seemed like from your

(03:25):
book, correct me if I'm wrong, please, but it seemed like you
had a really decent family, but
you were just kind of isolated and that you were
spending so much time on your own and you had to be
the mom. You raised your brother.
What's your brother's name, by the way? So my younger one's Adam. Older is

(03:47):
Thomas. Adam and Thomas. Okay, so Adam is the one that you spent so much
time raising. And you were young. I think you were like, 13 or something when
he was born. I was so I was. Or nine. He was
nine or ten, yeah, probably like nine, yeah, just after I was
burnt. So he was born. There
was. So mum and dad had got divorced when I was younger, and then mum

(04:08):
had met another guy. And I always look back on it now and think about,
you know, I'm older than my mum was when she died. So she was always
just a young person just trying to find. And she was the type
of woman that needed a man in her life.
So she met another guy quite soon after my dad,
and he was a lot younger, I think, like 13 years younger than

(04:29):
her. So when Adam was born, it was just a complete
shock to their system. This baby, this, you
know, mum, ten years since she'd had a baby, and
he definitely didn't. I'm not saying he didn't
want a baby, but a baby is a big thing. And he worked in a
bar, so he didn't get that much sleep anyway. And they were busy. So immediately

(04:51):
Adam was put into my bedroom so that they could get
more sleep. So my nights would be like getting up and doing night feeds
and various different things. And I was still pretty young myself and
recovering from the burns and whatnot. So it wasn't, I guess, until
one of the teacher, I fell asleep in class one day and one of the
teachers complained to my mom or pulled my mom in and said, look, she needs

(05:12):
to be getting more rest. That I think it was. Even recognized that that's what
I'd done. But my dad would always complain about it,
too. So they were. My mum and dad were always at loggerheads over something. You
know, when I was burned, you know, my mum and her boyfriend were in the
house, so my dad blamed them. Nobody was to blame. It was an
accident. And then I'm kind of raising

(05:33):
Adam and my dad would kick off about it and
I would. My dad had a girlfriend as well, so I was always looking after
Adam or looking after my mom. And then my
dad would get angry that I would have Adam so that his girlfriend wouldn't
allow Adam to come around. Sometimes there'd be days where I would have Adam,
but I'd want to see my dad, but I couldn't bring him around. So it

(05:54):
was just constantly battling all their issues and
there was never. You're just in the middle. You're like a ping pong ball. Yeah.
But I had a great Auntie Molly. Like, she
was my grandfather's older sister.
So every now and then I would stay at her house. And those were the
times that I was made to feel like a child, I guess. You know, she

(06:14):
would make me tea and digestives and, like, I slept
and nobody made. Like, I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have work to
do there. I didn't have responsibilities. It was just looked
after. So I did have that one person in my life that made me
feel like a kid, I guess. Oh, I love that for you, that you
had that outlet and that source of just comfort in what

(06:37):
otherwise seemed to be just like a journey of survival for
you when you were really young.
I think you were eight or nine, if I'm not mistaken, and you got severely
burned from making hot tea. Yeah, it
was one of those kind of old fashioned scottish urns. They're like big stainless
steel things. And I was making the tea and I stood on. My

(06:59):
grandfather had made, like, a stool, and the breakfast
bar was a bit high for me, so I stood on the stool to put
a tea jug, and then when I moved across the stool, it just fell over
and it all came down on top of me.
Yeah. My mom rushed me to hospital straight away. They
put me in wraps and various things, and I was put into

(07:21):
an incubation chamber for a while a day after
I got to hospital. So I started being sick and I was getting really ill,
and then they'd done a quick check, and I had appendicitis. So they
rushed me down to surgery, and on the way to surgery, in, my appendix burst.
So as a bit of a silver lining. And if I hadn't been in hospital,
I might not be here now, but. I'm just like, what are the. I read

(07:41):
that in the book, and as I was reading that, I'm like, what are the
chances that you get burned? You have appendicitis. At the same time?
It's almost like, was that a cat like, you being burned? Was that a
trauma moment for your body where it was like, okay, now your
appendix is, you know, gonna have issues? I don't know. But that was. That was
wild. Like divine intervention almost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I ended
up, I think, about six months in hospital. I met, like, there

(08:05):
was a girl who was there pretty much the whole time who was in a
coma. So I would read to her, like, after. After a while, when I was
out of the unit and I was into the ward, it was pretty
boring, so I would help the nurses change beds and do all that kind of
thing. So it was actually quite. Although it was an awful time, it was
an experience for me, and that's when I was, you know, I was, I guess,

(08:26):
mingling with older people. Like, my. My teacher would bring schoolwork
into the hospital, so, you know, and when you're doing schoolwork and
hospital, you kind of go way ahead of what they're doing in the classroom. So
by the time I got back to school, I was kind of ahead, class
wise, of everybody. But then everybody had formed pretty solid
friendships, so I didn't really have that

