May 6, 2025 • 37 mins
Jackie M. Stebbins graduated with distinction from the University of North Dakota School of Law, and at age thirty-one, she became the senior partner of her own law firm, Stebbins Mulloy.
She primarily practiced in family law, criminal defense, and civil litigation.
Jackie was nationallyrecognized for her work by The National Trial Lawyers, Top 40 under 40 and Super Lawyers,Rising Stars. She was also named as a young leader in business and in her community by theBismarck Tribune’s and Prairie Business Magazine’s, 40 under 40.
In 2019, when she was only thirty-five years old, Jackie retired from the practice of law after anear-death experience with a rare brain disease, autoimmune encephalitis.
She later founded JM.Stebbins, LLC, as a writer and motivational speaker. Jackie is a frequent blogger on the JMStebbins blog and hosts the Brain Fever podcast. Her memoir, Unwillable: A Journey to ReclaimMy Brain, was published by Wisdom Editions in May 2022. Susannah Cahalan, author of the #1NYT bestselling book, Brain on Fire, praises Unwillable as “an inspiring story of a brilliantwoman’s battle with autoimmune encephalitis,” and that it’s “as moving as it is important.”Jackie lives in Bismarck, North Dakota with her husband, Sean, and their three children. In herfree time, she enjoys the great outdoors, exercise, reading, current events, and trying to be funny.
She primarily practiced in family law, criminal defense, and civil litigation.
Jackie was nationallyrecognized for her work by The National Trial Lawyers, Top 40 under 40 and Super Lawyers,Rising Stars. She was also named as a young leader in business and in her community by theBismarck Tribune’s and Prairie Business Magazine’s, 40 under 40.
In 2019, when she was only thirty-five years old, Jackie retired from the practice of law after anear-death experience with a rare brain disease, autoimmune encephalitis.
She later founded JM.Stebbins, LLC, as a writer and motivational speaker. Jackie is a frequent blogger on the JMStebbins blog and hosts the Brain Fever podcast. Her memoir, Unwillable: A Journey to ReclaimMy Brain, was published by Wisdom Editions in May 2022. Susannah Cahalan, author of the #1NYT bestselling book, Brain on Fire, praises Unwillable as “an inspiring story of a brilliantwoman’s battle with autoimmune encephalitis,” and that it’s “as moving as it is important.”Jackie lives in Bismarck, North Dakota with her husband, Sean, and their three children. In herfree time, she enjoys the great outdoors, exercise, reading, current events, and trying to be funny.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
the City of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee and produced by
Dakota Media Access. The purpose of the podcast is to
celebrate change makers in Bismarck whose contributions break barriers, build connections,
and redefine what is possible for our community.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
Tia Jorgensen and Sargana Wooski, both members of the City
of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee. Thank you for joining us
as we highlight the individuals driving positive change and making
a lasting impact on our community. Their stories inspire progress
and shape the future of our city.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Our guest today is Jackie Stebbins. Jackie graduated with its
Distinction from the University of North Dakota School of Law
at age thirty one. She became the senior partner of
her own law firm, Stebbens Malloy. She primarily practiced in
family law, criminal defense, and civil litigation. Jackie was nationally
recognized for her work by the National Trial Lawyers Top
forty Under forty and Super Lawyers Rising Stars. She was
(01:03):
also named as a Young Leader in Business and in
her community by the Bismarck Tribunes and Prairie Businesses magazines
forty under forty. In twenty nineteen, when she was only
thirty five years old, Jackie retired from the practice of
law after a near death experience with a rare brain disease.
She later founded j M. Stebbens, LLC. As a writer
(01:23):
and motivational speaker. Jackie is a frequent blogger on the
j M. Stebbens blog and hosts the Brain Fever podcast.
Her memoir Unwillable, A Journey to Reclaim My Brain, was
published by Wisdom Editions in May twenty twenty two. Susanna Callahan,
author of the number one New York Times best selling
book Brain on Fire, praises Unwillable as an inspiring story
(01:46):
of a brilliant woman's battle and that it's as moving
as it is important. Jackie lives in Bismarck with her husband, Sean,
and three children. In her free time, she enjoys the
great outdoors, exercise, reading current events, and trying to be funny.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Jackie, Thank you for having me here today.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I think that's the first time we've seen that on
a bio. So why did you make Bismarck on.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Bismarck was kind of a happy medium, I think in
between where my husband and I were attending college and
where I was attending law school in Grand Forks, North Kota,
and where I'm originally from Bulman, North Kota, and my
husband is from a small town kind of close to there.
We met when I was in college, and at that
time I was going to be this big, fancy attorney
(02:34):
in New York City. But that changed a little bit
as we all get a little older and wiser and
start to realize that, you know, it does take a village,
especially if you want to have kiddos. We thought, well,
maybe we should stay somewhere near our families in North Kota, and.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Bismarck was literally a happy medium.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
But to me, I saw it as just a really beautiful,
vibrant place. I had an an aunt and uncle live
in Mandan when I was a kid. I had another
aunt in Bismarck and cousins. And when you're from Bowman,
North Dakota, Bismarck is the big city, so it is
always this, you know, wonderful place to visit. When I
was young, and I just saw it as such a
(03:12):
vibrant place to have a law practice, and I was right.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I'm from New England, North Dakota, so I also thought
Bismarck was the big side.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
I know that about you. She's a tiger.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Even thought Bismarck, you know, even though Minut's fairly large,
this was the big city to come to.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Yeah. Wow, I mean it's not quite New York City,
but I've heard, you know, I've.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Heard it's close, So it's not it is not close.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
We have frequents in New York City like seven times
a year.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I think maybe more often.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I don't know, three. It seems like a lot more
than that.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I love New York City a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
So what made you decide to go into law?
Speaker 5 (03:48):
So from the time I was in fifth grade, I
knew I was going to be a lawyer. And it
starts with me reading my first John Grisham book, The Client,
which now in speeches.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
When I tell people that, I stop and laugh that.
You know, I'm not.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Sure if in fifth grade I should have been reading
John Grisham. So I started with The Client. In sixth grade,
I remember reading The Chamber, which is about a man
on death row. Probably not the best book for a
sixth grader. But I love John Grisham. I read all
of his books, and from that first one on I
was sold.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I was going to be a lawyer.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
I wanted to have this fancy purple BMW. I don't
know where I got that from. I loved I believe
her name was Da Carmichael on Law and Order. She was,
you know, this beautiful just shark attorney, and I was like,
that's it, this is me. And from fifth grade on
that was all I wanted to do. And my mind
was made up. And when I make up my mind,
(04:40):
everyone watch out. So I went to college like all right,
this is a hurdle. I've got law school to conquer.
And that was just kind of the way I played it.
So it was a lifelong dream.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So then you kind of focused on multiple different things
in your career, family law, criminal defense, and civil litigation.
Kind of what made you want to focus on those
since they're kind of different areas.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Absolutely, so a really easy answer would be like, nothing,
nothing at all made me want.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
To do that.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
I went into I went into law school thinking maybe
I'd be a prosecutor. That was probably too much like
Law and Order and a little too much, maybe John Grisham.
But honestly what happened was in law school in my
second year year there was a program for mentors and
mentees and my senior partner and I connected when I
(05:28):
was a second grader, so he hired me. He lived
in Bismarck. It was just like perfect. We were really
similarly aligned and you know, ideas and thoughts and practice.
So he had historically been a civil litigator and what's
called the plane offf spar So when you think of
someone bringing a civil lawsuit, maybe now the negative connotation
(05:49):
is ambulance chaser, you know, the McDonald's coffee. But plaintiff's
attorneys really do good work in protecting you know, our
country right when you think of why is your tail
and also or why are your tires safe? Probably a
trial lawyer like helped bring that case. So I start
at my law firm in Bismarck, and yeah, my senior
partner is a plaintiffs attorney. I had never really thought
(06:11):
of doing plaintiff's work. And I always had like a
little idea too that maybe I could be a good
criminal defense attorney. I didn't want to be a prosecutor.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Anymore.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Well, his firm historically hadn't done any criminal defense, so.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
I kind of started doing that a little bit at
a time.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
I was actually the city attorney and city prosecutor in
the city of Lincoln for a while and kind of
cutting my teeth that way and building a little bit
of a criminal defense practice. And sometimes I think that
God wanted to punish me because I was actually really
good at family law. That was kind of an accident
in the universe. I just started doing it because it
was getting me into court. If you do plaintiff's work,
(06:48):
you might see a courtroom twice every few years. Right,
family law was in court all the time. Criminal defense,
so that was I built out my practice. Before I retired,
I was quite sought after family law attorney and really
enjoyed my criminal practice. Family law is so stressful. I
(07:08):
actually viewed criminal defense as a break. And I know
that sounds kind of wild, but it's very true. So
I did have an interesting practice, but I loved it.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
So what are some misconceptions then about lawyers?
