Brian Crombie Radio Hour - Epi 1522 - Restorative Justice with Amanda Carrasco

Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian sits down with Amanda Carrasco — survivor, advocate, legal professional, business owner, and author of Becoming the Brave One: My Journey to Justice. Amanda shares her deeply moving story of surviving multiple sexual assaults, childhood adversity, and the devastating murder of her sister and her sister’s family — and how she transformed that pain into a life dedicated to healing and justice.

Together, they explore her journey through trauma and resilience, her work in restorative justice, and the emotional process of reclaiming identity, self-worth, and hope. Amanda opens up about shame, forgiveness, rebuilding trust, parenting through trauma, and finding purpose through helping others. This unforgettable conversation is a testament to the strength of the human spirit — and a reminder that no matter what you’ve been through, healing is possible and bravery can be reborn.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, you never want to Welcome to the Bran
Crimebe Radio Hour. I saw this really compelling video of
an interview with Amanda Carrasco. She is the family survivor
of homicide and sexual assault. She uses her experiences to
impact the lives of her community and those impacted by
the justice system. She in her day life, is a

(00:39):
successful global business owner. She's a dynamic speaker. She's a
consultant and a leader who values community and justice. In
her first book, Becoming the Brave One, is now recently
been published, and she's a passionate speaker about what's impacted
her and trying to provide some lessons for the rest
of us. Amanda, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Brian, my pleasure. What a what a story? Can you
share a little bit of the story to give us
the background to why you're why you're speaking out, and
then maybe we can turn to why you're speaking at Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Absolutely. Anyone who's familiar with the ace's score test, which
is adverse childhood experiences. Uh, they know that it's basically
sort of a score how to score your trauma if
you will, And it's a score out of ten. The
higher your score is, the more trauma that you've experienced
in your life. Kaiser Permanente in the US, you know,
worked on this research and they did it for the

(01:38):
reason that they were looking in terms of, you know,
who might look to not be successful in life. You know,
have health problems, all kinds of you know, issues and
struggles in all kinds of ways, and so they were
looking for these this connection with trauma. And so my
score is eight out of ten, which is obviously incredibly high.
You know a lot of people will have one. Some

(01:58):
people have to but yeah, so the higher your score is,
the less likely they predict that you will actually succeed
in life. So, you know, you mentioned a couple of
those pieces for that score. I am a survivor of
sexual assault, multiple sexual assaults, and then also a family
survivor of homicide. And you know the majority of those

(02:19):
things happened before I was you know, even twenty years old.
So a lot of it is you know that childhood
period that you know, formulation period, you know, or you know,
getting your identity who you are all that time that
you should be loved and cared for and taking care of,
and it was kind of the opposite. So and then,
as you mentioned, I am a passionate speaker for sortive justice.

(02:42):
I've pursued the law. I'm in house legal counsel now
here with a nonprofit organization in California working with incarcerated youth.
I also do consulting in terms of corrections and different
facilities because I obviously had a lot to heal from
and restorative justices played a key and critical part in
that healing. And so it's something that I want other

(03:02):
people to know about so they can find it too.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
So you know, I appreciate you coming on and sharing
what you've shared. Can you share any more? Can like
it's I apologize, like it's incredible that this has happened
to you, But can you tell us any more about it?
Are you comfortable doing so?

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah? I am. I appreciate you asking. You know, different
people will have different comfortability levels depending on where they're at.
I am a public speaker. I have written a book,
so you know it is out there, So I don't
mind you know to some degree, and so I was
sexually assaulted growing up too were family members, others were
outside of the family. Some were single instances and some

(03:41):
were multiple instances. And that is important, and it matters
because one of the men who sexually assaulted me I
did have a resort of justice circle with and like
I say, like that brought me a significant portion of healing.
And so that's why that's really important. The other piece
is that when I was sixteen years old, I moved

(04:01):
into a different home. I had been living with my
mom and I moved into a home with my sister.
Her name was Susan. I met her when I was
eight years old, and she adopted me immediately. She introduced
me to everyone, including her own biological family, as this
is my sister. We would go out, this was my sister,
And so I was not biologically related to her, but

(04:22):
you know, for any other purposes, that was my sister.
And I was so thankful for her and her oversight,
guidance love. You know, she just sort of picked me out.
I had changed schools and she saw me and just
adopted me into her heart and her life. And I
needed that. I needed someone to see me so she
had some similar you know, backgrounds. We bonded over that

(04:45):
she was looking for healing on things, and she wanted
the best for me. So I really appreciated, you know,
who she was and the role that she played in
my life, and it was certainly that of a big
sister in a lot of ways. You know, we had
a lot of fun. She also was very overprotected in
some different ways. And so I moved in with her
and her husband, and there were three children in the home.