(08:46):
friendship group. But again, then Adam was born not long later,
and then I'm into that mom mode straight away, so.
Wow. Well, there's some things in the book that just, like, really stand
out to me, and this is definitely jumping ahead, and
I feel like I'm not doing you or the audience justice and
sharing way more about your journey, but please go buy her

(09:08):
book and read it, because when you read it, not only are you going to
relate to so many things in it, just being a woman and going through
life and experiencing, growing up and all the
challenges you face doing that. But I want
to jump into a couple of things that I think are just so needed to
be talked about in today's society, and you're such a

(09:29):
powerhouse around supporting initiatives that help win. But, I mean, in
women and men, in terms of mental health as well. And there's a
couple things that really stood out to me. And you
had this terrible experience when you were, I think you
were a teenager and you had a boyfriend at the time
that violated you

(09:52):
in ways that are just so appalling for any person who is
supposed to love you and be in a real intimate relationship with you, et cetera.
You went to a party, he drugged you, and some
things happened. And I'll leave it to
you to decide if you want to share outside of the book. But
this particular line, I highlighted it in the book. Cause it was

(10:14):
so. I broke down when I read this because it's so
true for my own journey with
sexual trauma. When you look at just the
injustices in our society and in our systems about
holding people accountable for their actions when they
treat women a certain way or men also go through these exact same

(10:36):
traumas. But during the sentencing
process, you're in the courtroom,
and the paragraph here is a sentence of
twelve months was given to my first perpetrator and 18 months to his
friend. And I'm skipping ahead a little bit here because I want to get to
this moment where you say, this was where I learned that telling lies

(10:58):
about cash is classed as a worse crime
than abusing a woman's body. The laws written by
men valued cash over women. And it's
so true. It's still the case to this very
day. So tell me a little bit about
this for you. And

(11:20):
was this the catalyst for why you're so involved with
women's issues today? Yeah. So
I was living down. What had happened was my mom had died and
my little brother's dad had come back to his life, and then he'd moved down
to England. We were in Scotland, and they took Adam away,
and I'd raised him. He was six years old now. So I

(11:42):
left school and left home and moved down to England
to be there. So I was 16. I was living in this new country
effectively, and, you know, you were meeting older people.
I was working in bars. I was hanging out with much older groups of people.
And this guy that I was dating, he was 27. I was
with that group of people. And, yeah, one evening, he.

(12:05):
I mean, it was never confirmed to me exactly what he done
to make me pass out, but I passed out. And him and his friend, I
guess, had their pleasure there.
I didn't know what happened. I woke up, I knew something had happened, but I
didn't know what or who. And this was a party, so there was a lot
of people in the house. So I'm asking people, like, who was in the room

(12:26):
what happened? And everybody was just completely denying it.
Another one of my friends had come and she said, we're going to the police.
Something's happened to you. The police then took everybody and interviewed
them, and the two of them admitted it immediately. And the two were saying, one
said, well, she's my girlfriend, so it's okay. And his friend said, well, he said
it was okay, and it's his girlfriend, so that's okay.

(12:48):
Next day, they retracted that statement, then denied it, and then it went through,
you know, the usual rigmarole. And
during that process, I learned what it was
to be a victim of sexual assault. And that was just a
lot of questioning, a lot of doubt, a lot of, you know, because it's a
he said, she said thing. Even though I hadn't actually said anything, they were the

(13:09):
ones that admitted it,
and you just learn that they're going to go after you. Very
rarely did they criticize them. Like, very rarely did I hear a criticism about
them. But every little thing I'd done
was checked. And this was before, really, before phones and social media or anything
like that, and people would record me and try and get me to say

(13:31):
things. As soon as it got to the courtroom, it was a case
of, I'm just telling my truth. I'm telling what. What I
remember about that night and what happened. And then their
story had changed about a gazillion times up to this point. They waited till the
court day, and then one of them pled guilty immediately, which
then got him a lesser sentence. When he pled guilty, the

(13:53):
other one carried on through and was eventually found guilty.
But as a 17 year old by this point,
I'm now learning exactly what it is to be a
victim of a sexual assault. And on the stand, it was
just like attack after attack after attack.
Nothing about that night. You done this, you wore this, you acted like this,

(14:15):
you behaved like this previously. And I'm still a kid. I was still a kid,
but all I was doing was just answering the questions. And I always
remember after the case coming out and they had a female barrister who
was cross examining me, or whatever it's called on
the. On the stand. And when we were outside the court, Carlisle court,
she came out of. And I remember she looked at me and I remember it

(14:37):
was a look of I'm sorry. Like, it's my
job. That kind of look. She was. She wasn't happy what she'd done, but I
was like, you're a woman and you've just done this to another very young
woman. And I spoke to the victim support team
and they were like, everything you've been through is just normal. That's what happens. That's
what does. I remember I'd been in the bar next to