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Well, I mean there's the McDonald's case, right, Like they're
just out they're chasing ambulances, they're trying to make a
bug not true, right, plaintiffs attorneys in North Dakota, I
can tell you there's some of the best attorneys in
the state. I was in the North Kota Association for Justice,
which was the plane of spar These are some of
the most passionate, wonderful attorneys. Right. So some of this
whole like we're bringing frivolous lawsuits, that's also not.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
True, because there's this wonderful thing called a judge.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
And if you're bringing a frivolous lawsuit, not only are
you going to probably be yelled at at some point,
the case is going to be you know, nixed.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Before you get to court.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
I think though probably personally, and this falls into my
story more probably one of the biggest misconceptions or maybe
i'd I'd rather say a lack of understanding is truly
how busy lawyers are and how stressed we are. The
hours are very unforgiving. Just this weekend I talked to
my old law partner and one of my best girlfriends.
(08:17):
Both own and operate their own law firms. Both of
them were working on Sunday. Both of them had two
day trials this week, a mediation, they were getting out discovery.
They were both working all weekend, and that's kind of
what it entails.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
The stress is enormous.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
It's an adversarial system, right, so you're kind of duking
it out every day. And when you think about like,
let's say you go to the doctor today. You know,
I have I have strep throat. You know, you go
to the doctor, you and the doctor talk it out.
Your doctor wants to help you get rid of your
sore throat. But in the practice of law, think of
like another doctor out there, like actively trying to take
(08:56):
your doctor out and kind of take you out too,
right to quote, beat you. So you're always in this
adversarial role. You know you're doing the best for your client,
but you know on the other side there's another party
in their attorney try to take you out.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
So the stress is enormous. The pressure is enormous.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
The deadlines are also unforgiving, like you can't ask for
a do over.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Unfortunately, everybody has a problem.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
They're a little a lot mad, probably a lot mad,
and a lot sad, and so is the other side. Right,
So it's really a pressure cooker. And I think that
that it makes it really hard for lawyers because we
start to think, like no one understands, no one understands
our life, and that kind of leads to some bad
mental health because we'll isolate, we'll only align with other
(09:43):
lawyers because no one can understand our busy lives.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
That is a little bit true, but I think that.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Can also lead to some problems with mental health and burnout,
which I speak from full experience on that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So then, in your opinion as a lawyer, for maybe
some people out there who want nothing more in life
than to be a jur what is you know what
makes a juror or someone a good candidate to be
a jur.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
I love that and I'm always so glad that people
want to be jurors because I never did, right, I
only wanted to be the lawyer in the court room.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
I never wanted to be a judge, and I was like, oh,
to be a jur.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Which I haven't made it in either, So a good
jur to me, really, it's that you will be thoughtful.
That's probably the first word I would use, thoughtful, common sense,
and that you will listen and in a world full
of right now hot takes, everything is a thirty second
real you know, a thirty second TikTok if you get
(10:37):
called upon for a big case, it might be traumatic,
it might be frightening, it might be intense. It might
be boring as heck, it might be a civil case.
It's so boring you could have a three day trial
about let's say, like the placement of a fence.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Right.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
It's not all TV where it's something like, you know,
some god awful thing like murder. Right, So you might
be scared to death or bored to death. But that's
what the United States of America has called you to do,
to sit there and listen thoughtfully. So I think if
you bring common sense listening, you know, you park any
(11:16):
you know, implicit biases at the door and tell yourself,
you know, I can't have my mind made up.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I can't let.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
Myself think of things that maybe I've thought my whole
life like. I have to come in with a fresh mind.
And again with the listening, I have to listen to
the judge if the judge instructs us not to think
this or talk about this. Right.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
So I think another good thing, too, would be leadership,
because juries need a leader.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
And I have friends who have sat on some pretty
big and prominent juries in this county and they'll tell me,
you know, kind of what people talk about, which is
fascinating as a lawyer. Right, sometimes it's things you don't
you don't anticipate, but how some people maybe.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Will get a little veer off a little or.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
And you'll need that good leader to say, remember, you know,
the judge told us we couldn't do that. So I
think just coming in with that open mind, open heart,
your listening ears, and to be as thoughtful as you
can and not biased as you know, that would probably
make the perfect jure.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I was on a jury once and it was actually
a federal grand jury. So what that is is eighteen
months of being a federal guan jury and I was
actually on the jury that indicted Alfonza Rodriguez.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Wow, you were Oh, I.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Was lucky to be on that jury. Some people didn't
feel they were as lucky. Yeah, but I was lucky
to be on that jury. And most of the cases
we had for the eighteen months were surprisingly there's a
lot of drug drugs going through Arcticota and a lot
of illegal people working here is the other thing, and so.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
That's what you'd see in the federal system.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Wow. So that was what two thousand and three, because
I was a sophomore in college.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
It was a long time ago. I just remember the
day that we indicted him, that they made us go
through a weird entrance in the Fargo, the court Infargo,
and we'd never been in there. I felt like I
was on Law and Order or something. There are like
outside there. There was a bunch of people that were
there from the press, and then they were trying to
(13:10):
call all of us because we couldn't answer any questions,
and they were calling us all at home and things
like that. So it was just crazy. Wow.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
And when you think of the stress of lawyers. Sorry
I'm in a side note here a little bit. You know,
I know a lot of the attorneys involved in that case.
I know the judge now, you know Judge Erickson who's
now at the Eighth Circuit, and the stress and what
they lived through just trying the case. So Drew was
kidnapped the fall in November of my sophomore year in college.
Alfonso was arrested a while later. That case went to
(13:41):
trial my first year of law school. So years later
and as recently as I can't remember, if it's a year,
a year and a half ago, was when Attorney General
Merrick Garland told the District of North Dakota that they
could no longer seek the death penalty. You know, so
that case spanned like whatever, twenty years.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
This a little bit of information we got just indicting
him was crazy to me as far as how that
upset me, I couldn't even imagine how upset a lawyer
could have been, or someone that was actually on the jury,
the actual jury, So I can't even very upsetting.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
I do remember Keith riisener Are, one of the lead
prosecutors that tried that case, said he told us in
law school that after the trial was done, he went
camped like in the bad lands by himself for like
a week or something to decompress.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
So that was wow, that's that's a pretty unbelievable story.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Yeah, So with trials, how often is a case settled
out of court?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Almost always?
Speaker 5 (14:38):
That is a really easy answer, and I think that's
a very fair in federal district court. I don't remember
the numbers, but I'm not kidding. I'm known to be
dramatic and sarcastic, but I'm not trying to be on
this one. It's like ninety nine point nine to two
percent cases settle because when you walk into federal court,
if you've been charged with a crime, guess what. The
weight of the federal government is coming down on you.
(14:59):
They are some of the attorneys, those prosecutors, they're not fake,
miss Carmichaels. They are the real deal. It is the
weight of the world on your shoulders. And guess what
that's crime they charged you with. They got receipts, like.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
A million of them. So the defense lawyer, you meet
with your client on day one.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
I was a federal public defender for a long time,
and you'd meet with your client and.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
You kind of get them, oh, Jackie, I have no idea.
There's no conspiracy here. I have no idea what this is.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
And you kind of say, okay, well, we're going to
be together for a while. And then you get the discovery,
which is the government's case against you. And again it's
a lot of receipts, including pictures and all kinds of
things that kind of says, guess what, you're guilty because
they have the resources to do it. Now I am
still a criminal defense attorney. You are still in a
sentintel proven guilty.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
You have the right to go to trial. All of that.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
But in the federal system, I can tell you in
six or seven years, I did not take a federal
case to trial. It's close a few times. So the
plea agreements are strong there. As far as like state,
whether it's family law, whether it maybe is you know,
a plaintiff's case, someone you know maybe got hit by
a semi in the oil field.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Right there, there were some.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
There were a lot of big cases like that in
the oil boom or which is obviously terrible, or let's
say it's a case about a property line and offense.
