213. From Survivor to Storyteller: Writing Through Trauma With Adriene Caldwell
213. From Survivor to Storyteller: Writing Through Trauma With Adriene Caldwell
In this powerful and raw conversation, Kayla interviews author Adriene Caldwell about her extraordinary journey from childhood trauma, abuse, addiction and suicidal ideation — through to resilience, writing her memoir Unbroken Life Outside the Lines, motherhood, and hope. Adriene gets candid about the years she was both victim and villain in her own story, why she refused to sugar‑coat anything, and how she now uses her voice to show others a way out.
Content & trigger warning: This episode discusses childhood abuse, extreme poverty, addiction, suicidal ideation and attempts, foster‑care trauma, and parental mental illness. If you’re in a sensitive season, please listen with care, use headphones, or consider waiting until you feel supported. Viewer discretion advised.
Listeners will walk away with:
real examples of how to turn the worst chapters into a new narrative
a journal prompt and song recommendation you can use immediately
reflections on how honesty—not perfection—can be healing
Connect With Adriene:
Embodied Activation:
Put on a happy, positive song—something uplifting that makes you smile—and let yourself feel it. Whether it's dancing, swaying, or just breathing with it, let the music shift your state.
Transcript
Kayla: All right. Hello Adriene and welcome to the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast.
Adriene: Thank you very much. It's a privilege to be here with your audience and with
Kayla: you. Yes, it is a privilege to have you because not only are you a writer and we're gonna talk about your very powerful book, one that. I had a hard time getting through because it was that powerful, and you are definitely a warrior after all of the things you have been through.
So if you feel comfortable, I would just love for you to share what you have been through and why this book was so difficult for me to get through. Sure.
Adriene: As you said, I'm Adrian. I'm Adrian Caldwell. I'm the author of Unbroken Life Outside the Lines. It's the story of my life from early childhood to early twenties, and during this time I was either the witness to or the victim of the sexual assault of a young girl, the drowning death of a child.
Emotional and physical abuse, extreme poverty, mental illness, homelessness, horrifically abusive foster care, bulimia, drug and alcohol addiction, pedophilia death, suicide, and even incest. So. Yes, the book does get very dark at points, but ultimately it is a story of hope and resilience.
Kayla: Yes. And as Adrian shared, before we started, I got through most of the dark stuff that was very hard to read, and now I get to read about how it all turned around because you have taken.
I feel like any one or two of those things would've broken a lot of people. And you've been through all of them and you've still come out the other side and you've still written a book, and now you're helping inspire others who are in that dark place to know that there is still a way out. That is absolutely
Adriene: my goal, and my hope, I've received feedback that I describe myself in a way that. Makes me seem like I am not a stellar person. I've been very candid about the decisions that I made and the thought process behind it, and most people portray themselves as the protagonist of the story.
And I, the feedback I received was. You know, this, this makes you look bad. And I refused to take it out because my honesty, my story, I wasn't always the protagonist. I didn't always make good decisions and I. I want to be honest with my audience. I, I'm not gonna sugarcoat my story, the good, the bad, the ugly, even when it's about me.
So,
Kayla: I think that is a. Powerful virtue to have is realizing that every person has their view of reality. And we might be the villain in some people's stories, just like some people. Might have played a less than favorable role in our lives, but at the end of the day, I think we are all humans, and the more authentic we can be about our actual stories and our actual truth, even though it might open us up to that fear of judgment, that is very brave.
Adriene: Thank you very much. And it's terrifying. The book hasn't come out yet. Hopefully by the time this airs, it will be out. I have an agreement with my husband. He's going to read all the reviews and the social media, feedback, and he's going to discard the negative and, just share the positive.
I know. In my heart, in my body that there are going to be people trolls who are going to punish me. And with where you've gotten in the book, you're not quite there yet, but you'll see I make some very bad decisions. I am going to appear as a villain in my own story, but it's
Kayla: my truth,
Adriene: mm-hmm.
Kayla: It is really nice that you have a loved one who's able to share the good and let you just not deal with any of the other stuff, because those people do exist. And I've had a few conversations about. The ones leaving the negative reviews and the negative ratings on people's work, and they're often the most creatively repressed people, and it's more about them than it is about you.
Adriene: Thank you. I like that. I'm going to try to incorporate that. I appreciate it and I will have my husband summarize the negative but I already know what it is and, I've done some. Profoundly bad things in my life, bad decision making, but I have learned from it. I've grown, and I would not be who I am today had I not had those experiences.