(05:06):
Her husband was the biological father of their twins, who
at that time were thirteen months old, and she also
had a three year old son from a different father.
But her husband was really the only father that he
had known, and unbeknownst, you know, obviously to us, he
decided he didn't want to be a father anymore. This

(05:27):
is her husband didn't want to be a father, didn't
want to be a husband, and figured that the best
way out of that would be to end their lives,
take life insurance money, and leave. So he had premeditatively
planned that one night in July nineteen ninety four, that
he was going to end our lives and you know,

(05:49):
go with like a ruse that you know, he didn't
know what happened. He's a grieving father and husband and
carry on with his life. The only reason that I'm
here is because my sister was being over detective and
we had had an argument because I wanted to go
on a road trip with a boy and she had
said no, which was very wise, but I was upset.
I was angry. I wanted to do what I wanted

(06:10):
to do. I should have been allowed to, you know,
go and do what I wanted. And so I told
her actually wanted to have a sleepover that night at
another friend's house, and she said, yes, that was fine.
So I went to my friend's house and that night
she actually called me and said, listen, I know you're
really upset and it really, like, you know, hurts my heart,
like you know, can you come home tomorrow and can
we talk? And I said, yeah, we can do that,

(06:32):
Like I understand. I had cooled down, and I said,
so I'll come home tomorrow and we'll figure it out,
and she was like, okay, great. So the last words
that she ever said to me in her life where
I love you. And that was such a significant gift
because losing her in the way that I did was
so hard, and had we been on bad terms, I
think that would have compounded the trauma and grief from that.

(06:56):
So I'm really grateful for her. But the next morning
I got a phone. I was woken up by my
friend who brought me the phone. My biological dad had
been looking for me because someone had reached out to
him that there had been a fire at the house
and they had a woman's body, but they didn't know
if it was her or me. So my dad, you know,
started looking for me and then found me. So we

(07:19):
drove over to the home, and you know, through the
sequence of events, what really had happened was that he
had killed her. He had killed one of the twins, well,
both the twins, but left one of the twins's body
in the home, taken the other one out, and he
had set the house on fire, you know, leaving the
three year old to die as well. Only a neighbor

(07:39):
actually rescued him, so he survived and it took a
little while. Yeah, it's a lot like and that's not it.
That's just the overview, Like it's not even the details
of how he carried that out.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
So is he in jail today?

Speaker 3 (07:55):
He is now, Yeah, he is it took them, you know,
several months to build a case against him, because I mean,
his DNA is in the home, right, there were no
like eyewitnesses that said, oh I watched him come out
of the home, you know, this kind of a thing, right,
So that added challenges. They actually used what's called as

(08:15):
a mister big sting. Those aren't legal in the US
really anymore. In Canada, they are as long as there's
corroborating evidence, because they can be a bit problematic from
a legal perspective. So they set up a ruse and
so he ended up confessing on tape to what he did.
He you know, said he was innocent. He still sort
of claims innocence, but even still, like there's things that

(08:38):
don't come out at trial for various reasons, you know,
rules of evidence, but things that we as family knew,
and especially as we talked afterwards, you know, and sort
of putting pieces together from each other, it was it
was not something that we wanted to believe that he did.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
You don't want to you don't want to have your
family murdered. You certainly don't want it to happen by
someone that you loved and trusted. But yet this, you know,
was what we came to realize. This was actually it
the guy that we knew that we thought was a loving,
caring you know man did actually plan these things.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
And you know, how did you find out that it
was premeditated?

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Well, I mean there there was like a there was
a plan, right like. So that was part of his confession,
was talking about the fact that he didn't want to
be you know in this I was there when the
insurance people came and you know, set up their life insurance,
so that was a part. It was only a few
months before he murdered them that they had set up
this life insurance. It wasn't something that had been you know,
on for a long time. So there was some significant

(09:36):
pieces of evidence that that came into play, that came
out at trial that you know, really spoke to his
guilt and the fact. I mean, we know, especially with
domestic violence cases, sometimes there's an argument or or something
and someone sort of snaps and then murders their their partner. However,
in this case that you know was different. It was premeditated.
So he was convicted on first degree murder charges for

(09:57):
that premeditation piece, and he still in jail he's eligible
for parole. I do go and testify at or sorry
present a victim's statement at parle board hearings, requesting that
he not be a release because he has not changed.
He's not shown any remorse or accountability. And in my
work with incarcerated people, I know that change is possible.

(10:18):
I've seen it. I've literally seen people transform their lives.
They have not you know, they're not the same people
that they were, and I don't see that in him.
And so I do go before the board and I
do ask them to not release him because he's not
done the work and I don't believe he's safe to
our communities.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
How is the the other child that that escaped.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, I mean he's he's had a lot of his
own life and he would need to, you know, speak
to his own journey in that kind of thing. But
we share, we share trauma, we share you know. I
love him with my whole heart, and I think all
of us just kind of did the best that we
could in those circumstances, because it's a it's a pretty
horrific thing to lose your family in that kind of

(11:02):
a way.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
I can imagine. Let's go back to the sexual assaults
if we could, can you tell us anything more about that?
Is there? Was there a history of it? Was there?
Generational trauma was there? Poverty was there? Drugs was there?
Like what alcohol?