(14:59):
the court, and there was one of the jurors there. He hadn't recognized who I
was, and he was talking about it in the worst possible way.
And immediately I just said, I'm going to stop this
happening to other people. Like, not just the sexual assault side of it, which is
still, I want to stop that happening, but everything else that goes along with it
and how a woman's made to feel. And, yeah, from 17

(15:22):
to probably ten years, I hated myself. I
hated everything about myself. And anybody who's been through sexual trauma knows that.
That's just natural. The shame, the guilt, the
disgust, all these things. And then they're handled in a million different ways.
The worst thing I ever hear is there's a one stop shop for
victim. You know, a victim can be, you know, complete recluse to

(15:44):
a complete out there. They can go to one sex to the other. They can
do. There's a million different things that there's no one stop shop on how
to be a survivor in that. So I
wanted to. It took me quite a while to actually talk about it
fully, but the catalyst for me talking about was seeing someone
else that I knew of, going through accusations and

(16:05):
horrible things that were being said about them because of something that they'd been
through. And yet when
they went to prison,
a famous author had basically not declared the right
amount of money on his tax return. It was basically the gist of it. And
he went to jail for four years for that.

(16:26):
And what they done to me, Washington,
18 months and twelve months, whatever it was there. So
the idea that laws are written by men always comes
back to me, is that it was never in favor of the female, it
was never in favor of us. As women, they don't understand

(16:46):
what a woman goes through when they're violated, you know, and yet,
of course, like, it happens to men, it happens to boys. Like, that's not something
that I don't fight for. I would fight for protection of children as well. But
as a female, I know that violation. And I now have a twelve year old
child. You know, like, I've got a girl who's absolutely, stunningly beautiful, and I
know what she's going to face in the world. And my only way to

(17:08):
deal with that is to arm her with as much information and knowledge and
protection and her own self to have that
strength of, no, you don't need to feel shame. You don't need to feel guilt.
Like, you wear what you want, you do what you want, you behave how you
want. As long as you treat people respectfully and be kind,
there's no, there's no limits to what a woman should be allowed to

(17:29):
do. When I was over in Afghanistan,
one of the lesser incidences that happened to
me, that really connected me to
your particular story and that statement about that the
laws are designed more in favor of
men having, or, sorry. The cash issue, as

(17:52):
you brought up, was more of an issue than a woman's body being violated. But
I had just a really mild story where
I had pictures of myself on my laptop,
naked photos, bodybuilding photos, whatever. I was training at the time. I was married at
the time. I was over in Afghanistan for a really long time. And so we
were corresponding. My ex and I were corresponding by email, and

(18:14):
I had photos of myself, and there was
a s six shop, which is. S six is like the us
military's like it shop.
They had two service members that had ordered a private
satellite so you could get Internet to your room. And they would charge us like,
hey, if you want Internet service at your little hooch, pay $100

(18:38):
and we'll give you monthly Internet service. So I did that so I could Skype
with my family and stuff like that, but they needed the ip address
off my laptop. And so I took my laptop by, I didn't know how to
grab the ip address off at the time. I was like, I'm gonna come grab
this after work. No problem. Picked my laptop
back up, got Internet to my room. Fast forward a few weeks. This

(18:59):
staff sergeant that I was deployed with, mail came up to me, and he said,
hey, I don't know how to even ask you this, but have you given
your photos to anybody? And I'm like, no, what are you talking about? And
I had noticed everyone was looking at me weird. And
long story short, the s six shop, the two guys in the s six
shop took all my photos, and they put them on a cd,

(19:21):
and they were selling cds of my naked photos. And
this was long before Onlyfans was cool. And, you know,
social media, this was like, you know, in the day and age where, like, we,
I don't even think we had Instagram at the time. And so anybody having my
photos, period was a big deal, but, like, it was career
ending for me to have my naked photos out there among these

(19:43):
guys, where I'm already a minority, being a woman in the military, I'm
already told every day I should be in the kitchen and
shouldn't be in the military and, like, chastise and things like that. But now
to have, like, every single person there has seen me naked, my most
intimate, you know, experience, they have now sold that
and valued it at $100 a cd. When I reported

(20:06):
that, the military looked at me and said, if you push this
issue, you're gonna get the article 15. And for those of you that don't know
what an article 15 is, it's a court martial. Like, it's a
corrective action. It's a negative mark on your career to
have that. So they tried to silence me and they were effective
for a long time where they made me feel like I had done something

(20:28):
wrong. And really that was just to save the leadership's bacon
of having any type of issues. I was the problem. I was in
trouble. It was me that was doing the wrongdoing. And so those guys, which, by
the way, one of them was a sergeant major's son that we were deployed
with, they got off scot free and never got held accountable for that. And it's
interesting how you started that story, because you started it by saying one of the

(20:51):
lesser incidents that happened, one of the milder incidents that happens.
And I always say, like I've been said, oh, you were raped? Were
you beat up? Were you dragged into a booch? No, I wasn't. But a violation
is a violation. Like, it doesn't matter. Even as you
know, you're correcting it to yourself. You know, that that wasn't mild. You know, it
wasn't, you know, it was career ending. You know, you probably had thoughts that were

(21:12):
not great afterwards and
images being shared, although it's classed as
that. Lester or milder instance, I have a very good friend
whose daughter had images
she'd shared. They got shared through everywhere, devastated their
life. Like, it wasn't. She didn't know. Very similar to you, they were taken.