Even those civil cases, chances are going to settle for
a number of reasons. One finances. You know, you start
paying one or two attorneys three hundred dollars an hour
and have a case span two, three, four years, and
(16:33):
have lawyers work on it like eighty hours a week
leading up to a few day trial. Start doing the math, right,
It's it's an incredible expense. The courts are backed up
for years. It's hard to get in. So I tried
a lot a lot of family law cases. Those are
ones that will still be tried. But I would always
look at my clients and say, the only person who's
going to financially benefit if we go to trial is
(16:54):
me because unfortunately judges aren't going to listen to it.
They're going to do the best they can and they're
going to make a decision. Chances are somebody's not going
to be happy, probably both people. Then we know, then
we know is probably a good decision, right if two
people are a little unhappy and I am going to
have built right. So it's like you're running the risk
of losing money and you're paying your lawyer to get there.
(17:17):
So that usually the finance is alone.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
And there's many.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Reasons we could talk about past that, but it's expensive
and trials organizing for people. Honestly, whether it's a property
line or humans, trial is stressful and scary, and people
don't really love their experience, so they try to stay out.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I guess I still have kind of that picture of
TV law and order and all of that when you
think of when you think of court. You mentioned it
though a little bit earlier, about burnout, and your book
does talk about how you had you were struggling with
depression and anxiety. Looking back, do you think those were
symptoms of your autoimmune or was it more so just
(18:00):
depression and anxiety.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
So I'm gonna go back one teeny thought, and yes,
most people actually share that conception that Court's going to
be like TV.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
And I promise you I had a lot more clients
come out and go, oh my gosh, that was terrible
versus like, yeah, that was just like TV. So just
to finish that up.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
So with the anxiety and depression and autoimmune and stuff litis,
probably the best answer I can give is you really
have to divide my life kind of pre autoimmune and
stuffalitis and after right, and I have like a dividing.
There's a line of demarcation. It's May eighth, twenty eighteen,
the day I walked out the door of Stepan.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Samaoi Law Firm.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Leading up to that, what I now know in hindsight,
I had very high functioning anxiety. There was always this
noise in my ears saying like you need to do this,
you need to be better, you need to compete harder,
and I it was very painful and I always wished
I could turn it off, but I never understood it,
and so, you know, stigmatized it.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Thought I was weird if.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
I would talk about, like why do I just always
have this noise in my ear telling me to just
push every bound and go as hard as I can
and compete. So I had that at play, but I
was able to function, you know, fine.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
It wasn't fun though.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
So what happened, though, was I was burning myself out
in practice. I never took the lectures that we heard serious, like.
I never thought you could work yourself to depression. I
never thought you could work yourself to burn out. To me,
as hard as I could go as long was like
the best because I was competing more, I was billing more,
and I was just so hardwired for that competition and
(19:31):
I wanted to be a workaholic.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
But it wasn't good for me. It's not good for anyone.
Speaker 5 (19:36):
So there was a little bit that I had stigmatized
mental health. And I think there was a little bit
that I truly like I didn't understand mental health as much.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
I didn't.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
I didn't have a lot of classes on it in
college or right, I didn't have a huge experience. So
leading up to that, I was on track to have
something bad happen. I really think I probably would have
had a heart attack the way I was working and
understanding what I do now, lack of boundaries. But since
autoimmune encephalitis, now I do struggle with depression, anxiety, postematic
(20:06):
stress disorder because of what happened to me. It was traumatic.
I mean there's no way around it. It was awful,
and it devastated every part of my life.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
This career that I get all excited talking about is gone.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
It was taken from me. I had no knowledge, no
retirement party, you know. May I walked out the door
to take a break, and in the following weeks nearly
died and essentially lost my mind. So when you wake
up from that and you realize your life has been
blown to smithereens, like I tell people, maybe I didn't
have depression before, but.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
I have it after.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
So now it's kind of a I think my mental
health will be a lifelong battle to try to kind
of just really cope with what happened to me and
what I've lost and what I've had to overcome.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
And so it is a struggle.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
But I'm happy to talk about it now because I
don't want people to run from it. I want other
lawyers to work healthier than I did because I was
a disaster. Whether or not that prompted the auto immuneencephalite
is probably not, but it's hard to not kind of
think and maybe have some regrets about that.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
So can you walk us through with the near death
experience and what happened?
Speaker 5 (21:14):
So in the fall of twenty seventeen, my sleep started
to get interrupted. I was waking up unprompted at four AM,
like an alarm clock was set in my head. And
it went on and on for months, and then it
turned into insomnia. And I was out of town a
two day trial. I just passed this anniversary. It was
March twenty seventh, and I had this two day trial
and Dickinson and I had insomnia.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
And that is kind of.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
Where I can really point to and say I knew
something was wrong, and I'm like, I have to figure
this out. I have to stop this, Like if I
can't sleep, I'm going to lose my job and I'm
going to lose my career. And you know, it was
just like oh, smiling, and the insomnia wouldn't shut off,
and insomnia can make any good person go bad right quick.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Well, then it kind of started to have I.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Had this really weird elevated anxiety, none of like I
had ever kind of felt this noise in my ears.
This was really different. And then I started to get
tremors in my hands and my body was kind of
trembling and I was clenching my jaw, and then I
started to hear like white noise in my ears. Like
I was just kind of this empty shell of myself.
So I checked out of work for a week and
(22:17):
was like, Okay, you know, lawyers kind of get some
depression anxiety.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Maybe that's what this is.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Although I wasn't really convinced, and when I checked out
of work, I became unresponsive. I didn't talk for me
that there's a red flag, and I started to completely unwind.
I checked myself into the psychiatric ward voluntarily, thinking it
was burnout, depression anxiety. I have amnesia for about two
months there, so I was I had no agency, I
(22:44):
had no voice. My brain was at that point quite inoperable,
so when I started having seizures, I was struggling to walk.
There were some overt neurological symptoms, and by the grace
of God, Stephanie McDonald, the nurse Kishner in Town, is
an angel, and she did a follow up appointment for me.
(23:06):
After I was released from the psychiatric ward and she's like,
this isn't like a behavioral you have a neurological problem,
which I couldn't even understand at the time. And that
got me to doctor dunnagain, who I always teas him
that he had a strong cup of coffee that morning
and was ready for me, and he pointed to Susannica
Halen's book The Woman you just read about on my
(23:26):
intro and he said, the book Brain on Fire. I
think Jackie has that. Of course he was talking to
my husband and mom because I was not there right.
I was there but couldn't understand. And it was that night.
A few nights after I saw doctor Dun again, I
had a grandma seizure in bed that was so violent
it broke and dislocated my shoulder and it broke my
back in three places.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
I was then checked in.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
I did another getaway at the hospital for about a
week where I could tell you who the president was
and I could tell you where I was at, but
it was pretty rough because I also, I'm going to
bring a little levity here. I also asked if I
had written in the ambulance, and apparently my brother was
in the room with big eyes like no you drove
it like.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Yes, you wrote the ambulance.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
So I was still very lost, and doctor Donaghan was correct.
I did have autoimmune encephalitis. So I went to the
Mayo Clinic and they said, yes, they see it more
than in Bismarck.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
It's very very rare.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
And to end on that, I did not know one
single human being on earth that had my condition when
I woke up and was diagnosed. And when you think
of that, if I would have been diagnosed with MS
or breast cancer.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Like everybody would say, oh yeah, you know, I have
an understanding, I had no one.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So how do you continue to manage that? The autoimmune
cephalitis is how do you continue to manage that?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Then?
Speaker 5 (24:53):
Now I would say, speaking of that angel Steph MacDonald,
I have another great angel my life, doctor Juliana Nevland,
who's my counselor, and I just celebrated going to one
hundred sessions, not that long ago of counseling. I have
had to work tirelessly to get myself to the person
(25:13):
you see today, right, And it's a double edged sword.
I know I sound fine, I know I look fine,
but it's been really hard for me. And there are
many days I do not feel fine. I have significant
chronic health conditions that you know, they're all kind of
directly related back to atom I mean and stephalite. It's
like the good news is I have my wits about
(25:33):
me right, so like I can read a clock right now,
I can draw a clock. I can you know, I
know where I'm at. I know I'm not driving the
ambulance today. But my mental health has been It's been
very hard for me. I can't sleep if I don't
have sleeping medication that a interrupted my sleep channels. I
also have a condition called hypersomnia, so I struggle to
(25:54):
stay awake.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I have chronic fatigue.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
There's no real answer except I'm sure that AE did
it right. So it takes combinations of stimulants to keep
me going in the day, and then I have to
have sleep medication, which is a conundrum. It takes constant,
you know, keeping myself up and productive and happy, which
is why I found a jam Stevens blogging, writing, speaking,
(26:17):
doing anything I can to. At first, maybe it felt
like fake it till you make it, kind of pretend
you still have your career, because I was so devastated
that I lost my career I had to walk away
a year after the seizure just to keep myself going
and to be productive and find ways to channel my
energy that some days is quite limited.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
So it's a battle.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
It's honestly as much of a battle I feel like
in twenty twenty five as it has been the past
few years, to just always keep myself happy, full of
gratefulness rather than bitterness. I yeah, I need a lot
of medications. I see the doctor. I'm like a professional patient.