Speaker 3 (11:18):
What was?

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Is there any history that's relevant there?

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah? I think certainly the cyclical nature of abuse of
people who've been abused perpetuating that. And obviously that doesn't
always have to happen. It doesn't always happen, but you know, statistically,
there seems to be a very high rate of people
who have been assaulted than continuing to assault, and especially
among men personally, I believe it's because we haven't done

(11:44):
a great job of allowing men to have safe spaces
to talk about being abused and destigmatizing those types of things,
so that tends to sort of perpetuate this cycle. Women
have a lot more ability to be vulnerable to kind
of come forward. Now there's less I'm not saying there's
no stigma, there's less than their hus been. But for
men that's even more of a challenge. And there's also

(12:05):
lack of resources and supports, you know, for where to
get help when when that has happened to you, and
so when you internalize it, when you hold things in
it can have an impact. So I know that's true
in my case for at least one of my offenders.
But like I say, late there were there were several,
So I can't speak to all of them and all

(12:26):
of their stories. Yeah so I but but like I say,
at least in that one, I know that.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
That you said that you left living with your mother.
Did your mother know that this was happening and not
protect you or what?

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, my mom did not know at the time. And
I will give credit, you know, for my parents. I
know a lot of people come forward with their stories
and are not believed. When I came forward to my
parents at the age of ten, they did believe me immediately.
They were you know, I was raised in a church
in a conservative Christian sort of background, and you know,

(13:01):
they went to the church pastor, especially because it did
involve other, you know, young men that were in the
church community as well, and unfortunately, at that point the
lead pastor said, you know, we're going to deal with this.
We don't need police, we don't need to involve anything
or anybody else, and so we're just going to deal
with this. And so that's kind of how it lasts
it went for a year, and they just said, you know,
don't don't you know, make sure nobody's you know, in

(13:22):
the same place at the same time, and that kind
of a thing. They just set out some plans and
standards that were not healthy, not safe, not sustainable, and so,
you know, I ended up being assaulted again, and at
that point my mom did call the police, and so
the police were involved. He was charged, he pled guilty,
and did you know, go to a facility. I believe
it was thirteen or fourteen months. I could be wrong,

(13:44):
but I think it was over a year that he
was there, and there were you know, there were various
other assaults too, and I do talk about them in
my book that did not lead to criminal charges or
that you know, I didn't report for years later for
a variety of reasons. There's a lot of reasons why
people don't come forward. So when we hear the statistics
of like one in four women, you know that that's

(14:05):
not actually a valid statistic in the sense that that's
only concluding the number of women that come forward and report.
The problem is that our current justice system is really failing,
you know, survivors of sexual assault in such a huge way,
because the whole process is re traumatizing, and you know,
the number of convictions are very, very abysmal, and so

(14:27):
why do that. So I again, I understand why people
are not necessarily reporting. I can see that, which again
is why I'm an advocate for resort of justice, because
we can see some better outcomes, some safer, non re
traumatizing options that could really help survivors and lower recidivism rates.
So you have, you know, offenders who are not repeating

(14:48):
crimes at a higher rate than our current punitive system,
which is just kind of spitting people back out, and
it's cyclical.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Sounds like something must have should have happened to the
past or did he suffering kind sequences?

Speaker 3 (15:01):
No, there's nothing that happened to him, which was it was?
I mean, I don't hm, I'd have to I'd have
to actually think about that from a legal perspective in
terms of what should have happened. He was also like,
he was a medical doctor in the community, so he knew, Yeah,
nothing happened to him. He's passed. He's been passed away
for a number of years now, so that is you

(15:22):
know what it is. But I and I do I
kind of talk about that in my book, because I
write about how leaders should be held to a higher accountability,
you know, like that your impact on people's lives, that's
a significant responsibility that should not be taken lightly. And
and we do need to hold leaders accountable when they
fail for things like that, because it did result in
me getting assaulted again because of what he said, because

(15:45):
of what he did. So I don't carry the like,
you know, any anger in terms of those things at
this point. That's not going to serve me. But I will,
you know, talk about how it's unjust and how we
need to do better moving forward, because I think that matters.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
What an unvoe livable story, what an unbelievable history. I
just it's it's astounding, and it's astounding that you've come
out of it so well. And I guess that leads
to sort of two conversations that we need to have.
One is that with a with a rating of eight
out of ten on the Trama scale or whatever it
is that you described. And then number two, you know

(16:21):
your desire to to do this, uh, speaking on restorative
justice and involvement in restorative justice, Why did you turn
out so well and and why are you interested in
helping people instead of just being mad at everybody and
and wallowing in your your trauma. We're gonna take a