(21:35):
And when they went to the police, it was a case of, well,
if you've shared that picture at any point,
then you've broke the law because it's child pornography
and the person who's receiving it would be in trouble. But
if we go for them, we have to go for you too. So as a
14 year old girl, you've shared these pictures, you're the one who's broken the

(21:56):
law, and then you could be in trouble. That girl then took to trying to
commit suicide and she was then later sexually
assaulted. And that, to me, is not a coincidence that when
you've been violated once, it can happen so
much easier because the shame and the negativity that you
feel a predator can spot that a mile away. So

(22:18):
that's why these things can happen. So to call it mild or
lesser, it's actually doing yourself
an injustice because it wasn't milder, less, and it should have been treated like that.
But it's not being treated like that. My
daughter was asked for nude pictures recently. Obviously she said
no. And I say obviously only because I know that. I hope that I've taught

(22:40):
her enough that she wouldn't. But when I contacted the parent of
the boy who'd asked her, I found his
details. I knew his first name. Found it. You know what job I do. So
I found his details. And the first question the mum said was, where
did you get my number? And I was like, is that really what you're thinking
about? Is that really what you're. I've just told you that your 14 year old

(23:01):
boy has been soliciting nude pictures from a twelve year old girl and you're worried
where I got my number? Like, let's be real.
And she really wasn't interested in hearing the truth. She was like, no, no, not
my boy. Like, it was very, like, dismissive, very. And that was the
chance that she had to solve that problem. Like, she could have spoke to him
in that moment. She could have got it. But because she didn't want that stigma,

(23:22):
that boy is probably going to go out, ask more girls for pictures, do more
things, and then eventually maybe even end up doing something that
crosses a boundary that will put him on the register or put him in
jail or whatever it might be. But she had that chance at that moment to
stop that mindset and stop the boy turning
into the guy at your base who thought it was okay to share those

(23:43):
pictures. Any decent, respectable gentleman, human being would
have been like, oh, shit. Put that down, Amy. This is on there. Just so
you know, I haven't looked at it. That's what a real person does. A real
man does. You know, there's men out there right now who have got some of
the biggest followings in the world, who've got rich off of
selling girls pictures, yet they've got this huge male following

(24:04):
who think that they're this guy's God. No,
this isn't God. This is a horrendous person because you're violating women. And
it doesn't matter if it is the dragged by the heron in the bushes and
raped or if it is something like, what happened to
you? It's the same thing I've gotten most of my life. I mean, I was
really young, by the way. I was, like, 21, I think, at the time when

(24:26):
that happened. And I went most of my life thinking all men are bad
for multiple reasons. And that was kind of a catalyst that really
solidified it for me. And it was only recently that I realized
in that moment, when I found out that I had pictures
on a CD that were rotating, there was both types of men
being shown to me.

(24:48):
The two guys who violated my laptop and me and were
selling those cds. The worst humans on the planet. Worst men on the planet. They're
not men. The guy who told me, the guy who
came to me and said, hey, did you give your pictures to
anybody? And then on top of that, tried to help me hold them accountable,
he went and got sworn statements from the people that had bought them. He was

(25:09):
trying to push the command to hold this
accountable and to get me justice. Only
recently did I realize that there are good men out there. There really are.
And a good, solid, quality guy won't do that.
The work that you do to help women and to
empower women to bring a voice to

(25:31):
life after trauma and things like that, it's so critical,
because if women are educated in the right way, and
men, but specifically, as we're talking about girls right now, if they're
educated in the right way, they won't even ever get to that point of
vulnerability of if a guy is pushing you to share
images as you just shared in the example of your own daughter, you know,

(25:53):
if they're educated, to know that's not normal to be asked for naked photos of
yourself, it's normal to say no. And reshifting that
mindset and, you know, helping women to understand that they don't
have to allow. They don't have to say yes, they don't have to be a
people pleaser. They don't have to feel pressure, you know, that it is okay to
create boundaries and to respect yourself and to save, you

(26:16):
know, your body and your time and your energy and effort for where you want
to give it. I think that's amazing. So thank you for that work.
Because we were raised of a generation where it was like, be a good girl,
you know, be nice, like, you know, be polite to
people, be kind to people. So you're almost always trying to be a people pleaser.
That's right. And whereas I raise her to be, you know, you say your pleas