Kayla: And I think there's also a recognition of, not getting shown, what stable, healthy love was as a child. It makes sense. Then we go into our young adulthood and make those bad decisions because I've had very similar decisions.
Maybe not the same as you, but I know there's stuff I did in my early twenties where I was like, why? But it does come down to if we don't have that stable place to come from. Then chances are we are going to make those errors in judgment, and then we do learn, and then we do take responsibility for whatever happens.
So I love that you're doing this so bravely in your book. Thank you. Thank you. I don't
Adriene: feel brave. I am terrified if I'm being honest. But like I said, it's my story. It's what happened. It's where I was. And you get the good, the bad, the ugly. And, you know, hopefully you take away my goal, the purpose of this book is to inspire those who are struggling or who have struggled to let them know that they don't have to stay in their position
I think of teenagers, how they are subjected to their authority, figures, their situation, and I just really want to impress upon them that time. It's a limited, finite situation. There will be an end and at that end they will have the chance to make decisions for themselves and their life can change, and I hope to direct them to make positive decisions as opposed to the self-medicating, the drugs, the drinking, the numbing, everything down.
So,
Kayla: absolutely. So what would you say some of your most profound lessons were from everything you've been through?
Adriene: It might take me a minute for that. Profound lessons. Well, I learned how to manipulate and work through bureaucracy. I became award at the state of Texas when I was 12 years old.
My mother relinquished parental rights and I, I don't have a father one time during my foreign exchange, I received a congressional scholarship to do a one year foreign exchange to Germany and my caseworker, children's Protective Services caseworker. She wasn't answering my questions and my letters to her.
Bear in mind, this is 1996 and 97. Pre-internet, we're talking handwritten or typed letters going and coming. And at 16 years old with no response from my caseworker, I wrote her supervisor. And, being able to work through, identify loopholes, work through the bureaucracy, work the system. It's a skill that has truly come in handy. I've used it, so, yeah, that,
Kayla: that's one thing. That is a very big lesson so that's a very powerful skill to have.
Adriene: I dealt with it today. My insurance, my health insurance, prescription coverage. They were requiring a prior authorization. Bear in mind, this is a medication I've been on for five years, so just getting the doctors to do their jobs and, the medical assistants to send anyway. I use it and I've tried to share that skill with my daughter, you are in a system you can rail against it, but that's ultimately futile. And to work within it and leverage it to your best benefit. Mm-hmm. So,
Kayla: absolutely. So I would love to know, just to circle back to one thing you mentioned about giving teens hope that their situation is temporary, adulthood is coming and you want them to turn to healthy outlets versus for drugs, the alcohol eating disorders is another big one, especially for girls, I believe.
So what are some of those healthy outlets or coping mechanisms you would encourage anyone towards instead of the numbing ways of being?
Adriene: It took me two decades to develop the coping mechanisms that I have now honestly, music is something that I use. And I'm very careful because I know that certain bands, certain songs, will put me back in a dark place.
Very similar to writing this book. I was an expert in repressing trauma and. Compartmentalizing it. You know, I, I say that I have the trauma and I put it in a metaphorical box and a metaphorical shelf behind the metaphorical door.
The coping mechanisms, it's taken me a long time, but I have learned a few lessons. Happiness is a choice. It's an active decision that you can make. And I'm not talking about depression, clinical depression, where the brain no longer provides the chemicals that your body needs for happiness.
I'm not talking about that. I'm referring more to your day-to-day view on where you're at in your situation. Hope. And being inspired, also knowing that, you are the architect of your life that you will be influenced and, coerced at times, but ultimately. Once you are an adult, you get to be in charge of the decisions that you make.
My daughter. As much as I've tried to influence her, she's very much her own person. I love and hate that about her. But she is who she is. She makes her own decisions and, yeah, it's been a ride.
Kayla: Can you share a bit about. Becoming a mother after the childhood you had and not having a positive example, what were some of the ways that you broke those cycles that created a healthy family life?
Adriene: So, you are correct. I did not have, my mother as a, a good role model. She suffered from schizophrenia. And she was physically abusive, which she herself was sexually abused and physically abused as well. Now, I did have an aunt who periodically in my life, served as. As my role model, I say that God didn't give me a mother and a father.