(16:41):
break for some messages and we come back in two minutes.
I'm gonna ask Amanda what about that? How how comes
she turned out so well? You know, what's the secret
success there? And why does she want to advocate for
restorative justice? There was everyone back into many.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Stream us Live at SAGA nine sixty AM dot.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
C A Welcome back everyone. We're having a really powerful
conversation with Amanda Carrasco. She is the survivor of a
sexual assault of a homicide while she was a youth

(17:24):
and turned out it would appear pretty good and as
now a speaker an advocate for restorative justice. Amanda, before
we get into the questions of you know, you say
that I don't even know what the scale is, but
you referred to a scale about trauma and you said
you're an eight out of ten, which means that I
guess you were pretty damn traumatized relative to whatever the

(17:45):
scale is all about. I'm and you turned out it
would appear very well. So I'd like to ask you
what the keys to success are on that, and now
you're advocating for restorative justice. I'd love to hear you
know why you think that's helpful and why you would
have the empathy for people such that you'd want to help,
you know, I would sort of imagine someone that's been
through your experience would be pretty mad, And I wouldn't

(18:08):
blame you if you wanted to hurt people rather than
help people. So that's interesting. But I was wondering, do
you have something from your book that you could read
for us to just give us a sense of what
your book would be like if we read it. And also,
by the way, what's the title?

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, so the book is called Becoming the Brave One. Oh,
I've got my little screen filter on. That's not helpful.
Being the Brave One my journey to Justice. Credit to
my publisher for that amazing cover. But yeah, and it's
really just because, I mean, bravery is kind of what
it took, you know, And it doesn't mean that I'm

(18:44):
necessarily like smarter than or that kind of thing. But
bravery is really just about showing up, you know, even
if you don't feel like you got it all together,
even if you don't feel like you know anything it's
it's just you do things anyways. That's that's courage, right,
doing things in spite of not because you feel like
you're the most confident person. You just keep showing up.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
That's really real.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
So yeah, I'm happy to read something here from the
second half. The book's actually written in two different parts.
So the first part is the journey through the harm
and it talks a lot, you know, in terms of
my experiences and that kind of a thing. And then
the second part is the journey through the healing. So
I want to read part of the second in chapter
six because it really speaks to those questions that you

(19:25):
have about like how did I go from there to here?
What does that look like? So how do you survive
that stuff? So I wrote part one of this book
is not everything that happened, but it's enough enough to
show that I should not have made it. Let alone
be living my best life as I am. Welcome to
the good part. Some may have skipped right to the
section because it should contain all the answers, something like

(19:46):
seven easy steps to complete healing and wholeness from complex trauma.
If only life were like that, I assure you it
is not, and I do not have all the answers,
But what I can offer you is a journey into
what I needed to find myself and show up bravely
in the world. So in lieu of perfect and can
write answers for easy steps, I can offer you a theme.
That theme of my life is justice. It's how I survived, healed,

(20:08):
and now thrive. When we say the word justice, we
often associate it with images of courtrooms, judges, and prisons.
But the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle developed the concept
of justice as being a virtue from the soul into
a heart attitude of obedience. Justice was the ideal of
human relationships. They were conceptualizing the pathway for harmony and

(20:28):
society and how we can live in a good way
with each other. So that was I think that's kind
of really the idea and concept of my life is
that there were so many injustices that happened when I
was young. It was like I was on this pursuit
and certainly, like you kind of mentioned about being angry
and bitter and even you know, wanting to hurt like

(20:49):
I did. I definitely did you know. I remember being
seventeen years old having to leave my town because they
had moved the trial somewhere else. I was supposed to
be grindating high school and in classes and you know,
laughing about boys and you know whatever things that seventeen
year olds are doing, and instead I'm testifying at the
murder trial of my sister. And so I remember standing

(21:12):
outside that courthouse and staring at him and wishing that
I had a gun because I would have killed him.
I did want to commit harm. I really really did
want him dead. I was in so much pain from
what he had done and how he had hurt everyone,
like all of us, and the betrayal that came again
because of who he was in our relationship with him.

(21:33):
So I did carry that for a long time. I
did kind of, you know, just go through the motions
of life, but I wasn't really living. It took a
long time to sort of start being able to process,
you know, what had happened and how that impacted me.
And it's really kind of been like a twenty year journey,
Like I'm still on the journey. I have not arrived,

(21:55):
but I'm at a place that isn't where I used
to be. You know, I do have some successes now
that I didn't have before. I can look at myself
in the mirror and think that girl, she's actually kind
of pretty and she's really smart, you know, And I
didn't used to do that before. I would look in
the mirror and pick myself apart. Right. I didn't pursue things.
I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a teenager.

