Jenny didn't set out to become someone who testifies before legislators or writes articles that strangers message her about at midnight. She set out to survive.

Her story begins with a childhood defined by a cousin's long illness and a quiet sense of not fitting the mold — too physical, too emotional, too outside the lines of what a Southern girl was supposed to be. It moves through a high school history teacher who noticed her grief and used it, a disclosure her mother couldn't quite hear, and a decision to pack the memory down and keep going.

Decades later, in the middle of a marriage under enormous strain, Jenny found herself in a counselor's office hoping for help. What she got instead was a second round of the same thing — grooming, manipulation, and an abuse of the therapeutic relationship that left her more broken than when she arrived.

In this conversation, she talks about what it feels like to recognize a pattern you lived through twice before you had the language to name it. She talks about transference, about the way predators weaponize your own vulnerability against you, and about the specific devastation of not being believed by the person you most needed to believe you.

She also talks about what came after. The six-month recovery program. The slow return to therapy with a practitioner she could actually trust. The decision to go public — anonymously at first, then fully — after the person who hurt her told his version of events before she could tell hers.

Jenny is now in her second year of pushing for legislation in Mississippi that would criminalize sexual misconduct by licensed counselors against adult clients. The bills have not yet passed. She believes they will.

This episode is for anyone who has ever asked themselves whether what happened to them was real, whether anyone would believe them, or whether speaking would cost more than staying silent. Jenny's answer to all three questions is direct, hard-earned, and worth hearing.

Ashlea was adopted at birth into a loving family — and spent the next two decades not processing a single emotion about it. In this episode, she opens up about what happened when she finally did: the counselor who called her Pollyanna, the rock bottom in her late twenties, and the treatment center where she learned that nearly half the room was adopted.

We talk about disenfranchised grief — the grief you are not allowed to name because it is for someone you never lost, in the conventional sense — and why so many adoptees end up in crisis before anyone thinks to ask them how they are actually doing.

Ashlea is now a nurse practitioner who works to get on the front end of that crisis, helping adoptive families have the conversations before things come apart. She shares what she would tell adoptive parents today, what she wishes her family had known, and what she would go back and say to her younger self.

This is one of the most honest conversations we have had on this show. If you are an adoptee, an adoptive parent, or someone who has ever pushed something too far down for too long — this one is for you.

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Topics covered: adoption grief, adoptee identity, disenfranchised grief, adoptee mental health, adoption and substance use, adoptive parenting, closed adoption, emotional processing, adoption reunion, identity and belonging.

What does it look like when someone loses themselves completely — and then finds their way back?

In this inaugural episode of Law & Porter, Elizabeth Porter sits down with her friend Lizz, whose life story is as raw and honest as it gets. Ten years ago, Elizabeth nearly ended up with Liz's baby — a mix-up that launched a decade-long friendship. Today, Liz sits across from her as a sober, thriving, college-completing, daughter-raising woman who has earned every single piece of who she is.

But getting here wasn't linear.

Lizz grew up with a criminal defense attorney father in small-town Arizona — answering the jailhouse phone in grade school, craving attention the way her dad's clients demanded it. That wiring set the stage for a life of extremes: juvenile delinquency, a deeply abusive marriage, addiction to meth and crack, incarceration, losing custody of her children, and moments where she genuinely didn't want to survive.

In this episode, Lizz talks openly about:

• Growing up as the daughter of a criminal defense attorney and what that did to her wiring

• How battered woman syndrome silenced the fighter she'd always been

• The rock-bottom moment in a bathtub, praying not to wake up

• Getting arrested in a church parking lot — and why she calls it a rescue

• How a domestic violence shelter, a dishwashing job, and one brave phone call changed everything

• Why vulnerability in recovery isn't weakness — it's the whole strategy

• Nearly ten years of sobriety, and what "even keel" feels like when you've lived in fight-or-flight your whole life

Lizz describes herself as a survivor, an ex-con, a mom, a student, a combat social worker in training, and an ever-evolving enigma. Elizabeth calls her the most delicate, strongest person she knows — like a bomb, in the best way.

If you or someone you love is navigating domestic violence, addiction, or recovery, this conversation is for you.

Resources & Support: If this episode resonated with you and you or someone you know needs help, you are not alone. Reach out — there are people ready to catch you.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 | thehotline.org
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 | 988lifeline.org

Topics covered: domestic violence survival, addiction recovery, sobriety, battered woman syndrome, childhood trauma, criminal justice, faith and recovery, community, vulnerability, self-worth, rebuilding after rock bottom