(26:38):
and thanks, you be respectful. You treat people nice. But you know your
boundaries. Like, when we spoke about the nude pictures and
I asked her to talk me through how it kind of went, and she
says it very much was a press. Right? Share your pictures. If you don't, I'm
not going to like you anymore. If you don't, I'm going to tell people you've
shared them anyway. So you'd be as well shared, you know, like, the questions. All

(26:58):
predatory behavior. Like, where has he learned that? Is it in his peer
group? Is it from home? Like, is he being taught that that's not
okay? Because, yeah, there are a lot of good men
out there and we need to hear their voices a lot more. There's guys who
sit and watch the men who are on display right
now and go, this guy's a dick. Like, what's he doing? Like, we need

(27:20):
to hear you saying that. Like, we need, like, the. The power that you guys
would have if you could come out, you know, our special ops
community, these types of people that know how to treat a woman, that know
how to respect a woman, that hold a door open, that can be like, chivalries.
Like, should come back for sure. I fully believe in it.
If they would talk more and they would get more vocal about, don't worry about

(27:42):
the fact that, yeah, some people are more popular. Like, they're going to go down
at some point. So we need those voices. Like, the women can stand together
and form a pretty solid group, but we need our, the real
men out there who know what's right and wrong. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we
do need real men. Something in your book also
that really just encouraged me so

(28:04):
much to keep going down this path of what I'm doing right now with the
show is just trying to create access to information and
empowerment and resources and community for
veterans in particular that are struggling with transition. I talked
to your husband about this quite a bit of on our last episode that we
just shot where you're married to Dean Stott,

(28:26):
former military. This is just for folks at home that don't quite know the story.
Dean Stott is former british army,
amazing character, has gone all over the world, done some of the craziest
things that you can ever possibly imagine. Like any cool Rambo show you've
seen, he's done it better. And Alana is
his wife and mother of his children and runs you

(28:49):
guys, businesses that you share together. You've helped him accomplish, again, world
records and things that nature. There's a moment in the book
that both of you talk about. In his book I think he corrected me. It
was chapter 16 in his book, which is called relentless. But in your
book, you talk about it quite a bit. Just this journey of going
through being this mother at home,

(29:11):
or even just when you were by yourself before you had your baby, where he'd
be gone and you'd be holding down the fort. And when he came home and
he had his injury and he was getting out of the military, he had these
moments of just anger, and he broke an egg in the kitchen
and just had this snapping moment where he broke down and tears were
welling in his eyes because he felt like such a failure and he'd lost his

(29:32):
man card and he didn't know what he was going to do next.
To be a provider for you and things like that. I want to talk to
you about this because for me, that's
this journey that I've been on to leaving the military, where I feel
like I'm full of rage. But that's the case for so many
veterans. And when they leave the military and they leave that community, they leave that

(29:54):
safety net. There's such a high failure rate where people are unaliving
themselves and or just struggling. It's almost worse, I
think, to be a shell of an existence, you know, be a shell of what
you formerly were. And I feel like you were so pivotal in
helping Dean find his footing again. And so,
one, you're freaking cool for that, for being such a, you know,

(30:16):
a supportive partner, but I feel like you have a lot of knowledge to share
with the rest of us. I just wanna recap for the audience here
that you were in
the kitchen with Dean when he broke the egg,
and you basically just had this moment where you knew it was
time for a change, that you had to kinda get through to him. So tell

(30:38):
me about that. And then what did you guys do to help him find footing?
Yeah. So when I first met Dean, I was very,
very single. I had no interest in that. I was a career
person. I was built buying my third house when I met
him. And I didn't know much about the
special forces. I knew my dad was in the military, I knew a little bit

(31:00):
about army, but I didn't know about his world. But as
with everything that I do, I'll learn very quickly as I'm involved in something.
So when he was injured, his life
went from, as you say, the action movie to he couldn't
walk. At one point, he tried to take a little sprint and he just fell
over. Everything was gone. And when I saw the

(31:22):
egg breaking I saw how he broke down over this egg
breaking and what it meant for him. I knew at that point that we had
to change now. We had to do something. There was something that.
Something that was going to be big that we were going to have to do.
He had gone from being in this tribe, in this environment where
you're told you are the greatest, you're the greatest in the world. How do we

(31:43):
now take him from that to normal life
to make himself still feel proud? And we can try it in the
real world. We can go and get him a nine to five job, but that's
not going to work because that's not who he is. And sometimes that's
forced upon them when they leave. Okay, now you're leaving the military, where we've
basically taught you how to be this killing machine. Go in the real

(32:04):
world and just speak to normal people about normal shitty things that everybody speaks
about and just act normal and forget about the stuff that
you've been through. And then if you get angry, we're going to get really pissed
off with you. If you go out, if you start kicking off,
there's nothing that's taught to them how to deal with this. And remember, they're
still. Just. A lot of them were boys when they went into the military. And

