Um, how are you?

Most people answer that question with fine or good.

But obviously it's not always fine and it's usually not even that good.

This is a podcast that asks people to be honest about their pain.

To just be honest about how they really feel, about the hard parts of life.

And guess what?

It's complicated. I'm Nora McNernie. And this is terrible. Thanks

for asking. It's almost like that Pandora's box of like are we sure we want to go there

Nora like are we sure we want to open that door in the back of my brain like

past the dust and the cab webs and just like are we are we actually gonna you

know hit that willy walk a red button and like blast into that space.

If you've been listening to our show since the beginning you might recognize that voice from our seventh episode

titled Unbroken. That voice belongs to Sarah Super, a rape survivor who lived through many people's worst nightmare. In February 2015, Sarah was moving on from a breakup with her ex-boyfriend Alec Neal.

She and her mother had gone to Mexico for a girls trip and Sarah returned to her St Paul

Minnesota apartment feeling refreshed and peaceful.

She didn't know that Alec Neal had been hiding in her closet waiting for her to return.

She didn't know that he had a knife and a sheet.

She didn't know that after she unpacked and got ready for bed, he would rape her, cut her,

and that she would escape with her life and that he would flee and that she

would find herself in a legal system that shames and silences victims and

that she would be the one to break that silence and make the space for others to do the same.

She didn't know that she would become a voice for survivors of sexual violence.

...