Ep. 62 Becoming the Messenger That You've Been Waiting For with Ashlee Marie Preston
Recovering From Reality
Dear Media, Alexis Haines
4.8 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2020
⏱️ 95 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, I had a profound conversation with activist Ashlee Marie Preston. Ashlee is a proud black, transgender woman who is constantly advocating for LGBTQ+ youth and those who are struggling. She is now 8 years sober, and has the humility and kindness to share her story of recovery from childhood abuse, meth, prostitution and homelessness with us. Ashlee is now the messenger she has been waiting for her entire life, and I believe she is a messenger for all of us too. Ashlee grew up unsure of her gender identity in the conservative state of Kentucky. She shares her harrowing story of sexual abuse, being institutionalized as a child, and how her drug addiction began. She moved to California at 19, and found herself struggling to fit in. She was fired from her retail job for being trans and became homeless, without a shelter that would accept her and her trans identity.
On the streets, Ashlee resorted to sex work as a means of survival. She turned to substances to numb out and survive. It was finally Ashlee’s understanding of her relationship with God/universe, that brought her to the breaking point. She began recovery, and found her voice in activism through working with nonprofit organizations, and seeing how poorly people like her were being treated.
Everything that Ashlee thought made her broken and unworthy are now symbols of strength and beauty in her life. Without the work she’s done (in spirituality, sobriety, and service), she would not be helping people like she is today.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast is a deer media production. |
| 0:07.5 | Hey, this is Alexis Haines and welcome to Recovering from Reality, |
| 0:11.6 | where I illuminate the messy and magical path of coming home to yourself. |
| 0:16.1 | Whether you're on the road to recovery, |
| 0:18.2 | seeking self-care techniques for surviving the capitalist machine, |
| 0:21.8 | or just need a moment to remember that you're not alone in your loneliness, |
| 0:26.2 | we're serving up the ultimate truth. |
| 0:28.8 | Your challenges don't define you, how you deal with them does. |
| 0:33.0 | So are you ready to recover from reality? |
| 0:39.2 | We have to get to a place where we can hold people accountable and hold them at the same time. |
| 0:45.0 | And that is my gift. That's my superhuman superhero power. |
| 0:50.8 | Is that again, I had made that commitment that I was going to lean more into the nuance |
| 0:54.9 | instead of the noise. And so now, how am I going to make that an actionable step? |
| 1:00.4 | And so for me, that means holding space for people that fuck up and they get it wrong, |
| 1:06.6 | and they say messed up stuff. And mind you, there's a difference between, you know, |
| 1:12.1 | shielding someone who's making excuses, but we know we typically know. |
| 1:15.8 | You can feel the remorse or if it's just like a half ass emoji. |
| 1:21.6 | There's this huge space. There's a wide aspect from between accountability and cancellation. |
| 1:29.3 | That was a quick clip from this week's episode. I'm so looking forward to you guys hearing |
| 1:35.4 | from Ashley Marie Preston. She is an American media personality, a journalist and activist, |
| 1:43.8 | and the first trans woman to become editor in chief of a national publication. |
| 1:49.6 | She was the first openly trans person to run for state office in California too. |
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