He gave me two mothers. So she has been amazing, married, to my uncle, my my mother's brother. So she is an even blood to me, but she demonstrated, her work ethic, her love. Not using corporal punishment. And let's see what else. My, I received a congressional scholarship to do a one year foreign exchange to Germany.
And when you read in the book, this experience, that one year changed my entire life, changed my trajectory, changed everything about who I was at that time. I feel like I blossomed. I bloomed. I was in a, picturesque environment. Not the weather or the food? No, no, no. It was cold. It was rainy and everything was seafood, but they.
Showed me what a positive, healthy family looks like, and I got to experience that when I was 16 years old. And I am in contact with my host mom to this day. I sent her flowers at Christmas. Having my daughter, I have an attachment disorder. My psychiatric evaluation, which I include at the end of the book, I had early onset reactive attachment disorder.
So when my daughter was born August 7th, I. Didn't bond with her immediately. And a second psychiatric evaluation actually, states that Adrian is terrified of having children. She's terrified that she will do to them what was done to her. So my daughter's born August 7th and I start drinking after her birth.
And just really. Was terrified outta my mind about being a parent and I was telling my husband, his parents had come over from England. They're British. I was telling him, just, just you and your parents. Take her, raise her. I can't do it. And on November 8th, I woke up on the rug in the bathroom floor.
I had passed out the night before and. That morning I made the decision that I was going to raise her, that I was going to give her the childhood that I did not have, and it was a very conscious, very definitive experience it changed everything. But it was a conscious choice because of the trauma I've endured.
I don't bond with people, the way that others do it takes me, I invest in very few people deeply, truly, emotionally invest. With very select individuals. So yeah, motherhood, having my daughter, it was. Probably the most challenging thing I've endured and I've gone through 11 traumas. I have run the gamut, if you will, when it comes to trauma
I remember being so scared when I had my daughter because I did not want to do to her what was done to me. So that's a very long answer to your question.
Kayla: But such a powerful one and two things I wanna touch on there. One is that I could absolutely understand why motherhood. Would be the most terrifying.
Even though all of those other things were so horrific as well. Because in all of those circumstances, or most of them, you were young, you were a legitimate victim of what was happening to you. Some people use that word. Too much, but this was legitimate victimization. And now with motherhood, there is a responsibility and also a knowing of how bad it could get.
So that's a lot of pressure on your shoulders to do things differently. And the other thing that I love that you mentioned was that it was a very definitive choice. You decided you were going to write a new story, create a plot twist. And then you chose to live out that story, and that is very powerful.
Adriene: Thank you very much. Yeah. It's been a ride. It's definitely been a ride, but even though I went through all of those things that I listed, I would not change a single thing because. It took all of that to make me into the person that I am today. And I say that I was not good for the first half of my life, and I've spent the second half trying to make up for it.
There are people that I used that I hurt that, in my book, I, I receive feedback that I portray myself in a negative light and that that should be changed and I refused to change it because I am, I am not always the positive protagonist. I've made some very bad decisions and I've. Hurt people deeply.
Now I have, to the best of my ability. In fact, around the same, no. A couple years before I started writing, I started making amends. I reaching out. Even in one instance, I wrote a letter to the woman whose family I broke. I broke her family and I didn't include a return address. I have no idea if she's forgiven me or not.
Probably not. I don't think I could, if I were in her position. But I needed to do that. I needed to let those people know and I did some horrible things and in the book, I explained them and not, I don't rationalize. I acknowledge that at times I'm the villain in my story, so,
Kayla: and it takes a lot of courage to be able to admit that as well.
So what are some of the ways that living this second part of your life, you are reconciling those earlier chapters? One of the things you're doing is getting this book out into the world and sharing your story to help others. What are some of the other ways you're doing this second half differently?
Adriene: Okay,
Kayla: so
Adriene: because of the childhood that I had, I had to learn to manipulate people.
I engaged in behavior that I, there's a word, I'm, I'm drawing a blank on the word. So the question is, what are the ways that I'm now trying to be good, essentially Correct.
Kayla: Good is such a bland word. What are ways that you're stepping into that protagonist Energy. One that moves from a place of like, like good intentions and just leaving the world better than you found it.
Adriene: So writing the book is definitely one of the ways. It was hell, it's taken me four years to write this book and it's been brutal. Just revisiting because to write it, you, you have to remember it. And my expert level compartmentalization, you can't have that one. You have to tell the story. So, honesty with myself as well as others, not manipulating situations and people.