(22:17):
That was really what I wanted to do and what
I wanted to be, But I didn't pursue it. I
didn't think I was smart enough. I didn't think I
was capable. I didn't think I could do it. And
here I am now with two master's degrees in law,
four in total, but two of them in law, you know,
and I have like more than held my own in
a courtroom. So we're good. We're there. But yeah, so
I mean getting to that place though, it's taken a

(22:39):
lot of different things, and I you know, my book
isn't seven easy steps, because there just aren't. Everybody's journey
is a little different, and I learned from people along
the way. Therapy was also a key critical component, you know.
But but going into different like groups sometimes just converse
conversing one on one with someone, reading someone else's book,

(23:01):
which is a huge part of why I published mine,
because reading someone else's story, even though there's lots of
people that I've never met, you know, Tara Westover wrote
educated that book deeply impacted me. I think Genie she wrote,
I'm glad my mom is dead, and I was like,
oh my gosh, you know, like so I'm never probably
going to meet these people, but They've had a deep

(23:21):
impact on my life, and so it's really my hope
that my book does the same by telling my journey
and my story and looking for ways to heal, not
wanting to carry that anger, because that was only putting
me in a prison, not him, you know, the people
that harm me, it doesn't impact them. But it impacted
my kids that I was like an angry mom, you know,

(23:42):
and that I was having this perspective. So that was
the work I had to do.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
You have your own kids, now, I do.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
I have four amazing kids, two who are successful adults,
you know, and two that are getting there. Thank goodness,
I'm excited to have all adults.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
And they know your story.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Yeah they do. And they actually have their own copy
of the book. I know. None of them have read
it cover to cover as of yet. Some of them
have like picked through different pieces and they've known so
a couple things. One they've definitely always known my story,
like we've I've as age appropriate. I've always kind of
like been open about my experiences. My kids were not

(24:22):
allowed sleepovers and I just said, because we're not doing
that because of my experiences. They knew that. They didn't
always like it, but they always kind of accepted it.
There really wasn't that much pushback. They understood some of
the trauma things that would would come out in my
life over reactions or different things. And so my kids
are amazing to have kind of, you know, grown with me.

(24:43):
And they were my original guinea pigs when I first
learned about resortive justice, because like I say, I've always
loved the law. I had never heard about resort of
justice until about twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, and I started
like learning about this concept. It was very foreign to me,
you know, that we would maybe bring people together, that
the victim would be the center. Like, it's so different

(25:03):
than the system we've all been raised with and come
to know and come to expect and what we come
to look for as a justice system. But yet so
seldom find justice in it. So restorative justice isn't just
about like a criminal justice system. It's really about our
relationships with each other. So you can use it in
you know, healthcare, nursing, politics, like every aspect. So I

(25:26):
started having circles with my kids. Whenever there was a
conflict or something, I'd be like, we're going to sit down.
We're going to talk about you know, we're going to
ask the three RJ questions, who was harmed, what are
their needs, and how do we move forward to meet
those needs. So we started doing that in our home
and it's it's created a quite a beautiful thing. Like

(25:47):
I was. I was with one of my kids, the
adult ones, you know, several months ago, and she said, Mom,
I just don't feel really heard right now, you know,
Can we just have a circle? And I was like, yes,
yes we can, you know, and so give them the
language of things, and God bless Berne Brown. My daughter
texts me today and she says, Mom, I'm gonna shame
spiral And I was like, great, let's talk about that,
you know, like, let's let's talk about our emotions. That

(26:09):
wasn't something I wasn't hard to have emotions a head.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Right, shame too. What is what is a shame spiral?

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, so a shame spiraler. Really, you're kind of like
you're in your own head and it's those negative tapes
they're gonna play. We can there's a difference between guilt
and shame. So again I want to full credit Brene Brown.
This is not a metacrastcal material. This is all learned
from her and her shame research. She's got some amazing
things out there, books, Ted Talks, Yeah, she's really good
stuff that really helped me. And so shame spiral just

(26:39):
getting in your own head with the negative tapes in
terms of yourself. And I used to do this, like
something would happen and instead of going, oh, you know
that person did that and it looks like that, I
would be like, it's because you're stupid, You're an idiot.
You should never put yourself out there. Why are you
doing this? You know? And so you're shame spiraling because
you've got some about something. It's triggered at some piece

(27:01):
of shame within you. And I'm spiraling because I'm going
in my own head about it and I'm saying all
these negative things to myself about it, and so part
of the one of the biggest parts of getting out
of shame spiral is talking, you know. And so I
have friends too that I'll be like, I'm in a
shame spiral, you know, can we get on a call tonight.
I need to talk about it, and you know, and

(27:21):
even just sometimes just just conversing, you know, like one
of my staff came to me and he said, hey,
you know what, I've been feeling this way and I
really haven't said anything, and I really need to and
I feel better now that I've talked about it, you know.
So getting out of shame is working with people that
you trust, people that know you, that will hold you
accountable but also uplift you. Right, you need both. You

