Well, That F*cked Me Up! Surviving Life Changing Events.

Well, That F*cked Me Up! Surviving Life Changing Events.

BITE-SIZE PERSONAL STORIES OF SURVIVING LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCES: Hosted by Luke Colson and Kyle Wise, we feature weekly guests and explore extreme personal life changing experiences and the journey emotional and physical recovery. Each guest discusses their story of how their lives were turned upside down, by unexpected events. Stories like surviving a car crash, surviving abuse, being paralyzed in an accident, witnessing a crime.. and many more! Luke and Kyle will take an honest, raw, yet positive and hopeful approach, to really find out how these sudden events have effected our guests, and hear about the tools they use to overcome the subsequent struggle and adversity. We will focus on the journey to success and recovery, and hear stories of how our guests overcame trauma, and mental health challenges like ptsd, anxiety depression and phobias that have often lead to addiction, alcoholism, and disorders. While we will focus on the events themselves, and the lasting effects of these moments, our goal in this podcast is to concentrate on the positive journeys of resilience, recovery and hope that comes from these extraordinary stories. Join us for the ride of your life, and other peoples too! Why listen? We hope that our listeners will feel comfort, empowerment, strength and hope through this community of people and the stories we share. Everyone’s experiences are unique, but the circumstances around recovery and healing can be a shared and comforting journey. EMAIL: wtfmupodcast@gmail.com MUSIC by DeVyruss from Pixabay SPOTIFY: For reasons that no one at Spotify knows, our podcast does NOT play on the Spotify App from IOS devices. It works on every other platform, and even works on Spotify App from Android and works just fine on Spotify for Desktop. Spotify tell us they don' t know how to fix it. We love our listeners and encourage you to find another way, and another platform, and we apologize, this one is out of our hands.

Episodes

January 1, 2026 34 mins

Send us a text

WELCOME TO SEASON 6!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!??

Dr. Robert Smith is an esteemed physician and thought leader, haunted by decisions he made in practicing medicine, so much so that now in retirement he is on a mission, a quest really, to revolutionize how physicians treat mental health. He has a riveting story of how an experience forever changed him.

Dr. Smith's new book, Has Medicine Lost Its Mind? Why Our Mental H...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

SEASON 5 FINALE: (Wow!) Don't worry Season 6 begins first week of January!

Teresa Baglietto, is a 4-time cancer survivor who also endured 3 strokes and 1 brain aneurysm along the way. She’s now in remission and she speaks around the U.S. about resilience, mindset, and the simple framework she still uses to get through hard things: Set your mindset, make a plan, ask for help, keep laughter and joy close.

Despite all...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

After surviving two life-threatening illnesses, one he was told was terminal, Tom LeNoble was given six months to live on three separate occasions. 

Tom lives by the phrase: “I’m Still Here.” Whether on his podcast, or in his bestselling book, he shares his potent message with the world. The book is wonderfully titled: My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns and High Heels.

Book: https://a.co/d/2vC4ug8

This is such an ...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Dr Martina Zangger's story is one of extraordinary resilience and recovery after childhood sexual abuse, and her message, that shame must be taken from the victim and placed on the perpetrator.

Abused at just four years old in Switzerland by her grandfather, a respected judge, and her uncle, a well-known politician, Martina grew up shrouded in silence.

Moving to Australia at 12 years old, In her search for healing,...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Sometimes you lose everything, career, marriage, even your sense of self, and there’s no easy way out. That’s exactly what happened to Joshua Tomeoni. Instead of bouncing back, he had to learn how to build a life from scratch, facing every uncomfortable truth along the way.

Josh's new book, 'The Gospel of an Ex-Derelict: Fight. Fail. Rebuild' is out In January 2026. His story isn’t just about surviving, ...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Hi it's me Luke Colson, your host. We are looking for guests to come on our show. If you have experienced something that changed your life, we want to hear from you. Surviving life changing events is what we are all about and we want to talk about the journey through these events and experiences in the hope that we can help others! wtfmupodcast@gmail.com

Meanwhile here is an update from me in this episode as we ne...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

This week we re-visit an amazing episode with Sarah Martin, who received a text in the middle of the night from a stranger, saying that her 21 year old Daughter, Alice, who was traveling on the other side of the world, was in trouble. Alice was last seen in Turkey, while Sarah and the rest of the family, live in Australia. This episode is a rollercoaster, as Sarah begins a race to rescue Alice from what appeared to be...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

What if one of the most devastating, life-altering experiences isn’t visible from the outside but silently shatters someone’s identity, relationships, and sense of control?