(32:24):
then they've been looked after and told what to do
and told this thing, and I'll say it, there's brainwashing goes
on within the military communities about why they're doing it and what they're doing
and why they should be doing it, where they should be going, who's the
bad guy, who's the good guy? All while they're
really just a lot of cannon fodder for people that are making a lot of

(32:47):
money off of situations that are going on. So I couldn't
tell Dean, now go and do this normal job. Like he had to do something
that was still going to give him this buzz. He's into the security world.
We get him into some work there, but then we're talking about real
world and commercial and the corporate world is very
different to the boys he's been working with up till

(33:09):
now. And there's mistrust. And Dean's thinking if somebody says they're going to
do something, they're going to do it. And it's like, no, no, that's not how
it works, the real world. So I'm having to teach him all these
steps. But the whole time he was still very loyal to the military. It took
us quite a while to break that almost like Stockholm syndrome they had from
coming out thinking that they cared about him, thinking that. And, you know, his

(33:30):
boys did. His boys are still the most important people in the world to
him. But the machine that is the military that's
actually powering this and putting them into these situations really
don't care. So we had to break that. And then once we got through that
cycle and realized that, okay, let's focus on making sure that your guys are going
to be okay when they get out and doing more for them. So there was

(33:51):
a number of nonprofits we worked with, and it really like going through
all these things, the security world, the nonprofits dean went on to do the bike
ride, he's explained that was just keeping him busy. Like,
we have to. Like, I don't care. I'll earn the money. I'll do any of
these things. But him, as a person, needs to be kept busy. And if
I could tell you how many of my friends said, leave them.

(34:13):
He's angry. He's aggressive. He's mean.
He's. They didn't know the real dean, and they couldn't understand why
I was still there. My very good friends were like, we don't understand, but
we'll support you. You know? Like, we'll support you in this. I married
him for life, and I was like, I'm in this for life, and I'm gonna
be there, and I'm. You know, if he's got these issues, we're gonna get through

(34:34):
them, and we're gonna work out how we're gonna get through them. And, yeah, in
the moments of anger, I'm like, you are such an asshole. Like, I'm
like, but the real dean and the good
guy and the one that I love was always there, and I was just never
really into, like, giving up on that. Like, it was never something that. And there
was. There was times it was like, alana, like, you could go

(34:55):
and just live a much more quiet, peaceful life. Like, I never had these aspirations
of being a housewife or being calm or having a
stress free life. Like, my life is stressful, and I love it. Like, that's what
I enjoy. But I committed to him for life, and I
wasn't at any point saying, I'm gonna give up on you. We're gonna do this,
and we're gonna do it together, and we're gonna work out. And now in

(35:16):
2024, we've actually. And I'm sure he's explained to you the
treatments that he's been through and the things that he's done. And we can see
that silver lining. And now it's super important that we make sure
everybody else can see it, too. Yeah, that's, you know, something that you
guys both have talked about to me off camera.
And, of course, Dean and I just shot. So we talked about on camera is

(35:38):
we talked about, like, plant medicine and just some of the work that he's done
to become this old version of himself, which I think it's so
powerful for people to understand. It's not like any service member
wakes up one day and is just like, I feel like being an asshole today.
I feel like being really angry. This is something that
grows and grows and grows and grows, and suddenly it just takes over your entire

(36:00):
being. And some. I'm not referring to Dean in this
moment, but some service members have a hard time leaving the house. They have a
hard time driving. They have a hard time going to the grocery store, doing anything
that's normal, normal in life, because they're so out of their own
body that they can't even function. They can't hold down jobs. You
know, there's all these issues that happen, and we talked about how plant

(36:21):
medicine is just such an amazing gateway to regaining who
you used to be and your old self. And so you do a lot of
work in that space. Yeah. I mean, so we were introduced to only recently.
For me, I've always been. I mean, if you
people described me, it was always calm. That was always the words. Alana's a super
calm person. Like, she's always very children. But I do have. I don't know if

(36:43):
you've ever heard of misophonia. I have a real sensitivity to noise.
So if somebody's chewing gum around me or, like, clicking a pen or bouncing
a basketball or something like that, it can send me into rage, but my rage
comes internally, and I won't. You know, even having a baby, I didn't make a
noise having three babies. I made no sound during it.
It comes inside me, and I just. But I've learned that that's part

(37:05):
of the pts around sexual assault, that you can. You can
grow these things that you're almost just super hypersensitive to noises
and things that, you know, if somebody comes into my room and I'm asleep
and I can feel it immediately, like, I can feel a person's presence immediately,
it's survival completely. And they're on the same thing. Like,
whether it's from their childhood trauma, which I believe is like, 75%

(37:28):
of the pts soldiers of it's from childhood rather
than the actual military. But that doesn't help that what they've gone through in the
military, and most of them are then stuck on, like, whatever
antidepressants or whatever pharmaceuticals that
are given. And when I moved to America, we.
To come to America, you've got to do a lot of tests, and you've got
do a lot of things. And we had our medical exam, and the