(27:43):
don't want just yes people around you that are like
you're just great all the time. That's so useless, honestly
and dangerous. It's in fact dangerous because then you can
go down, like quite some horrible paths because someone is
just telling you yay, yes, go. However, someone who's willing
to hold you accountable and say, listen, you're not a
terrible person, but yeah, you kind of messed up in

(28:06):
this area. You know, how do you think you could
have done better and why did you respond that way?
You know, and work through it with you.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
So you talked about how this therapy was helpful. What
got you into therapy? Was there? Was there a catalyst?
Was there a person? Was there one person that motivated you?
Was there a book? Was there? You know? What was
the catalyst for you to look for this help that
ended up being helpful.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
So there's a couple. Actually, first I got some really
good therapy after I got divorced. I've also been in
bad therapy. So there's that not all therapists are great,
and not all therapists are the right match either. Also
some of them have different skill sets. So the therapist
that I saw after my divorce was really critical for
me in learning about, you know, what were my core

(28:48):
values and what was it costing me to remain in
that marriage, because I was like sacrificing myself because it
was compromising my values to kind of pretend that everything
was okay, to pretend, you know, this was a good,
healthy marriage when it really really wasn't. And so so
that really helped me in terms of some of my
my just general self confidence and aligning my decisions with

(29:08):
my values and seeing that the more that I did
not align those two things, that was where I was
compromising myself. So I mean, we had to establish what
my values were and figure that piece out. So that's
a big part. And so Tom Brooks has a book.
I'm trying to think and I can't remember off the
top of my head what the value is mapping. It's
values mapping. That's his book. And so you can figure out,

(29:30):
like what are your core values and then you look
at you know, which of those are You know, which
of your life decisions are in line with those values
and which aren't, because some will take you closer to
like who you are, and those reaffirm you and they're
very positive. And when you make decisions that aren't who
you are, like when I'm yelling at you know, my kids,
or if I'm doing something that I you know, shouldn't

(29:50):
or whatever, like, it takes you further away from who
you are, and you disconnect with yourself. And that's the
thing too. Abuse can really disconnect you with who you are,
and so reconnecting to you who you are, being confident
in who you are is really really integral. When I
talk about justice and the whole piece of relationships. You

(30:11):
have to start with a just relationship with yourself. If
you are not in a good relationship with yourself, it's
almost impossible to kind of really have super great, healthier
relationships around you.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
So if you had it on through, you deserve those.
If you hadn't gone through this therapy until after your divorce,
and that's when you learned to reconnect with yourself and
appreciate yourself. Were you the problem in the divorce?

Speaker 3 (30:35):
I think that there's problems everywhere, do you know what
I mean? We're imperfect people, and so I certainly saw
some of my contributions, right like, there's and that's the thing.
We look at divorce and we go, well, whose fault
is it? Well, but why why do we need to
frame it that way? Right? So, I think that there
were contributions I brought that were negative to our marriage.

(30:55):
I think there were contributions that he brought that were
negative to our marriage. I also think we were very
abaud pairing who really genuinely did love each other in
the beginning. But I think we were kind of doing
from the beginning but didn't really want to didn't really
want to see that Neither of us are bad people,
Like neither of us are bad people, but we were
definitely a bad combo and we both had so much

(31:17):
to work through in terms of trauma, and I was
very dedicated and determined to not stay who I was.
I wanted, I wanted better. You know, I knew that
this wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
So listen listening to your story, which is just an
unbelievable experience. I guess I would have thought intuitively that
either you hate men and you'd always hate men because
men did all these terrible things to you, and or
that you love the same kind of men that there's
so many people that you hear stories of that uh

(31:48):
they make the same bad decisions that that their their
mother made, or that that that their their their four
four mothers uh made and that got them into the
bad situations that they were. So did you pick the
wrong guys because you were repeating similar mistakes to what
might have had either with you and or your your
your mother in the in the past. Or do you

(32:09):
just hate men?

Speaker 3 (32:10):
No, I've never hated men, that's for sure. That's that's
not a thing. I definitely didn't like blame their gender.
But I agree with you in terms of picking the
wrong men, because I think there was some repeat patterns.
I also think that I didn't believe that I deserve
to be treated well. So if you don't believe that, you.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Didn't believe you deserve to be treated well, why because
you had been treated poorly in the past. Correct, So
there was something that was what I knew, you were
blaming yourself.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yes, which is like that's what children do, right, They
think it's their fault, right, it's their fault, and we're
I mean I was taught as a kid like the
adults were, you know, the smart ones, the authority, they
you know, they were to be trusted blindly, you know,
all these kinds of things. So if it can't be
their fault because their adults and they're good and they're

(33:01):
you know, then it's got to be me.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Right. So you said something really powerful and I didn't
catch it, but it was something along the lines of that.
You had to move on otherwise you'd be caught in
the prison. What was that?