As a Harvard-trained fertility specialist, Gabriela Rosa, has spent over 20 years working with individuals and couples whose lives were flipped upside down by the heartbreak of not being able to conceive. She’s walked beside thousands through the si...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Shigeko Ito, is an educator, mental health advocate, and author of THE POND BEYOND THE FOREST: Reflections on Childhood Trauma & Motherhood

She grew up in Japan and immigrated to America in her twenties to pursue higher education, earning a PhD in Education from Stanford University. Drawing on cross-cultural experiences and academic expertise, she explores themes of trauma, resilience, and healing, with a particu...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Severn Lang is a talented, driven director from Urbandale, Iowa. Growing up in a small town in the Midwest, life was a constant struggle for him. At a young age, Severn's brother passed away and he was diagnosed with extreme dyslexia with other life changing events, making school much harder for him than his peers. Severn, he turned to other, more creative outlets to learn, grow and find his voice. Severn preferr...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

This week we are thrilled to chat to Gil Merrick, author of the powerful memoir Haunted Victory: Healing From Childhood Sexual Abuse and the Decades of Addiction That Followed. His story is raw, deeply personal, and ultimately one of resilience and redemption. In Haunted Victory, Gil recounts his experience as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and how that trauma fueled a decades-long battle with addiction. His mem...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

CONTENT WARNING, GRAPHIC CONTENT, VIOLENCE, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, MURDER, TORTURE, SEXUAL ABUSE, CHILD ABDUCTION: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED PLEASE OBSERVE:

When Shasta Groene was eight years old, she and her 9-year-old brother Dylan were abducted from their Idaho home by serial killer, Joseph Edward Duncan. After a forty-eight-day ordeal, she was rescued, her brother wasn’t. Surviving those weeks in the woods was only the beginn...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Gina Horan, is a terminal lung cancer survivor and author of The Dead Girl’s Guide to Terminal Cancer, 

Gina joins us to share her story and an uncensored survivor’s perspective on cancer, immunotherapy, and why the modern medical system is failing itself and its patients.

In 2019, Gina was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given just 72 hours to live after a year of declining health and mistreatment by some medic...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

In this episode, we meet Ian Fee, and discuss his story from alcoholism to sobriety!

After losing everything due to over-drinking from a very young age, Ian reached a breaking point and began his journey to reclaim his life. Today, Ian is a successful author and entrepreneur.

Proudly sober since 2017, he has dedicated himself to personal growth, family, and living a life of purpose and clarity. His journey from addictio...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Dr Kate Lund is a psychologist, TEDx speaker, and podcast host of The Optimized Mind, and she spends her days helping people turn those "what now?" Moments into genuine resilience.. Her work centers on translating over 20 years of research into simple, science-backed habits that real humans can use during in their hardest of times, whether they're navigating parenthood, setbacks, or that feeling of life...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC AND GORY DESCRIPTIONS OF HARROWING MOMENTS.

Jay Setchell has been dead 3 times. In 1969 in the Marines, in 1973 by a DUI driver, and then a third time in 1981, a swimming pool incident, involving drowning, multiple broken vertebrae in neck, and paralyzed from shoulders down.This really is an insane episode and not for the faint hearted, but Jay is HERE to tell his ongoing story! Beyond this, Jay w...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

This is an episode like nothing we have ever experienced before. Here at WTFMU, we like to show the journey through the darkness, and how we have navigated through our traumas and experiences. Yousef's story, was focusing on his burnout from relationships and business, and how he started to turn a corner. It quickly transpired that Yousef is using AI to turn his hopes, dreams, fortunes and entire life around! You...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Join us this week for the amazing and extraordinary episode with Jenny Brandemuehl, who lost her husband in a plane crash just a few years ago. Jenny takes us back to the fateful day, the phone call, the initial hope that her husband, Mark, had survived although badly burned, and the ultimate and tragic ending a few weeks after the crash. The worst day of Jenny's life, as it transpired, became the beginning of th...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Calix Lewis Reneau is the author of Dancing with the Black Dog: A Survivor’s Guide to Depression, a book that’s equal parts survival manual and storytelling companion for anyone navigating depression. As a long term sufferer of depression, Calix has been through the darkest of times on many occasions, and joins us this week to talk about his depression in a way that’s real, not clinical. Storytelling is Calix’s backgr...

Mark as Played

Send us a text

Victoria Lenormand has a personal story that fits the heart of our show. She spent nearly 30 years as a police detective and public servant—work that left her carrying years of unprocessed trauma. Things really hit a breaking point when the very systems she’d worked to uphold began failing her own family, especially as she tried to support her neurodivergent child.

That was the moment everything shifted. She walked awa...

Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

    Dateline NBC

    Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

    The Burden

    The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.

    SmartLess

    "SmartLess" with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett is a podcast that connects and unites people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity. A nice surprise: in each episode of SmartLess, one of the hosts reveals his mystery guest to the other two. What ensues is a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the SmartLess mind. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

    The Breakfast Club

    The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2026 iHeartMedia, Inc.