I talked to her extensively. I have a lot of specialists.
(27:01):
But for the most part, I've kind of found my way.
That it's not always easy, it's not always pretty, but
I feel pretty stable.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
I should maybe I shouldn't say that out loud. Let's
let's totally delete that. Knock on wood.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
But I feel like, you know a lot of good doctors,
good friends, good family, good community. Zoloft to keep you know,
depression and panic attacks at.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Bay and you know Elton John.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
A few doses of Elton John here and there, and
staying productive really keeps me on track.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
So we talked about your book. What made you want
to write a book that was so personal and told
your story, and why do you think it's important for
people to know your story.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
I think when I woke up, I realized there was
this book by this woman that was a New York
Times bestseller. And again, knowing no one in the world
with this condition that I'm trying to learn about with
a broken brain, I'd never heard of autoimmune stuff like
this before.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
I'm so stubborn. I woke up and was like, oh,
she wrote a book, Well I will who does that?
Who does that? I did not know how to write
a book.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
I was a lawyer, and lawyers think they know everything,
but they don't. They do not know how to write books.
This one didn't. So I think at first it was
just kind of a stubborn I'm.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Really lost what was me?
Speaker 5 (28:14):
But there was a lot of like, wait, I could
probably help someone. I didn't know about this condition. How
many other peoples don't or how many other people don't,
So I really think I set off to maybe help others.
But what I started to realize, why is it important?
Why is it important to share personal stories? That's how
we learn from one another. There's science behind sharing your narrative.
(28:35):
It's a thing, right writing your story, because what is
it doing? It's helping you process the chaos. It's helping
you grab hold of things that have been completely.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Out of your control.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
So it started out kind of to help others, and
as it progressed, it was three years start to finish.
You know, I realized that I was actually kind of
helping myself too.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So yeah, I was going to touch on that was it?
Along with that healing portion. Was there some of that
post traumatic syndrome, I guess, along with writing absolutely.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
So I waited one year to start. I told myself
I had to wait a year because quite frankly, my
brain was not working that well. Problematic short term memories
couldn't leave the house. I was very isolated for a
year and basically just walked around the block and cried.
That was kind of my existence, and tried to be
a mom a little bit when I could, because life
was pretty bleak for me and my health was terrible.
(29:32):
So I waited that year and I pretty much just
replayed everything in my mind. I think every waking moment
I had was somehow thinking of the psychiatric word, you know,
leading up to the seizure, leading out just everything. It
was like I was obsessed with it, which now I
know there's a thing with that too. It was kind
of exposure therapy part of it. Though I'm still true
to my jackiness. I think I knew I kind of
(29:54):
had to sit with that story and sit with the
pain until I could just fire away on my computer
and I did. The good news was I kept thinking
about it, and then when I started writing it was
still fresh enough. Because you know, again I have amnesia.
I had to cobble together a lot of kind of
the climax of the story through my mom my husband.
(30:14):
So thankfully I wrote it when it was fresh enough
because I think a lot of that, just the subtle
nuance and the details that made unwillable what it is,
I think that would have gotten lost.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
So basically I obsessed.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
About it, which was a teeny bit unhealthy, maybe a
little bit healthy. Then I poured my life into it
for three years, and it was so painful. To this day.
I don't open the book a lot. It's kind of
the repository of where this horrible part of my life is.
But if I do, I guarantee you I'm pretty sure
it's chapter fourteen. If you get me there, like I
will feel pain in my chest. It absolutely elicits visceral,
(30:49):
physical responses to knowing that I lost my mind in
front of my kids, in front of you know, and
had no idea and lost every ounce of agency. It
will cause me physical pain, even though I speak about
it and talk about it.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
I think that pain just kind of sits at the surface.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
And that book, it's it's kind of an opening Pandora's box.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
So in a lot of ways, I keep it. I
keep it closed, it on the shelf.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
So another thing that you do currently is that you're
a motivational speaker. So what means you want to be
a motivational speaker? And what topics do you cover?
Speaker 5 (31:23):
So when I said earlier I only wanted to be
a liar or a lawyer, Freudian slipped there.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
A liar, I lied a teeny teeny bed.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
The only other thing I ever considered was in high school,
and I wanted to be a motivational speaker. And how
it came about was down at the Ramcoda. We would
go to the state student Council convention. Maybe remember this,
and I went all those years of high school.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
I loved it. Tripped to the big city of.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Ismarck and they'd have these National like motivational speakers, and
I loved it so much. My junior year, I went
home and I was like, mom, how do you become
a motivational speaker?
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Just like I could study that in college? And she
let me down gently. She's like, well, you or she
kind of need.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
A career and then you need like a special story.
Well I recognized that I had exactly neither at that
point in my life, so I just kind of put
it in the back of my mind and just stayed
focused on being a lawyer. But it was always kind
of there, right, So all of a sudden, I wake
up from amnesia find out I have this dreadful illness
that had just been turned into the Netflix movie that
(32:22):
no one's heard of, you know, all this.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Crazy stuff happened, and I was like, wait a minute. First,
you need a career, then you need a story.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
Like yes, yes, I've got this now. So also, who
does that? So I was like, okay, I shall be
a motivational speaker. Fake it till you make it, folks,
And I did, and I love it.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
I love speaking.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
If you'd make me boil it down to one word,
I would say, I'm a resilient speaker. It's you know,
kind of the story of Unwillable. It's the journey, but
it's it's resilience. It's better days ahead, which is one
of my mantras. It's just keep swimming, and it's some
twists of fate.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
I don't want to spoil the end of the.
Speaker 5 (33:03):
Book, but today is April Fool's Day and I had
a baby in twenty twenty, and we all remember that year.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
April Fools twenty twenty is the ending.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
To my book because I had a baby after all
of this health.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
And all of you know, what had happened in my life.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Surprise, we had our third baby and it's our fifth
birthday today, which is really cool. So the journey also
contains a little bit of you know, maybe we don't
control everything in life, and maybe life doesn't always work
out the way we've asked for it or plan, but
maybe some really cool things can happen, Like you can
have this most magic, little miracle baby whose initials are AE,
(33:45):
just like my illness, and maybe you can you know,
resurrect your motivational speaking career after you lose your legal career.
So that's that's kind of if you hear me speak
that's a little little sneak peek into it if you will.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So with all of that, I'm going to follow up
with the last question that we ask everyone, and that's
how would you encourage others to be a good neighbor?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Oh, such a wonderful question. It's almost as if you
two should have.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
A show about knowing and being good neighbors. So what
I would answer on this with ease is show up.
Show up for your neighbors, show up for your friends.
And a while back, I was at the funeral of
my cousin. My cousin Phil died from cancer. He battled
at eight years and he died when we were like
(34:32):
thirty eight and thirty nine years old, and it was
just so heartbreaking, and he left behind his wife and
two little boys, and I'll never forget. At his funeral,
father Gian said, sometimes we're afraid of the flames of
another person's pain, Like we're afraid of the flames of
another's pain. We're afraid we're going to get burned. And
(34:53):
that just meant so much to me because I looked
at that with my own story, and for the most part, everybody.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
On earth I thought showed up for me. They really
did in every way.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
It was gifts, it was flowers, it was cards, it
was donations, it was Elton John socks.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
I do always accept Elton John gifts. For the record.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
It was people bringing my kids gifts. It was people
anonymously sending us things. It was like I could never
repay the way people showed up.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Were some people afraid of me? Yes? Did I know that? Yes?
Speaker 5 (35:23):
Could I tell when I felt like people were kind
of questioning my brain?
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yes? Did that hurt? It did?
Speaker 5 (35:29):
But that was the exception. And I try to give
people the grace that they're coming at it, you know,
with good intentions. And so the way people showed up,
and the way I look at my cousin Phil and
the way he kept showing up for life, you know,
even though his cancer was taking over, that he wasn't afraid.
And I just encourage everyone. If you know someone's houses
(35:51):
on fire, show up and it's okay to ask for help.