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, So that's bitterness and anger, because when you're harmed,
you're going to get angry, you're going to get better, right,
Like that's a natural human reaction if something has happened,
that's unjust. I hope that we do get angry. We
need to be angry at unjust things. Anger itself is
not a bad thing, but how we respond and what

(33:40):
we do with that, that's what matters the most.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
But then you said you want you had to get
over it, otherwise you'd be the one that would be
in prison.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
That's right, Yeah, Because so do you choose to like
deal with that and motivate you in healthy ways or
do you carry it and let it fester like coals
within you and you become an angry person because you're
reading it.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
But you went through a lot, maybe most of you're
out of life until after your first divorce and uh
and and uh not first divorce to your divorce, I
apologize and and uh and you went through the therapy
before you came to this conclusion. So you went for
a long time with all this bitterness and anger? Is
that true? I did?

Speaker 3 (34:19):
That's good?

Speaker 2 (34:20):
I did it impact your life? How did that? What
impact your life?

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah? As I mentioned before, like I saw a lot
of it come out of my kids, you know, Like
I used to yell at my kids a lot. I
would be short tempered, those types of things, and same
thing like my contributions with my husband, like I would
be short tempered with him, like I just I had
very high expectations of myself and my family and I
didn't have a lot of grace. So it came out
in my closest relationships. And I feel like that is

(34:47):
pretty common, to be honest with you, like what we're
carrying comes out on those around us. So those were
things that I needed to deal with and and you know,
and unfortunately it had that negative impact. And kid, that's
what I say. My kids are amazing, right, Like we
are in good relationship and I love them, but it's
also because I've owned it, you know. We've talked about, like,

(35:09):
you know, the harm that I caused them and that
I can't take back. And they understand why, you know,
because sometimes understanding why is helpful for developing empathy. But
it doesn't excuse and justify. It doesn't mean I shouldn't
be held accountable and that I've worked really, really hard,
you know to destroy these patterns, you know, and I'm

(35:30):
not there yet. We're getting there, though, We're getting.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
But it sounds like it sounds like number one therapy
after your divorce and number two. Some of these books
that you're quoting and you obviously know them well enough
to quote them, and the concepts were important. Was there
anything else? Was there? Was there? Family? Was their friends?
Was there a teacher? Was there a someone else in
your law firm? Like? Was there anything else that was

(35:53):
a catalyst to you coming at the other side? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Community is everything, you know. I think that meeting my
sister sort of really carried me through that first chunk
of my life, and then obviously losing her was was
super traumatic, like a massive wound that I will always
carry with me. But there's definitely been people along the
way that have come in. We are not built to
be alone, like we were created for community and so

(36:20):
reaching out to people, having different people at various times,
you know that have stepped into your life. Some have
been consistent, you know, like my very best friend. I
did meet her in grade five. We didn't really get
close until much later in school, but you know, we're
like we're close now, We're the closest ever, and so
she's been with me through like everything. There are some

(36:40):
people though, that have come in at certain times. You know,
I met in a mom's group and you know, we
were close for like a couple of years. You learn
and grow with each other. Life changes, so there's all
kinds of different people that come into your life at
different times and seasons. Some stay a long time, some
stay a short time, but they all add and contribute

(37:00):
to you know who you are, to your learning and
growth hopefully you know. So, Yeah, community is very significant.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
What a powerful line that we're not built to be alone.
Community is everything. We're going to take a break for
some messages and come back with some concluding comments with
our guests. That's got like one of those stories that
that that you hate to hear, but that you and
that you appreciate hearing because there's a lot of lessons
in it. Stay with uz. Everyone back in two.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Minutes stream us Live at SAGA nine sixty am dot C.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
A welcome back everyone to the bran Crmebry Radio. Ho.
What an incredible story with Amanda Carrasco. She's got four
master's degree. What are the four degrees? And you said
tour in law? What are the four degrees in?

Speaker 3 (37:56):
Yeah? So I have the first is business leadership, the
secondest public police, and then the last two are law.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
How can you have two different masters in a low
it's got to be different.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
Types of law, once from the UK and ones from
the US.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Actually fantastic. And you're in Vancouver now.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
I'm actually in California. I do go between Vancouver and California,
but more a little bit more in California than Vancouver.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Right now, Okay, great restorative justice, tell us a little
bit about that way, Like you know, it sounds like
an airy fairy u woke kind of of comment or
system is it? How does it work? Does it work? Right?