That's it for me. I have to be very conscious about it. It goes back to communication, you know, saying out loud what I want, and being vulnerable to being rejected rather than orchestrating the situation to my desire. I also choose to be positive. And to take pleasure in the small things in life, I don't need or focus on the what's next?
What can I get, what can I have, what can I do? I try to be very present and to be grateful for where I am. I like to say that if. You talked to the 15-year-old me and told me that I would have the life that I do now. My 15-year-old self would call you a liar. I would not have believed that I would have the life that I do today, and that brings me to gratitude.
There have been people and experiences that have shaped me and. Completely altered my life trajectory. I. Attempted to kill myself more times than I remember. In fact, one time I woke up in the morning, I was in a hospital bed. I had no idea what was going on. My aunt, the one I mentioned previously as my second mother, she was standing in the doorway and I asked what happened, and she told me that I.
Had taken a bottle of pills that I had tried to kill myself. And bear in mind, I was in a drunken blackout. I didn't believe her. Even when they showed me the toxicology report, I didn't believe it. It wasn't until I was in my car and I saw, the body will act to save itself. Even if your conscious mind doesn't want to like the will to live exists and my body, I regurgitated some of the pills.
And it's, when I saw that, that it truly dawned on me, it became real that I had tried to kill myself even. And a drunken blackout. So not only was my conscious self so desperate to end the pain, it was even my subconscious self. So
Kayla: yeah, thank you for sharing that. And even the way your book begins, it's a miracle that you are still here.
If you're comfortable sharing that very beginning of your book, because. I think that's was such a powerful testament to that you are meant to be here, Phil, and that you do have some really powerful things to bring to the world.
Adriene: So the prologue of my book, I share my final suicide attempt, and I had, gone to my aunt's house and had my cousin give me his father's nine millimeter gun.
I drove around for a while, knocked back a six pack. A beer. I fired a test shot in an empty field to make sure that the gun worked and drove around some more. Ended up parking in the parking lot at my apartment complex, and I put the gun to my temple and I pulled the trigger and it went click, and I pulled the trigger again.
Click. I looked at it, and the safety on the gun had engaged by less than a millimeter. I'm like the, the width of a strand of hair. It was such a tiny movement. I didn't know that it was engaged, so I pulled the trigger to a gun that was against my head twice. And the epilogue. When you get to the epilogue, it's the second part of the story where I am in a psych hospital and it's evening, and I've had this failed suicide attempt where, you know, the gun, the pills, the razors.
I had tried so many times on so many different occasions to end the pain. My, I was in so much agony, just despair really, and I was in an empty room just laying on the floor. It was dark. There was a little windows. That fluorescent light was shining through, and I experienced something that I can't explain.
I felt. A Serenity, a peace came over me and it was in that moment that I realized that I would not be allowed to leave this Earth until I had accomplished my purpose in life. There was no memo telling me what my purpose was, but I knew that I was meant to be here and I would not be allowed to check out, if you will, until I had reached my ultimate purpose, so.
Mm-hmm.
Kayla: And from that place of that almost like a light bulb moment and being where you are now, what would you say that that purpose is? Ooh, the hardest question you can ask a person. You're welcome.
Adriene: It's, it's to be an example. It's to be an illustration that you can go through everything that I've gone through and you can come out the other side and be a good, loving, hopeful person that I wrote this book with.
The desire, with the hope of helping another person understand that it can be the darkest of nights, it can be pitch black, midnight, and with some time the darkness will end. There will be light, but you have to make choices that fulfill that. Self-medicating, drugs, alcohol, sex, what have you.
Those are choices that you're going to face, and if you try to numb yourself down, you won't become. The best version of yourself, you won't evolve into what you can be.
Kayla: Mm-hmm. Yes. And I love that you've taken this deep purpose of being an example and doing the very difficult work of putting it into book form, which is almost like having to relive everything you've been through.
So can you share a bit about what the writing process itself was like and how you took care of yourself while you were doing this writing journey?
Adriene: It was hell. The past four years have been absolute hell. Bringing back those memories, which I choose not to dwell on the past. As I mentioned, I take a very positive, optimistic, hopeful view of my present life and my future life, but writing,
as I mentioned, I was awarded the State of Texas at 12 years old. My mother relinquished her rights, so at 20 years old I wrote to Children's Protective Services and I asked for a copy of my case files. And so they sent me this giant box with these two huge stacks of paper and they were psychiatric evaluations, therapist reports, information that my mother had written as she was relinquishing her rights, reports from the evil.