My friend father Chris Catamus, who plays a really cool
part of my book, came to visit me after I
got out of the hospital, and I was a wreck,
and I said, I'm ruining my kids, like I'm done.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Now I'm going to ruin them. Life's ruined. And he
stopped me and we talked, and he said, you're gonna.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Need to ask for help here. And that was so
pivotal for me, because notoriously I was so stubborn and
I'm not sure without him like kind of sitting me down,
I being like, you are going to need some help,
and that I had to be able to ask for help.
And that's being in a community, being able to ask
for help. Sometimes you're asking, sometimes you're giving. Both ways
are perfectly fine. So to me, Bismarck is an amazing
(36:36):
community where people show up for one another. And I'm
just I'm proud to live here and I'm eternally grateful
for the way that it felt like everyone on earth
showed up for me when I needed them.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Great. Thank you so much Jackie for joining us, and
thanks to everyone for tuning into These of your Neighbors.
Thank you for wanting to get to know your neighbors
as we hold these important and necessary conversations. If you
found this conversation as important as we do, please make
sure to share it with your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Thank you for tuning in to These Are Your Neighbors
A podcast hosted by the City of Bismarck's Human Relations
Committee and produced by Dakota Media Access. We hope you
were inspired by the stories of citizens driving meaningful change
in Bismarck. For more info on the HRC, visit bismarckand
dot gov.
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
the City of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee and produced by
Dakota Media Access. The purpose of the podcast is to
celebrate change makers in Bismarck whose contributions break barriers, build connections,
and redefine what is possible for our community.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
Tia Jorgensen and Sargana Wooski, both members of the City
of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee. Thank you for joining us
as we highlight the individuals driving positive change and making
a lasting impact on our community. Their stories inspire progress
and shape the future of our city.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Our guest today is Jackie Stebbins. Jackie graduated with its
Distinction from the University of North Dakota School of Law
at age thirty one. She became the senior partner of
her own law firm, Stebbens Malloy. She primarily practiced in
family law, criminal defense, and civil litigation. Jackie was nationally
recognized for her work by the National Trial Lawyers Top
forty Under forty and Super Lawyers Rising Stars. She was
(01:03):
also named as a Young Leader in Business and in
her community by the Bismarck Tribunes and Prairie Businesses magazines
forty under forty. In twenty nineteen, when she was only
thirty five years old, Jackie retired from the practice of
law after a near death experience with a rare brain disease.
She later founded j M. Stebbens, LLC. As a writer
(01:23):
and motivational speaker. Jackie is a frequent blogger on the
j M. Stebbens blog and hosts the Brain Fever podcast.
Her memoir Unwillable, A Journey to Reclaim My Brain, was
published by Wisdom Editions in May twenty twenty two. Susanna Callahan,
author of the number one New York Times best selling
book Brain on Fire, praises Unwillable as an inspiring story
(01:46):
of a brilliant woman's battle and that it's as moving
as it is important. Jackie lives in Bismarck with her husband, Sean,
and three children. In her free time, she enjoys the
great outdoors, exercise, reading current events, and trying to be funny.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Jackie, Thank you for having me here today.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I think that's the first time we've seen that on
a bio. So why did you make Bismarck on.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Bismarck was kind of a happy medium, I think in
between where my husband and I were attending college and
where I was attending law school in Grand Forks, North Kota,
and where I'm originally from Bulman, North Kota, and my
husband is from a small town kind of close to there.
We met when I was in college, and at that
time I was going to be this big, fancy attorney
(02:34):
in New York City. But that changed a little bit
as we all get a little older and wiser and
start to realize that, you know, it does take a village,
especially if you want to have kiddos. We thought, well,
maybe we should stay somewhere near our families in North Kota, and.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Bismarck was literally a happy medium.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
But to me, I saw it as just a really beautiful,
vibrant place. I had an an aunt and uncle live
in Mandan when I was a kid. I had another
aunt in Bismarck and cousins. And when you're from Bowman,
North Dakota, Bismarck is the big city, so it is
always this, you know, wonderful place to visit. When I
was young, and I just saw it as such a
(03:12):
vibrant place to have a law practice, and I was right.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I'm from New England, North Dakota, so I also thought
Bismarck was the big side.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
I know that about you. She's a tiger.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Even thought Bismarck, you know, even though Minut's fairly large,
this was the big city to come to.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Yeah. Wow, I mean it's not quite New York City,
but I've heard, you know, I've.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Heard it's close, So it's not it is not close.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
We have frequents in New York City like seven times
a year.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I think maybe more often.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I don't know, three. It seems like a lot more
than that.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I love New York City a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
So what made you decide to go into law?
Speaker 5 (03:48):
So from the time I was in fifth grade, I
knew I was going to be a lawyer. And it
starts with me reading my first John Grisham book, The Client,
which now in speeches.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
When I tell people that, I stop and laugh that.
You know, I'm not.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Sure if in fifth grade I should have been reading
John Grisham. So I started with The Client. In sixth grade,
I remember reading The Chamber, which is about a man
on death row. Probably not the best book for a
sixth grader. But I love John Grisham. I read all
of his books, and from that first one on I
was sold.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I was going to be a lawyer.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
I wanted to have this fancy purple BMW. I don't
know where I got that from. I loved I believe
her name was Da Carmichael on Law and Order. She was,
you know, this beautiful just shark attorney, and I was like,
that's it, this is me. And from fifth grade on
that was all I wanted to do. And my mind
was made up. And when I make up my mind,
(04:40):
everyone watch out. So I went to college like all right,
this is a hurdle. I've got law school to conquer.
And that was just kind of the way I played it.
So it was a lifelong dream.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So then you kind of focused on multiple different things
in your career, family law, criminal defense, and civil litigation.
Kind of what made you want to focus on those
since they're kind of different areas.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Absolutely, so a really easy answer would be like, nothing,
nothing at all made me want.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
To do that.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
I went into I went into law school thinking maybe
I'd be a prosecutor. That was probably too much like
Law and Order and a little too much, maybe John Grisham.
But honestly what happened was in law school in my
second year year there was a program for mentors and
mentees and my senior partner and I connected when I
(05:28):
was a second grader, so he hired me. He lived
in Bismarck. It was just like perfect. We were really
similarly aligned and you know, ideas and thoughts and practice.
So he had historically been a civil litigator and what's
called the plane offf spar So when you think of
someone bringing a civil lawsuit, maybe now the negative connotation
(05:49):
is ambulance chaser, you know, the McDonald's coffee. But plaintiff's
attorneys really do good work in protecting you know, our
country right when you think of why is your tail
and also or why are your tires safe? Probably a
trial lawyer like helped bring that case. So I start
at my law firm in Bismarck, and yeah, my senior
partner is a plaintiffs attorney. I had never really thought
(06:11):
of doing plaintiff's work. And I always had like a
little idea too that maybe I could be a good
criminal defense attorney. I didn't want to be a prosecutor.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Anymore.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Well, his firm historically hadn't done any criminal defense, so.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
I kind of started doing that a little bit at
a time.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
I was actually the city attorney and city prosecutor in
the city of Lincoln for a while and kind of
cutting my teeth that way and building a little bit
of a criminal defense practice. And sometimes I think that
God wanted to punish me because I was actually really
good at family law. That was kind of an accident
in the universe. I just started doing it because it
was getting me into court. If you do plaintiff's work,
(06:48):
you might see a courtroom twice every few years. Right,
family law was in court all the time. Criminal defense,
so that was I built out my practice. Before I retired,
I was quite sought after family law attorney and really
enjoyed my criminal practice. Family law is so stressful. I
(07:08):
actually viewed criminal defense as a break. And I know
that sounds kind of wild, but it's very true. So
I did have an interesting practice, but I loved it.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
So what are some misconceptions then about lawyers?
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Well, I mean there's the McDonald's case, right, Like they're
just out they're chasing ambulances, they're trying to make a
bug not true, right, plaintiffs attorneys in North Dakota, I
can tell you there's some of the best attorneys in
the state. I was in the North Kota Association for Justice,
which was the plane of spar These are some of
the most passionate, wonderful attorneys. Right. So some of this
whole like we're bringing frivolous lawsuits, that's also not.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
True, because there's this wonderful thing called a judge.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
And if you're bringing a frivolous lawsuit, not only are
you going to probably be yelled at at some point,
the case is going to be you know, nixed.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Before you get to court.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
I think though probably personally, and this falls into my
story more probably one of the biggest misconceptions or maybe
i'd I'd rather say a lack of understanding is truly
how busy lawyers are and how stressed we are. The
hours are very unforgiving. Just this weekend I talked to
my old law partner and one of my best girlfriends.