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yeah? It works very well actually, which is why you know,
one of my one of my master's degrees was on
restorative justice law reforms. So I've dug into the statistics,
the research. But like I say, like I've had that
experience myself. I did sit down with one of the
men who's setually assaulted me, and I did a couple
of years ago also sit down with a man that
murdered my sister because as victims like we have needs

(38:53):
and so it's important that our needs matter and restorative justice.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
But one accepted respondsibility the other did not.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
That's correct, That's actually exactly correct. Yeah, I still benefited
from both meetings. However, there's certainly something when a person
who harmed you takes responsibility and communicates their remorse to you,
like that's that's the biggest gift that they can really
give you, because you can't take back the harm. You know,
you can't undo things. My sister's not coming back, you

(39:23):
can't take back the sexual assault. I'm always going to
live with some of these triggers and some of these
things that I have because of those experiences. But to
at least know that A You're sorry and B You're
not going to do that to someone else, you know,
as victims like we want to be the last one.
I want to know that you're not going to hurt
somebody else, you know. So that's that's a significant thing,

(39:43):
and we find that resort of justice is a better
way to hold people accountable. It's harder. Some people think
it's easier, and it's not. The people that I work
with that are incarcerated. They've said, Amanda, I could sit
in my jail cell all day, but like to face
the person that I harmed, like that's terrifying, and that's
that's worse. So it's a significant piece in terms of

(40:04):
developing empathy, which is huge for people who commit crimes
because it so often is they dehumanized their victims and
so this brings humanity back to all of the parties
and we can address the reasons of why we got
here and what that looks like. And resortive justice can come,
you know, before a court setting. It can happen without
you know, police involvement. So organizations like Community Justice Initiatives

(40:28):
there's a branch in British Columbia. There's also a branch
in Ontario that do an incredible job of working through conflict,
whether you know, with the carceral system or not. But
it can also come after the fact, like I sat with,
you know, the man who murdered my sister twenty eight
years after So there's not like it's too late for
you for RJ. Even if the person that harmed you is,

(40:50):
you know, no longer alive. There's surrogacy, So there's all
kinds of different ways that if you've been harmed, that
we can address this harm in a very healthy and
more sustainable way. So there's a lot of work that's
being done. Survivors for Justice Reform is led by Marle
Liss and that's an incredible organization that is pushing for

(41:11):
restorative justice, and what we're saying is we want victims
to have that option. Right now, people just accept that
you go to the police, you go through a trial,
you go through these things. But what if that's not
what a victim wants. We want them to have that
other option. They need to have that choice. That has
to be an informed choice. So people need to know
what restorative justice is, what that would look like, and

(41:32):
have that as an option for them. So that's the
biggest piece is giving victims their agency back to decide
how they best want to move forward.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
This has been a really helpful conversation today. Thank you.
You know, you've talked about shame spirals and talking have
accountability and have people that will help you get out
of it, not act as sort of yes men. You've
talked about how to reconnect to yourself. You've got to
reconnect to yourself first before you can reconnect with other people.
You've talked about developing empathy through restorative justice and UH

(42:07):
and that they dehumanize their victims and you need to
humanize their victims bye bye bye by having the restorative justice.
And you've talked about how community is everything that we're
not built to be alone, and that through friends, through family,
through therapy, through other people that you've run into, that
they helped you through all of your challenges. And I

(42:30):
think more importantly than anything, you've given us inspiration that
trauma doesn't have to own you. And as you said,
put you in prison, your own prison for the rest
of your life, that you can get out and some
of that it may not be forgiveness, but it's but
it's certainly moving on and UH and and dealing with it,
not letting the UH, the the the hate and the

(42:53):
anger and the bitterness UH control you, and and moving on.
So I really appreciate you sharing your story as openly
as you did, and I really appreciate you writing the book,
and I really appreciate you coming on tonight remind us
all please. You know what, what's the title of your book.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
It's called Becoming the Brave One, My Journey to Justice.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Becoming the Brave One. Wow, you brave. You're very brave.
I really thank you for being so brave and and
for being an inspiration for all of us, because I
think all of us, hopefully the vast journey of us,
don't go through problems nearly as bad as that you've
gone through. But I think most of us have some
challenges in life and we've got some trauma. Again, not

(43:36):
nearly as bad as yours, but we've got some and
a lot of us give up and don't think about
the things that you've talked about about moving on and
talking to other people and getting therapy and getting out
of the shame spiral and reconnecting with people and thinking
about community. And so you're an incredible inspiration.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Thank you, Thank you brain.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
That's a show for tonight, everybody, Thank you for joining us.
And as you think about this, have a great weekend.
And you know what I think, be be that part
of Amanda's community and reach out and help someone else
that might need some help and get them out of
a shame spiral or give them that reconnection or give

(44:19):
them that confidence, or help them get over their hate
or anger, because I think that we could all use
a little bit more empathy in life. Good night, everybody, Amanda,
thank you so much. That's our show for tonight. Thank
you everyone for joining us. I'm on every Monday through
Friday at six o'clock on nine to sixty am. You
can stream me online at Triple W, Saga ninety sixty
am dot CA. You can you get all my podcasts

(44:40):
videocasts on Briancrombie dot com, on YouTube, on Facebook and Instagram,
and on Audible podcasts, on Apple podcasts and on speak Easy.
Thank You, check me out, Good night.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Everybody, No Radio, no Problem. Stream is live on Saga
nice x d A M dot c a