Horrifically abusive foster mother, who I refer to as the bitch from hell, TBFH. I refuse to name her and, it took me, I, I tried on several occasions to look through these documents and it took me 20 years before I was able to open the box and to, and to read these documents. And I got very angry, with the foster mother and I wanted some sort of repercussion.
For what she had done to me. And I reached out to lawyers, I reached out to the state, to the county, and basically I just got the feedback that there's nothing to be done. And that's when I started writing periodically throughout my life. I would hear you should write a book and for me, I went to 13 schools by the time I graduated high school.
I am excellent at meeting new people and being social and. Engaging in conversation, but always having the light shine on the other person rather than sharing my story and the times where I did open up, that's when I would hear, you should write a book.
So reading my case, file my, the notes, I couldn't, I couldn't do that for 20 years. It took me 20 years before I was able to, and writing the book. I had to take breaks. My husband cannot wait for me to be done with the book because he wants the happy tearful. Yay, rah rah, rah, Adrian. Not the, I just relived the most horrifically abusive foster care years of my life.
Taking care of myself has been. Vital to this entire process. I've stopped when I needed a break and watched TV or, um, listened to happy upbeat music. The process has been horrific, but. Cathartic and that's what I didn't expect to get out of it. I feel like as much as I'm trying to do a service for other people, I've healed myself through this process as well, and that was completely unexpected.
I thought that I was as whole as I could be, and writing this book has made me more so.
Kayla: I think some of the most healing things, unfortunately, are the most painful. And when you take something like a writing journey, writing this book that you've written. Yes, you have to relive it. And that is gonna bring up so many old wounds and old emotions.
And at the same time, as you mentioned, it can be healing because you're taking back that narrative power that you didn't have when you were younger and didn't have that agency back then. So I have loved getting to connect with you, Adrian. Just two more questions.
The first is that I always love for my guests to leave the listeners with an embodied challenge of some kind. It can be a journal prompt, it can be a movement, a breath work, practice you like. Something that the listeners can take away and do after this episode.
Adriene: Hmm?
Kayla: Ask me question number two. I'm going to think about that.
Okay. And the next question is, if people want to learn more about you, get their copy of your book, where can they go to do so?
Adriene: Got it. So any major bookstore, it will be available December 1st, hopefully depends on publishing process, but unbroken caldwell.com is my website and I've actually made my. All of those documents that I mentioned, the psychiatric evaluation, which I include at the end of the book, everything is on my website.
So anyone who's interested in the clinical aspect of it, there are psychiatric evaluations. The reports, letters that I wrote to my best friend during my foreign exchange. The letters to my caseworker and to her supervisor. It's all available online. Unbroken caldwell.com. That's also my social handle, unbroken Caldwell.
So, I will respond if. If anyone wants to reach out, I've had some people share amazing stories and, and having the opportunity to connect has, has been incredible and unexpected. And what can somebody do? So this is gonna sound silly, but put on a happy, positive song. Just turn on some good music and for me at least, it almost always makes me feel better.
So that's a tangible something you can do.
Kayla: I love that one. And I'm gonna be honest on my solo episode, sometimes that will be what I give people, go dance to this song and I'll often give them a song that relates to the episode, which is kind of fun. So can you give us one of your favorite happy songs?
Ooh. Favorite happy song? Ooh.
Adriene: I love tool. And I love 50 cent. I have very eclectic music taste. There is one song that I want played after I pass. It's Hurt by Johnny Cash. It was originally done by Trent Resner, nine Inch Nails, and Johnny Cash covered it.
And that song takes me to the darkest place. It's the opposite of that. I love actually, not foster the people Macklemore, his albums, his songs really are uplifting. And, there's one in particular where he's a drug addict, and he has a relapse. And in the song he acknowledges the relapse and says, if I did it once, I can do it again.
And he's open about it and he goes back to being sober. And to me that is just so uplifting and so positive. So. Mm-hmm. And I can't, I can't think of
Kayla: the name of the song, but, i'll look it up because I can see that one resonating as well. 'cause it's another artist like yourself who's not afraid to show something other than the highlight reel, which I think is what a lot of people do.
So thank you for sharing that. And thank you for being here.
Adriene: It's been a privilege. It's been great to speak with your audience, to speak with you. Thank you very much for having me.
Kayla: Yes, you are welcome.