(37:52):
doctor came with a list of drugs that me and the kids and dean needed.
And I was like, like, we don't take any pharmaceuticals. There's nothing
that. And. But they were very, very keen to give us all something for
something or other. I'm like, why? Why? Like, one of them was a cholesterol thing.
I was like, why not suggest diet or exercise or any of these things? But
it was a shock to me, seeing on the commercials on tv,

(38:14):
constant pharmaceutical ads, constant.
And when it came to plant medicine, I've known a lot about it, but
as much detail before I spoke to Amber and Marcus and Kelsey
and Jessie from heroic hearts and really learned
what benefits there were to plant medicine, I knew slightly, but not to the
full extent. So to see special

(38:36):
ops guys going through ibogaine and going through one door and coming
out another door, like, completely different and lighter and freer and
unshackled from the burdens of these pains from their
past. And the same with sexual
assault survivors and even that.
Like, I was talking about this the other day, it doesn't have to be trauma.

(38:58):
You could have been through absolutely no trauma in your life, but the medicine just
helps open you up a little bit more to what the world is and to
what life is. And I would take a stab that
most people who are really committed to a medicine journey
that isn't pharmaceuticals, it's more plant based.
They don't have a desire to hate or to hurt or to cause harm or

(39:20):
to cause wars, because it just brings you a peace in your life that you
don't want to be doing those types of things, and you can see things for
how they really are. But
there's a certain group of people that like to kind of stigmatize the plant medicine
world as, like. Like, kooky and out there and hippie and
everything. I know so many people who have been through the treatment, you

(39:42):
know, prominent business people, like, very, like, celebrities.
Celebrities. You know, it's. And every one of them
does amazing. You know, yes, there is people that can abuse it, for sure. Like
anything else. Like, it can be abused, and it can be used in the wrong
way, or it can be integrated the wrong way afterwards. Or there's
things that, you know, not following the correct guidelines, but if you're following

(40:04):
the guidelines for places like heroic
hearts who provide treatment to veterans, they give a
really strong plan of coaching, of
diet, of, you know, during the process, and then the
aftermath and everything you go through, like, if you're sticking to this, it's
gonna help in some sort of way. So

(40:26):
it's really interesting. Me, and I was talking to someone about having
a baby the other day, and she was, like, telling me that she was
doing the ayahuasca during labor. And I
went, oh, wow, that's like, that's next level. That's next level. But then
I thought, actually, when I had a baby in hospital in America, I got
given a menu of pitocin, fentanyl, morphine,

(40:48):
pitocin, like, all these things. I get it. Yeah, I stick a needle in my
back,
but we're saying that a plant is wrong to take. And even in my
mind, I went, oh, like. And then I thought about it, and I thought, no,
why not? Like, it's a beautiful experience. And having a baby
and being able to experience that, even just in a slight micro dose, would be

(41:09):
absolutely amazing. Then not having all that other drugs that's telling us, oh,
you're in pain. We need to give you this drug. The pain is there to
help you through the process of childbirth. So why are we, like,
fighting against it and not going back to. It's the same thing of us lying
on our back with our legs open to have a baby. Like, that was invented
by men as well. That's not the position we're meant to be in to have
a baby, but we've done it for years, and we just. We

(41:33):
just settle for that. But let's kind of fight against that now and say, actually,
no, we've done that for years, and maybe it's not working that well. So let's
just go back to how our ancestors done it and how
many tribes still do it now and ignore the kind of
commercial giant that wants to get rich off of you being sick,
because, let's face it, pharmaceutical companies don't want you. Well,

(41:54):
yeah, you know, we're gonna have. I think we're gonna have to have, like, multiple
episodes together because we have so much to talk about. I mean, like, just
a couple examples. Like, you did some work with kids in the foster care
system. I was in the foster care system. And
so there's a story you share in your book where you talk about a young
boy in particular. I think he was, like, 15, and he lied about his age

(42:15):
to get a job. I did the same thing. Thing. And I was really lucky
in the sense that when they found out how old I really was, they just
moved me to a different area where I was still within the law. But so
I got lucky because I've been on my own since I was a mid teenager
and fully, like, paying my own bills. It's one of the reasons why I joined
the military at 17. And that story

(42:37):
had me just sobbing because I felt so bad for that
kid that they denied his ability to continue to care for himself.
And so I want to unpack that in a different
episode. And I also want to go deeper into
sexual trauma and all of that, given that we have limited time for
these hour long episodes in particular, the

(42:59):
premise of the show is it's got a military undertone. And so I think you
have such a unique perspective on being a military spouse and the
work that you've done with just helping to transition people
and to this day, helping to help people find
their footing. Is there any tips that you would recommend to service
members that are leaving to help them reintegrate to their families a little bit

(43:21):
more appropriately? I mean,
communication is everything, but that's not easy for me to say. It's easy for
me to say. It's not always easy to do it, but start small. Just having
a little conversation, writing letters, telling people how you feel in both
ways. And I think you both have to understand each other. You know, like, Dean
and I wouldn't talk, and both of us were actually feeling the same thing.