(08:17):
Both own and operate their own law firms. Both of
them were working on Sunday. Both of them had two
day trials this week, a mediation, they were getting out discovery.
They were both working all weekend, and that's kind of
what it entails.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
The stress is enormous.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
It's an adversarial system, right, so you're kind of duking
it out every day. And when you think about like,
let's say you go to the doctor today. You know,
I have I have strep throat. You know, you go
to the doctor, you and the doctor talk it out.
Your doctor wants to help you get rid of your
sore throat. But in the practice of law, think of
like another doctor out there, like actively trying to take
(08:56):
your doctor out and kind of take you out too,
right to quote, beat you. So you're always in this
adversarial role. You know you're doing the best for your client,
but you know on the other side there's another party
in their attorney try to take you out.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
So the stress is enormous. The pressure is enormous.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
The deadlines are also unforgiving, like you can't ask for
a do over.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Unfortunately, everybody has a problem.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
They're a little a lot mad, probably a lot mad,
and a lot sad, and so is the other side. Right,
So it's really a pressure cooker. And I think that
that it makes it really hard for lawyers because we
start to think, like no one understands, no one understands
our life, and that kind of leads to some bad
mental health because we'll isolate, we'll only align with other
(09:43):
lawyers because no one can understand our busy lives.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
That is a little bit true, but I think that.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Can also lead to some problems with mental health and burnout,
which I speak from full experience on that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So then, in your opinion as a lawyer, for maybe
some people out there who want nothing more in life
than to be a jur what is you know what
makes a juror or someone a good candidate to be
a jur.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
I love that and I'm always so glad that people
want to be jurors because I never did, right, I
only wanted to be the lawyer in the court room.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
I never wanted to be a judge, and I was like, oh,
to be a jur.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Which I haven't made it in either, So a good
jur to me, really, it's that you will be thoughtful.
That's probably the first word I would use, thoughtful, common sense,
and that you will listen and in a world full
of right now hot takes, everything is a thirty second
real you know, a thirty second TikTok if you get
(10:37):
called upon for a big case, it might be traumatic,
it might be frightening, it might be intense. It might
be boring as heck, it might be a civil case.
It's so boring you could have a three day trial
about let's say, like the placement of a fence.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Right.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
It's not all TV where it's something like, you know,
some god awful thing like murder. Right, So you might
be scared to death or bored to death. But that's
what the United States of America has called you to do,
to sit there and listen thoughtfully. So I think if
you bring common sense listening, you know, you park any
(11:16):
you know, implicit biases at the door and tell yourself,
you know, I can't have my mind made up.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I can't let.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
Myself think of things that maybe I've thought my whole
life like. I have to come in with a fresh mind.
And again with the listening, I have to listen to
the judge if the judge instructs us not to think
this or talk about this. Right.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
So I think another good thing, too, would be leadership,
because juries need a leader.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
And I have friends who have sat on some pretty
big and prominent juries in this county and they'll tell me,
you know, kind of what people talk about, which is
fascinating as a lawyer. Right, sometimes it's things you don't
you don't anticipate, but how some people maybe.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Will get a little veer off a little or.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
And you'll need that good leader to say, remember, you know,
the judge told us we couldn't do that. So I
think just coming in with that open mind, open heart,
your listening ears, and to be as thoughtful as you
can and not biased as you know, that would probably
make the perfect jure.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I was on a jury once and it was actually
a federal grand jury. So what that is is eighteen
months of being a federal guan jury and I was
actually on the jury that indicted Alfonza Rodriguez.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Wow, you were Oh, I.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Was lucky to be on that jury. Some people didn't
feel they were as lucky. Yeah, but I was lucky
to be on that jury. And most of the cases
we had for the eighteen months were surprisingly there's a
lot of drug drugs going through Arcticota and a lot
of illegal people working here is the other thing, and so.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
That's what you'd see in the federal system.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Wow. So that was what two thousand and three, because
I was a sophomore in college.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
It was a long time ago. I just remember the
day that we indicted him, that they made us go
through a weird entrance in the Fargo, the court Infargo,
and we'd never been in there. I felt like I
was on Law and Order or something. There are like
outside there. There was a bunch of people that were
there from the press, and then they were trying to
(13:10):
call all of us because we couldn't answer any questions,
and they were calling us all at home and things
like that. So it was just crazy. Wow.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
And when you think of the stress of lawyers. Sorry
I'm in a side note here a little bit. You know,
I know a lot of the attorneys involved in that case.
I know the judge now, you know Judge Erickson who's
now at the Eighth Circuit, and the stress and what
they lived through just trying the case. So Drew was
kidnapped the fall in November of my sophomore year in college.
Alfonso was arrested a while later. That case went to
(13:41):
trial my first year of law school. So years later
and as recently as I can't remember, if it's a year,
a year and a half ago, was when Attorney General
Merrick Garland told the District of North Dakota that they
could no longer seek the death penalty. You know, so
that case spanned like whatever, twenty years.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
This a little bit of information we got just indicting
him was crazy to me as far as how that
upset me, I couldn't even imagine how upset a lawyer
could have been, or someone that was actually on the jury,
the actual jury, So I can't even very upsetting.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
I do remember Keith riisener Are, one of the lead
prosecutors that tried that case, said he told us in
law school that after the trial was done, he went
camped like in the bad lands by himself for like
a week or something to decompress.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
So that was wow, that's that's a pretty unbelievable story.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Yeah, So with trials, how often is a case settled
out of court?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Almost always?
Speaker 5 (14:38):
That is a really easy answer, and I think that's
a very fair in federal district court. I don't remember
the numbers, but I'm not kidding. I'm known to be
dramatic and sarcastic, but I'm not trying to be on
this one. It's like ninety nine point nine to two
percent cases settle because when you walk into federal court,
if you've been charged with a crime, guess what. The
weight of the federal government is coming down on you.
(14:59):
They are some of the attorneys, those prosecutors, they're not fake,
miss Carmichaels. They are the real deal. It is the
weight of the world on your shoulders. And guess what
that's crime they charged you with. They got receipts, like.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
A million of them. So the defense lawyer, you meet
with your client on day one.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
I was a federal public defender for a long time,
and you'd meet with your client and.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
You kind of get them, oh, Jackie, I have no idea.
There's no conspiracy here. I have no idea what this is.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
And you kind of say, okay, well, we're going to
be together for a while. And then you get the discovery,
which is the government's case against you. And again it's
a lot of receipts, including pictures and all kinds of
things that kind of says, guess what, you're guilty because
they have the resources to do it. Now I am
still a criminal defense attorney. You are still in a
sentintel proven guilty.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
You have the right to go to trial. All of that.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
But in the federal system, I can tell you in
six or seven years, I did not take a federal
case to trial. It's close a few times. So the
plea agreements are strong there. As far as like state,
whether it's family law, whether it maybe is you know,
a plaintiff's case, someone you know maybe got hit by
a semi in the oil field.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Right there, there were some.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
There were a lot of big cases like that in
the oil boom or which is obviously terrible, or let's
say it's a case about a property line and offense.
Even those civil cases, chances are going to settle for
a number of reasons. One finances. You know, you start
paying one or two attorneys three hundred dollars an hour
and have a case span two, three, four years, and
(16:33):
have lawyers work on it like eighty hours a week
leading up to a few day trial. Start doing the math, right,
It's it's an incredible expense. The courts are backed up
for years. It's hard to get in. So I tried
a lot a lot of family law cases. Those are
ones that will still be tried. But I would always
look at my clients and say, the only person who's
going to financially benefit if we go to trial is
(16:54):
me because unfortunately judges aren't going to listen to it.
They're going to do the best they can and they're
going to make a decision. Chances are somebody's not going
to be happy, probably both people. Then we know, then
we know is probably a good decision, right if two
people are a little unhappy and I am going to
have built right. So it's like you're running the risk
of losing money and you're paying your lawyer to get there.
(17:17):
So that usually the finance is alone.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
And there's many.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Reasons we could talk about past that, but it's expensive
and trials organizing for people. Honestly, whether it's a property
line or humans, trial is stressful and scary, and people
don't really love their experience, so they try to stay out.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I guess I still have kind of that picture of
TV law and order and all of that when you
think of when you think of court. You mentioned it
though a little bit earlier, about burnout, and your book
does talk about how you had you were struggling with
depression and anxiety. Looking back, do you think those were
symptoms of your autoimmune or was it more so just
(18:00):
depression and anxiety.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
So I'm gonna go back one teeny thought, and yes,
most people actually share that conception that Court's going to
be like TV.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
And I promise you I had a lot more clients
come out and go, oh my gosh, that was terrible
versus like, yeah, that was just like TV. So just
to finish that up.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
So with the anxiety and depression and autoimmune and stuff litis,
probably the best answer I can give is you really
have to divide my life kind of pre autoimmune and
stuffalitis and after right, and I have like a dividing.