(43:43):
We just weren't communicating in the right way. And when we actually started communicating and
realizing this is working, we need to talk more. We need to. And I mean
talk. I don't mean shout or get into an argument, because as soon as a.
As soon as the voice is raised, nobody's listening. Nobody's hearing
anything. Work on the 75 25 rule. So listen
and speak. 25 listen, 75, and

(44:04):
communicate with your partner and your kids as well. Like, so many kids are
overlooked, you know, because they've been watching dad coming and going over
the years. The arguments that I talk about it in the book, the transition
period of he goes away. You know, you live that single
mom life for a while, and then you're getting used to, like, preparing for him,
coming home, then he's coming home, and now you've got to live this new life,

(44:25):
and it's just this constant circle. Well, the kids are in that circle all the
time, too. Anytime you're arguing, anytime you're upset, they're seeing all
these things. So it's important to take time to actually sit
down. And it seems a bit cheesy, but sit down and play a board game.
So stuff without electronics, put the electronics away. Like,
fully put it away, and have, like, there's. Okay,

(44:46):
scroll on your social media, do your thing, but have a place where you put
the phone that's away so that the kids know that they've got your attention,
each other knows that you've got your attention. Have those date nights, have those moments
that's just the two of you, and block out those distractions. But
communication's everything. Wow. You know what's so crazy about this?
If you guys have seen my episode with Dean Stott, her husband,

(45:08):
we actually had the same. He had the same thing. So communication is everything. They
actually talk about it in their books, too. I think, again, his chapter 16.
I can't remember the chapter for you, but it was basically death or divorce. How
you guys had this moment where you sat down together in the kitchen, drank two
bottles of wine. That's my kind of night. We should do that. We should have
a chicken. It wasn't wine. It was port, which was port. Okay, but we need

(45:28):
to do that. Me and you, I feel like we would have so much fun
in our conversations. But that moment for you guys, sitting down,
connecting together, having true heart to heart, radical honesty conversations with
one another, and where you guys felt that maybe you were on different paths, you
were actually just trying to please one another. And that was just so
important, I think, for me to read because the lesson of just being honest in

(45:49):
your communication, having that moment where you pause life, everything gets
set down for a moment, and you're just connecting with your loved one, it's so
critical to do that so you can be on the same page. And since then,
you guys have not only just, like, leaned in closer together, you've built businesses
together, you've raised millions of pounds together and dollars
at this point for charities all over the world, accomplished world records,

(46:11):
did work on multiple tv shows, launched a business, you name it.
You guys are just the most incredible power couple. So you're amazing.
I love talking to you. We definitely have to get more time together.
Where can people find you? Just on the usuals.
Like, Alana Stott is pretty much across everything. So Instagram, Twitter,
website, alanastot.com has got pretty much everything you need to know.

(46:35):
Not everything. Still keep a lot hidden, put some. Stuff in the back pocket.
Well, I'm gonna try to get that out of you next time we talk. And
just to recap on the books, guys, so she also has children's books,
Molly's adventures. Yeah. So there's me and my friends
play live your own way. And my favorite's who to help today. So that's my
three kids books. But yeah, I need to get writing again because Tommy is complaining

(46:55):
that Molly's got a book named after her. He doesn't. So he
wants Tommy's travels next. So that'll be my next. When I can get a minute
to write some kids books, I'll. Yeah, do that. Cause, I mean, they're really, really
cute. I thumbed through earlier. But if you've got kids, go get her. Go get
her children's books again. She who dares, Alana Stott. Go grab her book. And then
if you are at all interested in raising money, you're in the corporate space or

(47:16):
you just want to help a charity out. How to raise money. Sorry, how
to ask for money. She is a true expert when it comes to
that. And we also have to, we have to chat about Prince Harry
next time, too, because you got to go to the royal wedding, which I'm
obsessed over. So we'll get to that next time. Well done. Yeah, I can't wait
to read your book when you, when I write it. One day, I gotta do

(47:37):
the Ivogaine and the Ayahuasca first and then I'll. Get to writing with you when
you were in your. I should. That's a great idea. Well, hopefully, hopefully I'll be
able to unpack some of that and get it into a book one day. That's
a good idea. It's not bad at all. Thank you. Thank you for your time.
Thanks for coming on the show. And we'll catch you next time on the next
episode of the Amias Show.

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Trauma, Healing, and Advocacy with Alana Stott: An Inspiring Journey on AMY IS SHOW | EP 3

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Trauma, Healing, and Advocacy with Alana Stott: An Inspiring Journey on AMY IS SHOW | EP 3