There's a line of demarcation. It's May eighth, twenty eighteen,
the day I walked out the door of Stepan.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Samaoi Law Firm.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Leading up to that, what I now know in hindsight,
I had very high functioning anxiety. There was always this
noise in my ears saying like you need to do this,
you need to be better, you need to compete harder,
and I it was very painful and I always wished
I could turn it off, but I never understood it,
and so, you know, stigmatized it.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Thought I was weird if.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
I would talk about, like why do I just always
have this noise in my ear telling me to just
push every bound and go as hard as I can
and compete. So I had that at play, but I
was able to function, you know, fine.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
It wasn't fun though.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
So what happened, though, was I was burning myself out
in practice. I never took the lectures that we heard serious, like.
I never thought you could work yourself to depression. I
never thought you could work yourself to burn out. To me,
as hard as I could go as long was like
the best because I was competing more, I was billing more,
and I was just so hardwired for that competition and
(19:31):
I wanted to be a workaholic.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
But it wasn't good for me. It's not good for anyone.
Speaker 5 (19:36):
So there was a little bit that I had stigmatized
mental health. And I think there was a little bit
that I truly like I didn't understand mental health as much.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
I didn't.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
I didn't have a lot of classes on it in
college or right, I didn't have a huge experience. So
leading up to that, I was on track to have
something bad happen. I really think I probably would have
had a heart attack the way I was working and
understanding what I do now, lack of boundaries. But since
autoimmune encephalitis, now I do struggle with depression, anxiety, postematic
(20:06):
stress disorder because of what happened to me. It was traumatic.
I mean there's no way around it. It was awful,
and it devastated every part of my life.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
This career that I get all excited talking about is gone.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
It was taken from me. I had no knowledge, no
retirement party, you know. May I walked out the door
to take a break, and in the following weeks nearly
died and essentially lost my mind. So when you wake
up from that and you realize your life has been
blown to smithereens, like I tell people, maybe I didn't
have depression before, but.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
I have it after.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
So now it's kind of a I think my mental
health will be a lifelong battle to try to kind
of just really cope with what happened to me and
what I've lost and what I've had to overcome.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
And so it is a struggle.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
But I'm happy to talk about it now because I
don't want people to run from it. I want other
lawyers to work healthier than I did because I was
a disaster. Whether or not that prompted the auto immuneencephalite
is probably not, but it's hard to not kind of
think and maybe have some regrets about that.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
So can you walk us through with the near death
experience and what happened?
Speaker 5 (21:14):
So in the fall of twenty seventeen, my sleep started
to get interrupted. I was waking up unprompted at four AM,
like an alarm clock was set in my head. And
it went on and on for months, and then it
turned into insomnia. And I was out of town a
two day trial. I just passed this anniversary. It was
March twenty seventh, and I had this two day trial
and Dickinson and I had insomnia.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
And that is kind of.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
Where I can really point to and say I knew
something was wrong, and I'm like, I have to figure
this out. I have to stop this, Like if I
can't sleep, I'm going to lose my job and I'm
going to lose my career. And you know, it was
just like oh, smiling, and the insomnia wouldn't shut off,
and insomnia can make any good person go bad right quick.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Well, then it kind of started to have I.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Had this really weird elevated anxiety, none of like I
had ever kind of felt this noise in my ears.
This was really different. And then I started to get
tremors in my hands and my body was kind of
trembling and I was clenching my jaw, and then I
started to hear like white noise in my ears. Like
I was just kind of this empty shell of myself.
So I checked out of work for a week and
(22:17):
was like, Okay, you know, lawyers kind of get some
depression anxiety.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Maybe that's what this is.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Although I wasn't really convinced, and when I checked out
of work, I became unresponsive. I didn't talk for me
that there's a red flag, and I started to completely unwind.
I checked myself into the psychiatric ward voluntarily, thinking it
was burnout, depression anxiety. I have amnesia for about two
months there, so I was I had no agency, I
(22:44):
had no voice. My brain was at that point quite inoperable,
so when I started having seizures, I was struggling to walk.
There were some overt neurological symptoms, and by the grace
of God, Stephanie McDonald, the nurse Kishner in Town, is
an angel, and she did a follow up appointment for me.
(23:06):
After I was released from the psychiatric ward and she's like,
this isn't like a behavioral you have a neurological problem,
which I couldn't even understand at the time. And that
got me to doctor dunnagain, who I always teas him
that he had a strong cup of coffee that morning
and was ready for me, and he pointed to Susannica
Halen's book The Woman you just read about on my
(23:26):
intro and he said, the book Brain on Fire. I
think Jackie has that. Of course he was talking to
my husband and mom because I was not there right.
I was there but couldn't understand. And it was that night.
A few nights after I saw doctor Dun again, I
had a grandma seizure in bed that was so violent
it broke and dislocated my shoulder and it broke my
back in three places.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
I was then checked in.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
I did another getaway at the hospital for about a
week where I could tell you who the president was
and I could tell you where I was at, but
it was pretty rough because I also, I'm going to
bring a little levity here. I also asked if I
had written in the ambulance, and apparently my brother was
in the room with big eyes like no you drove
it like.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Yes, you wrote the ambulance.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
So I was still very lost, and doctor Donaghan was correct.
I did have autoimmune encephalitis. So I went to the
Mayo Clinic and they said, yes, they see it more
than in Bismarck.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
It's very very rare.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
And to end on that, I did not know one
single human being on earth that had my condition when
I woke up and was diagnosed. And when you think
of that, if I would have been diagnosed with MS
or breast cancer.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Like everybody would say, oh yeah, you know, I have
an understanding, I had no one.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So how do you continue to manage that? The autoimmune
cephalitis is how do you continue to manage that?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Then?
Speaker 5 (24:53):
Now I would say, speaking of that angel Steph MacDonald,
I have another great angel my life, doctor Juliana Nevland,
who's my counselor, and I just celebrated going to one
hundred sessions, not that long ago of counseling. I have
had to work tirelessly to get myself to the person
(25:13):
you see today, right, And it's a double edged sword.
I know I sound fine, I know I look fine,
but it's been really hard for me. And there are
many days I do not feel fine. I have significant
chronic health conditions that you know, they're all kind of
directly related back to atom I mean and stephalite. It's
like the good news is I have my wits about
(25:33):
me right, so like I can read a clock right now,
I can draw a clock. I can you know, I
know where I'm at. I know I'm not driving the
ambulance today. But my mental health has been It's been
very hard for me. I can't sleep if I don't
have sleeping medication that a interrupted my sleep channels. I
also have a condition called hypersomnia, so I struggle to
(25:54):
stay awake.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I have chronic fatigue.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
There's no real answer except I'm sure that AE did
it right. So it takes combinations of stimulants to keep
me going in the day, and then I have to
have sleep medication, which is a conundrum. It takes constant,
you know, keeping myself up and productive and happy, which
is why I found a jam Stevens blogging, writing, speaking,
(26:17):
doing anything I can to. At first, maybe it felt
like fake it till you make it, kind of pretend
you still have your career, because I was so devastated
that I lost my career I had to walk away
a year after the seizure just to keep myself going
and to be productive and find ways to channel my
energy that some days is quite limited.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
So it's a battle.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
It's honestly as much of a battle I feel like
in twenty twenty five as it has been the past
few years, to just always keep myself happy, full of
gratefulness rather than bitterness. I yeah, I need a lot
of medications. I see the doctor. I'm like a professional patient.
I talked to her extensively. I have a lot of specialists.
(27:01):
But for the most part, I've kind of found my way.
That it's not always easy, it's not always pretty, but
I feel pretty stable.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
I should maybe I shouldn't say that out loud. Let's
let's totally delete that. Knock on wood.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
But I feel like, you know a lot of good doctors,
good friends, good family, good community. Zoloft to keep you know,
depression and panic attacks at.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Bay and you know Elton John.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
A few doses of Elton John here and there, and
staying productive really keeps me on track.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
So we talked about your book. What made you want
to write a book that was so personal and told
your story, and why do you think it's important for
people to know your story.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
I think when I woke up, I realized there was
this book by this woman that was a New York
Times bestseller. And again, knowing no one in the world
with this condition that I'm trying to learn about with
a broken brain, I'd never heard of autoimmune stuff like
this before.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
I'm so stubborn. I woke up and was like, oh,
she wrote a book, Well I will who does that?
Who does that? I did not know how to write
a book.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
I was a lawyer, and lawyers think they know everything,
but they don't. They do not know how to write books.
This one didn't. So I think at first it was
just kind of a stubborn I'm.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Really lost what was me?
Speaker 5 (28:14):
But there was a lot of like, wait, I could
probably help someone. I didn't know about this condition. How
many other peoples don't or how many other people don't,
So I really think I set off to maybe help others.
But what I started to realize, why is it important?
Why is it important to share personal stories? That's how
we learn from one another. There's science behind sharing your narrative.
(28:35):
It's a thing, right writing your story, because what is
it doing? It's helping you process the chaos. It's helping
you grab hold of things that have been completely.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Out of your control.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
So it started out kind of to help others, and
as it progressed, it was three years start to finish.
You know, I realized that I was actually kind of
helping myself too.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So yeah, I was going to touch on that was it?
Along with that healing portion. Was there some of that
post traumatic syndrome, I guess, along with writing absolutely.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
So I waited one year to start. I told myself
I had to wait a year because quite frankly, my
brain was not working that well. Problematic short term memories
couldn't leave the house. I was very isolated for a
year and basically just walked around the block and cried.
That was kind of my existence, and tried to be
a mom a little bit when I could, because life
was pretty bleak for me and my health was terrible.
(29:32):
So I waited that year and I pretty much just
replayed everything in my mind. I think every waking moment
I had was somehow thinking of the psychiatric word, you know,
leading up to the seizure, leading out just everything. It
was like I was obsessed with it, which now I
know there's a thing with that too. It was kind
of exposure therapy part of it. Though I'm still true
to my jackiness. I think I knew I kind of
(29:54):
had to sit with that story and sit with the
pain until I could just fire away on my computer
and I did. The good news was I kept thinking
about it, and then when I started writing it was
still fresh enough. Because you know, again I have amnesia.
I had to cobble together a lot of kind of
the climax of the story through my mom my husband.
(30:14):
So thankfully I wrote it when it was fresh enough
because I think a lot of that, just the subtle
nuance and the details that made unwillable what it is,
I think that would have gotten lost.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
So basically I obsessed.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
About it, which was a teeny bit unhealthy, maybe a
little bit healthy. Then I poured my life into it
for three years, and it was so painful. To this day.
I don't open the book a lot. It's kind of
the repository of where this horrible part of my life is.
But if I do, I guarantee you I'm pretty sure
it's chapter fourteen. If you get me there, like I
will feel pain in my chest. It absolutely elicits visceral,
(30:49):
physical responses to knowing that I lost my mind in
front of my kids, in front of you know, and
had no idea and lost every ounce of agency. It
will cause me physical pain, even though I speak about
it and talk about it.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
I think that pain just kind of sits at the surface.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
And that book, it's it's kind of an opening Pandora's box.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
So in a lot of ways, I keep it. I
keep it closed, it on the shelf.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
So another thing that you do currently is that you're
a motivational speaker. So what means you want to be
a motivational speaker? And what topics do you cover?
Speaker 5 (31:23):
So when I said earlier I only wanted to be
a liar or a lawyer, Freudian slipped there.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
A liar, I lied a teeny teeny bed.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
The only other thing I ever considered was in high school,
and I wanted to be a motivational speaker. And how
it came about was down at the Ramcoda. We would
go to the state student Council convention. Maybe remember this,
and I went all those years of high school.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
I loved it. Tripped to the big city of.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Ismarck and they'd have these National like motivational speakers, and
I loved it so much. My junior year, I went
home and I was like, mom, how do you become
a motivational speaker?
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Just like I could study that in college? And she
let me down gently. She's like, well, you or she
kind of need.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
A career and then you need like a special story.
Well I recognized that I had exactly neither at that
point in my life, so I just kind of put
it in the back of my mind and just stayed
focused on being a lawyer. But it was always kind
of there, right, So all of a sudden, I wake
up from amnesia find out I have this dreadful illness
that had just been turned into the Netflix movie that
(32:22):
no one's heard of, you know, all this.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Crazy stuff happened, and I was like, wait a minute. First,
you need a career, then you need a story.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
Like yes, yes, I've got this now. So also, who
does that? So I was like, okay, I shall be
a motivational speaker. Fake it till you make it, folks,
And I did, and I love it.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
I love speaking.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
If you'd make me boil it down to one word,
I would say, I'm a resilient speaker. It's you know,
kind of the story of Unwillable. It's the journey, but
it's it's resilience. It's better days ahead, which is one
of my mantras. It's just keep swimming, and it's some
twists of fate.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
I don't want to spoil the end of the.
Speaker 5 (33:03):
Book, but today is April Fool's Day and I had
a baby in twenty twenty, and we all remember that year.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
April Fools twenty twenty is the ending.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
To my book because I had a baby after all
of this health.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
And all of you know, what had happened in my life.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Surprise, we had our third baby and it's our fifth
birthday today, which is really cool. So the journey also
contains a little bit of you know, maybe we don't
control everything in life, and maybe life doesn't always work
out the way we've asked for it or plan, but
maybe some really cool things can happen, Like you can
have this most magic, little miracle baby whose initials are AE,
(33:45):
just like my illness, and maybe you can you know,
resurrect your motivational speaking career after you lose your legal career.
So that's that's kind of if you hear me speak
that's a little little sneak peek into it if you will.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So with all of that, I'm going to follow up
with the last question that we ask everyone, and that's
how would you encourage others to be a good neighbor?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Oh, such a wonderful question. It's almost as if you
two should have.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
A show about knowing and being good neighbors. So what
I would answer on this with ease is show up.
Show up for your neighbors, show up for your friends.
And a while back, I was at the funeral of
my cousin. My cousin Phil died from cancer. He battled
at eight years and he died when we were like
(34:32):
thirty eight and thirty nine years old, and it was
just so heartbreaking, and he left behind his wife and
two little boys, and I'll never forget. At his funeral,
father Gian said, sometimes we're afraid of the flames of
another person's pain, Like we're afraid of the flames of
another's pain. We're afraid we're going to get burned. And
(34:53):
that just meant so much to me because I looked
at that with my own story, and for the most part, everybody.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
On earth I thought showed up for me. They really
did in every way.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
It was gifts, it was flowers, it was cards, it
was donations, it was Elton John socks.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
I do always accept Elton John gifts. For the record.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
It was people bringing my kids gifts. It was people
anonymously sending us things. It was like I could never
repay the way people showed up.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Were some people afraid of me? Yes? Did I know that? Yes?
Speaker 5 (35:23):
Could I tell when I felt like people were kind
of questioning my brain?
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yes? Did that hurt? It did?
Speaker 5 (35:29):
But that was the exception. And I try to give
people the grace that they're coming at it, you know,
with good intentions. And so the way people showed up,
and the way I look at my cousin Phil and
the way he kept showing up for life, you know,
even though his cancer was taking over, that he wasn't afraid.
And I just encourage everyone. If you know someone's houses
(35:51):
on fire, show up and it's okay to ask for help.
My friend father Chris Catamus, who plays a really cool
part of my book, came to visit me after I
got out of the hospital, and I was a wreck,
and I said, I'm ruining my kids, like I'm done.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Now I'm going to ruin them. Life's ruined. And he
stopped me and we talked, and he said, you're gonna.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Need to ask for help here. And that was so
pivotal for me, because notoriously I was so stubborn and
I'm not sure without him like kind of sitting me down,
I being like, you are going to need some help,
and that I had to be able to ask for help.
And that's being in a community, being able to ask
for help. Sometimes you're asking, sometimes you're giving. Both ways
are perfectly fine. So to me, Bismarck is an amazing
(36:36):
community where people show up for one another. And I'm
just I'm proud to live here and I'm eternally grateful
for the way that it felt like everyone on earth
showed up for me when I needed them.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Great. Thank you so much Jackie for joining us, and
thanks to everyone for tuning into These of your Neighbors.
Thank you for wanting to get to know your neighbors
as we hold these important and necessary conversations. If you
found this conversation as important as we do, please make
sure to share it with your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Thank you for tuning in to These Are Your Neighbors
A podcast hosted by the City of Bismarck's Human Relations
Committee and produced by Dakota Media Access. We hope you
were inspired by the stories of citizens driving meaningful change
in Bismarck. For more info on the HRC, visit bismarckand
dot gov.
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